The Washington times., 1923-06-28
WAR PRISONERS
PROBLEM FOR
PRESIDENT
Harding Is Confronted With
Persistent Demands He Par--
don Sacramento Group.
BY WILLIAM HARD.

At Pocatello in Idaho today &C.
Ecording to ativices here received and
credited, the President will again
be intercepted by the political
prisoner" question which now has
reached a high stage of embarrass.
. ing righteousness.
Wherever the President goes.
there seem to be local personages
and organizations that rise up, out
of the ground from under his feet
to ask him what possible reason
there can be for keeping twenty
three wartime offenders in Jail
when several hundred equally anti
war culprits have been released. i
The implication behind these ques-
tions thus put to the President is
that twenty Of these twenty-three
remaining political prisoners are
not really prisoners of the war at
all but prisoners simply of an in
dustrial fight between employers
and employees in California.
Senator Asks Release.
Senator Pepper, of Pennsylvania,
who is Philadelphia lawyer of the
most perfected experience and who
bears the reputation in fact of be-
ing able to distinguish between the
northeast and the northwest side of
legal hair as rapidly and as ac-
curately as anybody in the whole
American Bar Association, has done
his best tomfind the legal amnesty
difference in the /. w. VS. who
were convicted at Chicago and who
are pardoned and the l. w. VS.
who were convicted at Sacramento
and who are still in cells at Fort
Leavenworth. He apparently has
miserably failed.
As a lawyer, and from the stand.
point of the legal propriety and de-
STABILITY of q pardon, he seemingly
can find no difference at all. He
has studied all these cases through
and through, case by case, and he
has informed the Department of
Justice that in his opinion the ex-
ercise of clemency is just as much
demanded by the facts from Sacra-
mento as by the facts from Chicago.
1t is noted here that several of
the Chicago /. w. WIS were so
wicked that they were sentenced to
twenty years of imprisonment. The
punishment considered adequate for
the Sacramento prisoners was ten
years. Now the twenty-year Grim
inals are out and the ten-year
criminals are in. tT
Is Industrial Fight. ;.
1t is also noted here, however,
that in California there is special
and peculiar fear and hatred OF
/. w. VS. is even now going for
cH.H
Is the wartime legislation Of the
United States being kept full of
teeth in California for a local in
dustrial reason while it Is allowed
/ to become toothless > elsewhere in
consequence of the general disap-
pearance of wartime conditions?
| That is the embarrassing insinua-
ton which is getting delivered to
| the President as he proceeds toward
! the Pacific. Trade unions in Poca-
! tello are reported to be ready to fling
i it at him today. Other groups OF
! citizens are ready to slip 1t into his
! pocket as he sets sail for Alaska.
| Still others are prepared to welcome
! him with it as he returns to our
! Western coast after having inspected
Alaska's wonders. The sheer fact is
that he is in a sort of legal trap and
/ that certain radical elements are de-
/ lighted to make the trap close in on
him as often and as uncomfortably
| as possible.
The build Of the trap is as follows:
The Department of Justice per-
| mitted the release Of Eugene "
Debs, for instance, whose words
against the war were the most influ-
entail anti-war words in America, but
l kNn vNA
not now engaged in conducting any
strikes against employers.
Destroyed Property.
The Department of Justice now
Econtends that the Sacramento
1. w. WIS are unforgivahly wicked
and vicious not because they were
any more dlsloyal than Debs, but
because they were guilty $50 It Is
alleged) OF distinctions OF prop
erty."
These distinctions" however
which were principally OF hay
stacks. took place in many In
stances long before the war began
and were undeniably a part of q
purely private fight between the
/. w. WIS and their employers
That fight existed before the war
and exists now; and any lawlesf
acts committed in the course OF II
are fully punishable by the laws OF
California.
i The Department of Justice, there
fore. has put the President In the
position of having pardoned all oul
disloyalists except those who have
committed private acts of private
violence against private landowners
in California.
California, however, js a State
which the President will presently
visit, and which contains more land
owners who want /. w. WIS ir
jail than radicals who want them
out,
1t Is calculated here accordingly
that the Sacramento 1. w: W.
will probably stay in Jail till the
President gets safely back to wash
ington from California.
Prospect of Release.
It is then calculated that the
legal findings Of mon like Senator
Pepper will prevail, and that the
Sacramento l. w. WIS will follow
Mr.. Debs into the open air. \
i Comment here is to the effect that
the sooner this pardoning perform
ance is now finished the better. Oul
first pardons were given to our
worst wartime offenders. the "con
scientious DIRECTORS" who were OF
draft age and who fatty refused +
fight. Our last pardons are now
reserved for men whose peculiar of
fence was their behavior in private