The Alaska daily empire., 1918-04-12
SCOTCHING SPY AND SEDlTlON

(Boston News Bureau)
 Surely, if slowly, the net of both la" ana ana oploi i appears to be closing about the the sed1tous ant the disoyal. A long free fling is coming to an mex mex orabe end. Statute and sentiment in the mater nave been slow-acting, just temper and our move ment in going into the war were patient anu uelpcI ate But there appears to be in both now no more room for leniency or for compromise ~ o, n
 The meshes of the legal net are being woven in the Senate, which has been listening or late to great volume of evidence concerning pro-Herhah anu anti American acts and propaganda Now the pellod for conclusions and enacments is at hand. The julic ary committee Tuesday afternoon summed up the pln cinal line of action by reporting bill providing sum mary punishment of calculated to obstruct oar work and of utterances derogatory to the country and it's cause. ~
 The temper of members of the committee was evnced in amendments adopted which would 1nfllct 20 years Imprisonment of $10000 fine or both on any man empire it's allies" Other proposed amend ments would punish false and discouragng state those "derogatory to the United States ana provide for judicial definition of dsloyal statements Another resolution would expel from government ser any employee guilty of derogatory criticism or disloyal speech
 Columns of the Germananguage press have been suspected occasions of having sheltered the serpents of sedition. Senate amendment following the agitation revoke the character of the German American Alliance, would carry much further the ex' sting provisions for translation by completely barring from mail express any publication couched III dh enemy counrys language
 Popular sentiment has been expressed the past few days in scores of instances or picturesque qu. illegal but humanly natural outbursts or resentment against individuals and groups found guilty at the swift bar of community opinion of hostility or dis loyalty the country's cause. The gamut of sen has ranged variousy from forced public homage to the flag to and feathers with variations.
 These badges of dishonor. which sometimes have pictured mob feeling in terms of yellow paint and red ink, have been pinned on denizens of section of the country which earlier had been though apathe to the appeal of the It is in the Middle and the Far West that these outbreaks have occurred Whatever the politics the political mistakes of Wis consn, the rest of the West is evidently now quite awake.
 These of course insurpations of the powers of the law But in the aroused communities where they any reproach is apt to be mild. For they exem- pify an emotion-that of outraged patience; that reflex physical motion which ejects foreign body.
 For the spy and the disloya they constitute a warning No such vehemence of popular feeling, no such drastic sweep of statuatory penalty, would have occurred had the ofenses not been proracted and fragrant.
 The Teuton and his admirers have reaped in- tense unpopularty and suspicion. Quite sympomatc is the change of name of New York bank whereby It's drops "German-Amercan.
 Conversely, the war becomes righteously popular among united people.