Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-03-28
A PARADISE FOR TRAITORS

THE Department of Justice is one Of the
which appears not to have benefited in
the least by any systematic effort at
special war efficiency. 1t is hampered
in all parts of the country, of course,
by grievous inheritarces from the slack
days of peace and patronage.
Recurrent bleak travesties of Federal
procedure against traitors, seditionsts
and spies might be explainable in part
at least upon this ground. Yet the fu-
tility of the Department of Justice in
many recent instances is made more dead
ly by an odious perversion of sentiment
which, perssting in the Swivel Chair Di-
vision of the War Department or in some
other equally potent sanctuary at WASH
ington, still insists upon being gentle
rather than brave in dealing with the
most dangerous enemies of the country.
Abominable outrages against Amer
lea and American sentiment grow more
frequent even in these hours of tragedy
and sacrifice. Traitors and seditionists
are permitted to fling insult and derision
in the very face of all the nation. And
somewhere in Washington the rule is
being preserved that you must depend
chiefly upon sweetness and light in deal
ing with paranoacs and perverts, whose
malignant idiocy would compel them to
lay bomb plots in heaven.
In the Public Ledger yesterday former
Ambassador Gerard put the situation in
vivid sentence when he said we in this
country are in a state of siege. We are
in state of siege. Yet in Chicago there
was street parade to celebrate the
German drive. A good-szed crowd sang
the national hymn of -iaiserdom. Also in
Chicago a soldier in the uniform Of the
American service was Kissed at a public
meeting. Millions of bushels of wheat
have been destroyed by incendiary fires.
A few months ago German agent,
known to be one of the most dangerous
in the service of his country, was caught
in the act of transmitting information
to the German War Office. He was
arrested, treated with the utmost
courtesy and sent to the Atlanta Peni-
tentiary to be the comfortable guest
of the country for two years. A little
while later one of the captains of the
five years in military prison after
he had expressed what were at least
frank and honest objections to shooting
at his own relatives on the other side.
In this latter instance the sentimentality
that replaces good judgment in some os
the obscure branches of the Government
wreaked itself fully.
The slackness and the scandalous in
efficiency of the Federal authority in deal
ing with dangerous enemies have had def
mite results. Demonstrations of enmity
and disloyalty multiplied in many parts
Of the country at the moment when the
German drive seemed most perilous to
the Allied lines.
1t is the habit of some Administration
officials occasionally to lament the indis-
position of a considerable part of the
country to realize that we are at war.
Does all of Washington officialdom real
ize FULLY that we are at war, or do those
who direct the Department of Justice
and some of the War Department bureaus
still suppose that pussy-footing and par
lor manners belong to the school of ad-
vanced militarism? In every other bel
Egerent country traitors and spies are
shot or hanged. In America we still
coddle them.
Senator James, of Kentucky, and Con-
6-essman Kahn, of California, have re-
Gently demanded that the rope be used
upon the more dangerous enemy aliens.
Spies, traitors and seditionists should be
executed and no secret made of the fate
allotted them. Until this shall be done. a
good part of the country must continue
to believe that from the viewpoint of off,
cials who have full power to suppress
treason the lives of pro- German para
noiacs are more precious than the lives of
the American soldiers at the front or on
their way there.