The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-03-09
PROP PACAND|STS
 SPREAD ABUSE
 OF FREE SPEECH
Germans Suppress Freedom at Home and Encourage Unlicensed Liberty
 Abroad.
(By A. M. Simons.)

eI l1eS OI neF opponents. Sle Call bomb schools and hospitals, undefend- ed cities, and crowded tenements' and l sink passengerand hospital ships with | out warning in comparative security | that like barabities will not be prac- ticed against her.
 In the second, or economic, line of defense Germany also profits by her willingness, to use more primitive and barb9rous weapons. She cuts down French orchards loots Belgian coop eratives and factories, and levies trf- bute on cities, enslaves even women and young girls and introduces an- thrax germs into Roumanian herds, secure in the fact that she is nov ing in a neolithic strata of civilization into which the minds and morals of her opponents do not penetrate.
 As might be expected, this back ward character of Germany's methods of war making is most evident in what she has herself called the third line of offease," and which consists in propaganda to weaken the civilian morale of the enemy. Here Germany has committed some of her most flag rant atrocities won her greatest vic tories, and feels most sure of immun- ity. By this form of offensive she overcame Russia and Roumania and swept deep into Italy. By it she long
 held the United States at bay and still
 depends upon it's as fer main weapon
 against this country.
 GeGmany's success here depends
 re-eminently upon her ability to sup press free speech at home and encour- | ohr Cho
 has been perfectly successful in her | domestic measures. The very idea of
 freedom of speech and press, as un- derstood in democratic nations, has
 lot entered into the domesticated
 minds of Germany. An unsubsidized
 press, uncontrolled news services, un-
 regulated public meetings are all to-
 tally foreign to German thought and practice. Having alternately gagged bribed, intimidated and manipulated
 mutilated. and created public opinion
 at home, Germany sends her agents
 abroad 10 exploit the freedom of
 speech of other nations in the interest
 of the autocracy that stifled such free dom in Germany.
 The story of how every publicity
 niche iE this country was infested
 with these pests has been told until
 even those who secretly wish their
 success no longer deny their exist
 ence. It was these dispensers of men, ta1 poison gas that first asphyxiated free speech in America. Subsidy, equally with suppression, destroys free
 speech. The believing of a hired mob $ as effective as a gag in stopping public discussion.
 The agents of Germany were the
 first to suppress free speech in this , country. Nothing was ever so dead , ly to such liberty as the spreading of the $10,00O,0 ,000 corruption fund of Won Bernstorff. Freedom of speech was stifled much more when Won Rim telen financed the Madison Square , Garden meeting of Labors National
 Peace Council. How many of those who bewail the steps necessary to a } restoration of untrammeled express , sion of speech had hand in "influ- t encing Congress- on former occa- l sion," as described by Won Bernstorff? l There could be no freedom of speech in this country until the roar of Ger s.l man dollars was stopped. Unfortun- :, etely, so many American organizations : were making sounds impossible to be = distinguished from that roar that i : was inevitable, and perhaps not who'll l ly unjust, that some should be pun = ished because of their bad associa.
 tons and worse appearances.
 e It is hard to find a defender of free e speech and press so fanatical as tc = claim that the German government q should be permitted to keep it's Vor V Igels, Rinte1ens, and similar tools a q work during the war. But it will takt e fine discriminating craftsmanship tC e hit these agents of the Kaiser ant - miss the pacifists and socialists who |, insist upon saying the same thing n in the same manner at the same ap l. propriate time Yet these German e agents must be muzzled if we are tt y have any freedom of discussion what d ever. It would not be free speecl
 if the German government was per n mitted to use S10,0O0,O00 megaphone n at all of our public meetings.
 # We limit speech today that it ma! h live free forever. This is no tricket q paradox. Whenever a free and self ). governing people fights for more free = dom, it must momentarily restrict it .- own liberties But liberties so self
 
 l. only laid aside where they can easil, Ii be reached.
 l. This necessity of self-control ant e self-limitation is one of the penaltie
 of being in advance of the race. It i e also one nf the conditions of sucl l. progress. A nation that lacks the abil d ity to do these things will not gail
 and hold liberty. So long as we hav h liberties that do not exist elsewher IS we must constantly turn and fight tn 1T civilization that would have blocket Is cur liberty and in so turning bacl 1T we can not avoid using the weapon r. of tn age aga inst which we are fight E. ing. However repulsive these weap p l. ons may be to refuse to use then l. would be to insure our own defeat an, of the triumph of reaction.
 in We fight to end fighting. We wag e war to make an end to war. In tn 10 same way We submit for the momen l. to a self-created autocracy that W
 may remove forever the threat of a IS imposed autocracy. We take upo, Tt ourselves the burden of milftarisn to that we may forever and finally crus g. mil1tar1snl
 Only those who secretly distrus
 democracy and freedom find inconsis S. tency in such action. These friend
 of autocracy would have tyranny re
 tain all the weapons and leave demo
 cracy deferseless against assault s y 1t is that those who are directly o m Indirectly defending governments f m i1hich there is no free speech are nov 3. ItNe most enthusiastic apostles of ire t. sneech ir this country.