The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-04-27
Military intelligence!

The department has prepared manual on
training for citizenship 1t is used in government
military schools and in citizenship courses in r. O.
T. c. work 1t is not unfair to regard it as mirror
ing the conceptions of civcs entertained by the war
department few excerpts will prove highly H.
Eliminating
Many American citizens have imagined that we
are trying to operate democratic form Of govern
ment in the United States They have believed that
anybody who attacks democracy is assaling form
of government Such conceptions appear to be a
dangerous illusion. On Page 81 the manual says
Of democracy:
DEMOCRACY
"a government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any
other form of direct expression.
Results in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is ccnlmunistic-negat-
ing property rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the ma
jority shall regulate, whether it be based upon
liberation or governed by occasion, prejudice and i'm
pulse without restraint regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism, license, agitation, dis
content, anarchy"
Suppose such comments on our system of govern
ment had been found in a red publication by the
Better American Federation of Los Angeles or by
Harry Jung and his American Military Intelligence
Society," Can it be that our department already
is getting us ready for Fascism?
The manual has this to say of political principles
such as Theodore Roosevelt expressed in his plat
form and speeches of 1912:
Several dangerous experiments have been pro-
posed such as the initiative, referendum recall and
the election of judges. Departures from constitu-
tional principles threaten to impair the efficiency
of our representative form Of government and if
continued, ultimately will destroy it,"
Those on the hreadline or in Jail for criminal
syndicalism will gain keen satisfaction from the
following:
"Our government is the most nearly perfect of
all in securing individual rights and insuring the
blessings of liberty In other nation is equal OPP
portunity and equal protection assured, with such
equal division of reward for labor and services
rendered"
The many workers who, under compulsion bought
Liberty bonds at par during the World war and later
were compelled to sell them in hard times far below
the original price will derive grim hunor from this
paragraph:
During the World war, the wage Garner learned
to put his excess money into Liberty bonds He
caught the idea of investment acquired the habit
of systematic saving, discovered the strength that
lies in consolidating the small savings of the many.
He began to understand the meaning of capital lost
his fear of it, and found way to have part in
its benefits"
The most severe structures reserved for inter-
nationalists and pac1sts:
can impractical and destructive dealism called in
ternationas IS being propagated by certain foreign
agtators and is being echoed and re-echoed by many
of the nations intellectuas It's efforts are to COM
bat the spirit of patriotism, to destroy that spirit Of
nationalism without which people can long endure
The comment of Frederick Libby on the above is
cogent and conclusive:
Just why the taxpayers money should be used
by war department for the dissemination OF fantas-
tcay ignorant and czarstic ideas is something that
never has been explained satisfactorily"