The Elk Mountain pilot., 1922-01-12
FARMERS UNION
COMBATS MILITARISM


at Oklahoma City, Nov. 13, told sew
eral thousand assembled farmers some
startling truths about the attempt to
fasten Prussian militarism upon the
United States. A subscriber to the
Empire sends US the following extract
from the speech published in the
Oklahoma Daily Leader:
ITO say that war will never end and
that armaments must go on forever is
to admit that the world is hopelessly
and incurably insane. 1t is to admit
that there is no civilization, no
Christianity. 1t is to admit that the
nations of the world are all outlaws.
"We were plunged into the World
war after two and half years propa-
ganda in which our big business
brothers spent millions to manufac-
ture enough public sentiment to lead
Congress to believe the people wanted
war That is what the public senti-
ment factories of our big business
brothers turned out. They will turn
out another one in due time unless we
poor pawns get busy and do a little
moulding of public opinion ourselves.
"In July, 1919 the Kahn military
bill was introduced in the house and
the Wadsworth bill in the senate.
These bills provided for four things:
A standing army of $4,000, more
than five times as great as we ever
had in times of peace; it gave the
president power, any time he deemed
there was an emergency, to call out
every able-bodied man in the United
States between the ages of 10 and 45
inclusive; it made permanent all war
legislation, such as selective draft,
war boards, espionage act, etc. 1t
provided for compulsory military
training. If this bill had become a
law it would have meant that the
president of the United States, one
man, any time that he deemed there
was an emergency, could start the
biggest war the world had ever seen
without even asking congress.
"At the same time companion
measure was introduced in both house
and senate known as the sedition bill,
which, if it were to become. law,
would make it a penitentiary offense
to advocate an amendment to the
Constitution of the United States and
would give to the postmaster general
absolute power to say what publica-
tions could have access to the mails
and from his decision there could be
no appeal. These bills were the pro-
duct of the fertile brains of our big
business brothers.
II shall describe in brief way the
operation of the Universal Military
Training League in this state and in
other states of the union. One day in
November 1919 the Enid News CARED
a little item away down in the corner
of an unimportant page which read:
The Rotary Club met last night and
unanimously endorsed the Kahn billy
A few days later the Tulsa papers
carried an item saying: The Cham
bCl VI AuGt iuot hiBhe nhN
unanimously endorsed the Kahn bill.'
About this time an editorial appeared
in the Daily Oklahoman entitled AN
Ideal Plan,' which went on to tell how
Secretary of War Baker had formu-
lated plan for compulsory universal
military training and described what
a fine thing it would be for the young
men of the country, how it would
build them up mentally, morally and
physically.
These were a few of the thousands
of items appearing in the news col
umns and editorial pages of the news
papers of the state They did not
mean anything to the average citizen
because the average citizen did not
know what the Kahn bill provided,
But the professional military propa-
gandist marked these items, sent them
to our congressman and senators and
kept this up until our delegation in
congress was led to believe that every
body in Oklahoma knew all about the
Kahn bill and that everybody was in
favor of it,
"At this point the Farmers Union
of this state did little propaganda
work of its own and in less than thir-
ty days more than 5000 letters poured
in to our congressman and senators
from members of the Farmers Union
PROTESTING against compulsory
military training We got results
Immediately, the whole delegation
from this state at once taking stand
against the Kahn bill.
''In the midst of this fight stopped
in Chicago on my way to Washington,
D. c., and visited Mr.. III. IT. Gross, |