The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1919-01-17
THE CONVICTION OF BERGER

On January s, Victor Berger, Con-
gresham elect from Wisconsin, and
three other Germans and an English
man were convicted in the federal
court at Chicago for violation of the
espionage law. Four Germans and
an Englismman came to this country
years ago-came here because this is
a free country. Until the United
States got into the European war it
was so free that German socialists,
anarchists and Bolsheviks could come
here and harange our workingmen and
make an easy living by telling the
working people what a poor, down
trodden, underpaid and underfed lot of
ignorant dupes they were. Telling
them if they would just follow them
they would show them how to live on
the fat of the lamb, without work, or
at most not over six or eight hours
work in day Some of the Wild
eyed Bolsheviks and |. w. WIS even
went so far as to assert that if they
would follow them that they might sit
in the swivel chairs of such men as
Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan and
other like hogs who are responsible
for the unequal division of wealth.
Did the American workingmen
really need these Germans to tell them
how to get their rights Was not the
American workingman better paid and
better fed and better clothed than
Victor Berger and his three other Ger
man brothers were clothed and fed in
the Germany which they left? Had
not our workingmen by their own eff
forts, under our system of government
made some progress toward better
conditions, and have they not since
made some progress, and is there not
good reason to believe that they may
make still further progress in an or
derby and lawful way to better their
condition? Allowing for the imper-
fections of man and his devilish sell
fishness, under our system of govern
ment, can not any law demanded by
the majority be placed on our statute
books?
Something over a hundred years ago
the national prohibition movement was
started in this country by about doz
en- people getting together and start
ing an organization to prohibit the
manufacture and sale of all kinds of
intoXicants. For almost hundred
years the prohibition party was joke,
and only in the past ten years has it
made any Roadway with the voters.
In this year of 1919 it is destined TO
become the law of the nation Was
this change of sentiment among the
voters brought about by foreign agita-
agitators who come to our shores are
opposed to prohibition. They thrive
most by opposing prohibition and urg-
ing that prohibition is a restriction of
personal liberty. Victor Berger and
his four fellow Germans are opposed
to prohibition, as almost all Germans
are.
If the workingmen of these United
States want to make any Roadway in
getting laws passed in their own in
terest they should refuse longer to be
led by Germans. 1t discredits their
cause. More than ever is this true
now. There will always be some
thing sinister, suspicious about what
a German labor propaganda advo-
Gates. Indeed this is true of every
and all professional foreign agitators.
II the American laboring men want
a law passed we want them to advo-
cate it themselves. We do not want
to look upon them as simple tools in
the hands of designing foreigners who
know nothing of our laws and institu