The Sisseton weekly standard. (Sisseton, Roberts County, S.D.) 1892-1929, 1920-01-16
WORLDS OPINION

most prominent organ of the Demo
cratic party in the country. If an IT.
tempt of boycott is going to be made
on the Standard, it seems that we
should put the Legionaires of New
York wise to the fact that there is
also an enemy in their camp.
The Grave Danger of 1t All
New York World)
According to dispatches from Seat
tie, nearly 200 men suspected Of be-
ing members of the Industrial Work
ers of the World" have been arrested
in raids following the armistice day
shooting at Centralia and have been
held in jails in various cities and
towns in the Northwest.
AT Spokane, fifty-two persons have
been convicted in police court on
charges of criminal syndicalism !,
| statement issued by the Cove
nor of Washington may fairly be ac-
cepted as barometer of the hysteria
and the official Incompetence that
have revealed themselves since the
Ceneralia affair. The Govern or says:
That the fair nameeof Washing
ton may not be further smirched;
that this State may be safe place
for all law-abiding people; that our
government may not be weakened by
cankerous growth, fostered and
nourished or even permitted here, I
admonish and request all to whom
this is addressed to stamp out Boil
shevism, / W.. Wism and all other
seditious doctrines.
This may serve very we'll as a
sample of Northwestern rhetoric, but
what the State of Washington plainly
needs is an administration of gov
eminent that has brains enough to
deal with murder case according to
due process of law.
1t is not a crime to be member of
the l. w. W., which is aradical labor
organization that has been in exis-
tence for great many years and that
is seeking to overthrow the present
wage system, Nor is it crime in it,
self to be Bolshevik. When a Gov
eminent begins to arrest Everybody
suspected of being member of the
Industrial Workers of the World"
and Governor can think of no better
way of running down murderer
than to beseech his State to ssstamp
GU Bolshevism, l. W. Wism and all
seditious doctrines - the adniinistra-
tion of the law is in bad way in
that particular section of the coun-
try.
Shocking as they were, the armis-
tice day murders at Centralia were
not rebellion or revolution or sedi-
ton, or anything but plain murders.
There is testimony now which goes TO
show that they were not even pre-
meditated, but resulted from a con-
fiict between members of the /. w. w.
and some of the marchers who fell
out of Line and attacked the l. w. w.
In either event the authorities of
the State of Washington are not con-
fronted with conspiracy to over
throw government but with viola
ton of the penal code, and Official
lawlessness is a sorry antidote to in
dividual lawlessness. Murders are
committed by individuals, not by or
and guilt is very per-
sonal matter.
In spite of the poses of professional
politicians and platform orators,
there is no Bolshevik agitation, which
is mainly rhetorical, and the l. w. w.
leaders are trying to CAPT alize in
dustrial discomfort for the benefit of |
their peculiar economic theories. But
the American people are not fools
and they have not gone crazy. They
do not need a nurse to take I'll EN- to
work in the morning and bring them
home at night lest they be corrupted
by the seditious doctrines of soap box
orators. They have great deal more
sense than the pliticians who are
about the quality of their
American.sm. and whenever they are
put to test they prove 1t.
The folly and incapacity of bung-
ling politicians intrusted with the req
possibilities of government present a
much graver danger to the country to-
day than all the wild words all the
Wild agitators. It is only when gov-|
eminent beelns to break dowa under
the weight Of its own stupidity that
The peoplet tsith Is shaken in their
'nstttntI ions |