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Show ON THE COMING DAY OF JUDGMENT. W e believe with Judge John F. Mc-Gce Mc-Gce of Minneapolis, that the one way to deal with spies and German propagandists pro-pagandists in this country is to permit per-mit the military' authorities to handle the offenders. ' I In a statement before the senate military committee yesterday, Judge McGee said. "Give us the military' court or when the casualty lists come back and the ' crepe hangs on the door, you will have a state of anarchy in this countr " Judge McGee told of the intense feeling prevailing in sections of Min-ne?ota Min-ne?ota In the German counties, he said, stores are being installed by Germans Ger-mans to compete with those controlled by Americans. Banks also were being established, he said, until on the advice ad-vice of the committee on public Bafety, the state bank examiner established B rule refusing to grant charters to banks until applications had been submitted sub-mitted to the committee. Delay of the civil courts in prosecuting prose-cuting cases involving the espionage and other acts intended to stop German Ger-man propaganda and seditious utterances utter-ances were criticized by Norman H. White of Brookline, Mass., and Colonel R II Van Peman, both connected with the military intelligence section. They declared that summary justice under military tribunals would do much to allay feeling that now exists throughout the country against enemy ene-my aliens, owing to the government's delay in prosecuting those working in support of Germany. Twenty thousand aliens in New York alone, Mr White said, have refused re-fused to give their finger prints to the federal authorities as required by law and no effort Is being made to compel them, owing to the rush of work due to the war now facing the department of justice There are also hundreds of cases, he asserted, in which heroin Is being sold American soldiers by Germans Ger-mans and others in the theatrical district dis-trict in New York, but under the present pres-ent laws it can be stopped only with difficulty. Captain McCauley. assistant director direc-tor of the naval intelligence service, declared that threats of trial by court martial would deter many persons from committee acts which they would not hesitate to do if they were sure only trial by jury would follow. Despite De-spite the united efforts of the department depart-ment of Justice and the army and naval nav-al Intelligence forces, he admitted lit- tle progress is being made against spies and propaganda. This confession should cause con- Igress to proceed to the enactment of legislation without delay. What this cournry must do, as one of the first firm moves In the war, is to straighten out our internal affairs by making treachery almost impossible. Wherever Americans gather these days, they discuss evidence of disloy-altj disloy-altj which has come to their notH' A word dropped here and there, a nod or a look is known to have Its meaning mean-ing and the Americans are not slow to understand what it all signifies, but at present the machinery does not exist ex-ist for reaching those who are in this category of offenders. So far the enemies of this country have been escaping punishment, except ex-cept In rare instances, and they accept ac-cept this immunity as evidence of the stupidity of the American people. But all the time the storm clouds are gathering, gath-ering, and, if the government does not act with great vigor and put in effect a measure similar to the Chamberlain bill, the day of gloom will arrive and when it is ended, even Americans will recoil at the sight of wreckage, the result re-sult of their own unrcstrainable hatred. ha-tred. We do not want mob rule in this country', and the only method by which to avoid it is for the government to take drastic steps to squelch all enc-I enc-I mles. nn |