Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-03-19
LOST: ONE "RED MENACE;
PROPERTY OF Mr.. PALMER
Even the New York lusk Commit
tee Finds Old Laws Adequate
to Suppress Anarchy
IL Enforced

II Enforced
CPECIAL copies of the report just
~ made to the Legislature Of New York
by the Lusk investigating committee
should be hastily presented-with an
oration or twO--to every executive in
public office who thinks in the manner
of Attorney General Palmer Mr.. Bur-
lcsou. Governor Sproul aud Attorney
General SchafTcr.
Mr.. Schaffer and Mr. Sproul each
ought to receive two copies, grandly
bound one for the Office and ono for the
center table at home.
For the Lusk committee was estab.
lished to investigate "radicalism" when
''radicalism" was, for a brief hour, the
fashionable menace In this country. It
was an ever so conservative group which
might have been depended upon to make
the dreariest Interpretation of the evi-
dencc presented to it.
The committee settled down to work
with the conviction that bolshcvism was
reality in the United States. that
borcrs from within were actually trying
to undermine the state and that the
time had arrived for the revival of the
inquiSition and inquisitorial laws in the
name of free government. The members
found that the country had been de
ludCd.
The laws already on our statute
, books says the Lusk report. "arc
adequate to protect the institutions of
this state if they arc properly enforced
and to preserve the constitutional rights
of its citizens.
The reference is to laws that were in
existence before bolshevism was heard
Of. You hear little of Reds now. Mr..
Palmer combed the country vigorously.
He put few thousand people in Jail
without the fornality of trial and he
found a handful OF dangerous anarch
! lists. but no more than had existed be-
fore as negligible symptoms of political
ncr-o,is in every thickly populated com
munity. Ss.A
! The gag laws Tailroaded through in
| Washington and at, Harrisburg when the
attorneys general were arguing that you
/ could preserve free government by tear.
ing out its foundations still remain on
the statute books--likc monuments to
I
the most damage.
The Lusk committee found that the
laws of New York were seriously dis .
regarded, not by the radically minded.
| but by agents of government too lazy
! or inexpert to enforce them. Thus il
is suggested in the current report that
the old laws against criminal anarchy
are all that is needed TO deal effectively
with any dangerous agitator. Similar
laws existed in the state of PCnuSyl
vania.
The Investigators for the New Yorl
legislature are not the only ones who
in a calmer interval. are able to explain
and understand the sounds that in Mr.
Palmer affrighted cars seemed like thu
first rumblings of doom. There have
been labor Investigations. Senate in
quirics and economic conferences with
out number. and nowhere has any Que
found the slightest evidence to indicate
that any considerable element among
the poor or among striking workers bac
even the shadow of an intention to an
tagonize the government or question its
principles or its authority.
The propaganda that swept Mr
Palmer off his feet and frightened Gov
ernor Sproul and Mr.. Schaffer was, IN
fact, an elaborate and cruel libel of tn,
great mass of working people+jn tn,
United States. That libel is writer
into state and national laws in the form
Of espionage laws and gag laws.
No political party had monopoly o
delusion. Postmaster General Burlesor
was a proud and stubborn leader in th,
destruction of common rights
A flicker of fundamental truth lit tn
collective mind of the Lusk COMMITTEE
when it decided that such friction as ha
been recently apparent in the social ant
economic system Of tho country is du
primarily to deficient education in tn
large communities of foreigners. VIII
are left as n rule to gropc alone agains
the influence Of malicious leaders and
foreign language press that is ofte,
wrong minded and I'm American.
II ought to be remembered now tina
foreigners in this country are educate
not in the schools, but in their contact
: with the life about them. The mill boss
) the corner policeman, the petty politica
! worker and the factory foreman wit
his prejudice and his lust for productio
! at all costs are about all that counties
workers of foreign birth see or know Q
. America.
, The majority of workers who engage
!. in recent demonstrations were bewil
dered by the suggestion that they wer
, intent on opposing governmental an
thority. And surely any one who know
how helpless and dcfenscleSs many q
them were must be bewidered, too, b
that fantastic charge. Radical an
o wrong headed leadership they had-bu
n It was the only leadership they knew
I No one VINO was not in some way radici
e had ever interested himself in their al
% fairs or exhibited any concern for thci
c welfare.
< What these people had to say wa
o drowned out in shouts Of "bolsheyism
There were schemes OF suppression in
$ stead OF any rational effort to find OF
d what was wrong Other men. ADLER an
}, fairer than Mr. Palmer, are now sittin
a down to give reasonable consideration
. problems that all the advocates of "a
5 laws could only misrepresent and post
8 pone.
Z II there was one thing worse tina
e another about the BolsheVist soai
wboopcd up By the attorney general an
! like minded representatives OF govern
IL, - ~ te