The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1918-02-09
TALKATIVE CONGRESS

Ae1r greatest calamity of the war, the
&hg of the troopship Tuscania, and the
IF hundred men, has cast its gloom
the American people, and has brought
with terrible force the implacable
y of war, on sea and land.
fact that young army officer had
arrested for confding to a relative the
e of a ship on which he was going over
and the date of sailing, is given an
He'd significance in the light of the dis
ter to the Tuscania.
That more secrecy should be maintained
I'M regard to the movement of men and
~ trd6ps is daily becoming more and more
y apparent, but with Congress SO blatantly
giving out with free and impartial hand
state secrets that the enemy would hold in
violate, makes the investigation SAVIOR
somewhat of the farcical.
While General Pershing, his staff and
eliis men are consecratlng themselves and
all they have to the service of their coun-
try; while the finest manhood that the
United States have ever known going
forth with high courage and valiant hearts
as the defenders of liberty, while the great
mass of people are standing back of the
government, ready to give their lives and
all that they have in defense of their coun-
try it is pitiable spectacle to see the men
tives, consuming precious time in futile
pickering, and disgracing themselves and
their country, in malignant attack and I'M
justihable censure of the administration
Early in the war, when paci6sts and pro-
Germans got up on street corners and gave
vent to their venom in ill-considered speech
making and mischievous exploitation of
themselves and their theories, they were
promptly arrested and notified to quit or
go to Jail. These soap-box orators had but
a circumscribed area of mischief, their mes
sage could scarcely get past the small
audience that they drew about Them in
their grandiloquent pandering to the appe-
tite for novelty.
But Congress- unfortunately, has an
audience which is not confined to those
who find seats in the House. AS a usual
thing, this audience is small and for the
most part, unintereSted. But the message
goes forth to the uttermost parts of the
earth 1t is read and discussed in every
home, in every office, in every public place
in the United States,-it is read and dis
cussed in Great Britain, in Ireland in
France, in Italy, in Greece, in Russia, and
in Berlin. And in Berlin the words of Con-
gress are filed away for future reference,
are given out, in distorted form, to the
press for further twisting to the uses of
the Empire.
The gossip of Congress may or may not
have had any connection with the sinking
of the Tuscania. But any sane American
not infamed with the hate and anius of
partisan policy, can the danger that
turks in the House and Senate of the United
States today-a danger far in excess of
that of soap-box oratory of the earlier DAYS
of the war, and danger that should be
suppressed, and, If necessary, in the same
manner and with the same force with
which the street oratory was put at an end.
That Congress is within its rights in in
vestigating conditions pertaining to the
conduct of the war is admitted, but such in
vestigations should be conducted behind
closed doors. If faults of serious nature
are discovered they should be made public,
hit only after they have been proven abso-