Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-03-16

that it was required by any law or would interest the, nations busy lawmakers. They have it now, and it has not pleased them from the day it was submitted. In fact, the man ner of it's reception was almost one of pique. Immediately the commit tee instituted a series of insnua tions, which persisted to the close of the hearing, to the effect that the leagues so-called political activities were financed ythe Carnegie cor poration and John D. Rockefeller. The league is proud of the fact that the Carnegie corporation-whfch the members of the committee we're pleased to refer to repeatedly as the Carnegie Steel corporation, but is, in reality, the holding company for the financing of all of Mr. Carnegie's philanthropies Rockefeller, and many other men of large means the same men who have bought heaviest of Liberty bonds and en- dowed the Red Cross, the Y. M. c. A. and other patriotic war endeavors- so valued the great educational work of the National Security League tMt they gave literally in it's support. But not one penny of this money was spent by the leagues committee on congress- It's work was financed entirely by contributions for that specific purpose, mostly in small sums.
 No Munitions Money.
 "The committee also eXerted itself to the utmost to prove that the lea que was organized and developed in the interest of munitions manufac- turers. The founders of the league foresaw this cry the day the league was formed, and, believing in pre- paredness, established positive rule against the acceptance of contrlbu- tiOns from such sources, and has all ways adhered to it.
 "As final exposition of the pecu- liar idea of fairness held by these pleasant investigators testimony was taken of hostile witnesses with out official notice to the officers of the league so that it had no represen- tative present to hear what new out rage was claimed to have been per petrated. We were not given the courtesy of permission to cross-ex- anime the witnesses called by the committee from outside the league until we had made public protest against the procedure and it was graciously given at the end of the hearing.
 ''Attack FerOciOus."
 '"The result, whatever it is, will be no surprise, to the officers Fof the league who were compelled to under go the operation of the cmmittee's s wierd notion of an inquiry into facts One thing we can say with all posi- tiyeness, which is, that the National Security League expects to continue doing business, confident of the con tinued support of the intelligent ana loyal press and of all honest citizens. The leagues record, the exactness of it's accounts, and the honorable pur- nose of it's officers and members, are established factse Not a sclntllla ol evidence was adduced to ]ustlfy the ferocity of the attack.
 .The attempt to fasten sugges- tion of self-interest on the leagues supporters, cannot be too strongly condemned These assaults Dy the examiners were upon the dead and the absent who were denied through ont the privilege of defense The sober thought of the people and oi the members of congress will con vince them of the un-American and frivolous procedure of the majority of the committee. The entire pro caedinp was an attempt to pillory cit izens, who have been proved wise in their efforts to arouse America tf the perils of unpreparedness. Th' power of congress cannot De ms nsed to intimidate citizens to foregt constitutional rights. President VII son said:
 .i cannot conceive of anything
 more prejudicial than the appli-
 cation of system of censorship that would deprive the people of a free republic such as ours or 1 the indisputable right to criticize