The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1927-06-30

is headed by Roger Baldwin, an
avowed anarchist, whose wife is
Madalein Doty, former official bolshe-
visit courier.
1t occupies itself with defending
revolutionary radicals who run afoul
of the law. Representatives of the
organization declared, before a con-
gressional committee last year, that
the organization stood for the fright
of alien or domestic revolutionaries
to publicly advocate the use of vio-
lence to overthrow the government of
the United States.
In a document issued last year
under the title Gree Speech, 1926
49," the American Civil Liberties
Union boosted of having given finan-
cial aid to Richard Ford, l. W. w.,
California; Roe Neil, l. w. W., Kan
sas; William Burns, 1. w. W., Cali
fornia; Anthony Bimba, communist,
Massachusetts,; Carlos Tresca, Italian
communist, New York; Ben Gitlow,
communist, pardoned by Governor AL
Smith to plunge Immediately into new
revolutionary activities; Crouch and
Trumbull, convicted of revolutionary
communist activities in the United
States army in Hawaii while in cor
respondence with the Moscow inter-
national; Charlotte Anita Whitney,
whose conviction for violation of the
criminal syndicalism law of California
has just been affirmen by the United
States Supreme Court, and others of
Similar purposes.
The American Civil Liberties
Union is not so much in the dark as
to what constitutes free speech and
what constitutes a definite attempt
to destroy the American government
as it pretends to be. Communism and
anarchy have been advocated as abb
stract theories in this country for a
century without interference; indeed
we have had many communistic colo
MES in the United States. Advocating,
in the name of communism or an
archy, the violent overthrow of the
government of the United States is
quite another matter. Abstract de-
Tense of the Fright" by lynching, and
haranguing mob to lynch a given
individual are two distinct and very
different processes. Abstract advo-
cacy of communist and anarchist doc
trines, and advocacy of definite vio-
lence is clearly under the inspiration
of foreign revolutionary movement
publicly committed to the overthrow
of the government of the United
States, are similarly different matters.
The government and people lacking in
the disposition to resent and repress
such conspiracies would not deserve
to live and would not long endure.
When the American Civil Liberties
Union ranges itself against the Jail
ing or deportation of those who adj
mlttedly are seeking to destroy the
American government, and along with
1t genuine free speech as these same
forces have destroyed it in Russia, it
definitely places upon itself an adver-
tlsement of its own true inwardness.
Naturally the American Legion is
attacked by such an organization.
Naturally, with all its professed de-
votion to free speech, the American
Civil Liberties Union seeks to sup
press the America Legion's right to
express its patriotism. For the two
organizations are as far apart as the
poles. The American Legion is COM
posed of men who, having made some
sacrifices for their country in a great
crisis, are disposed to defend the re-
public. Naturally an organization
which devoted itself during the World
War to defending slackers and sedi-
tlonlsts, and has since kept busy de-
Tending revolutionaries who seek to
destroy the American government,
would hate an organization of Ameri-
can veterans who love their country
and stand ready to defend it against
these revolutionaries. The censure
of the American Civil Liberties
Union may therefore be worn by the
American Legion as a badge of honor.