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Show THE 'CITIZEN in fall the' legal technicalities that wili! serve their purpose, although for thirty years they have been preaching to destruction of law and NORTH DAKOTA'S HYPOCRISY : ' government. It is a curious custom of their kind to wrap the aegis of thie law about them whenever they getr into trouble. No one is more clamant for the protection of the "statutes than those who 'would deprive everyone else of that protection arid who, in fact, substitute the bomb arid the" strike for the orderly processes of law whenever they can. :j Many officeseekers of radical tendencies have found comfortable berths with the Democratic administratiori arid have been able : to aid in the propaganda arid secret activities of their Red brethren. Nothing will so effectually stamp out Bolshevism in high places as a Republican victory in the nation. 0 - -- ANY political campaigns ago, if we may be permitted to reckon in that fashion, William Allen White, then scarce known to fame as editor of the Emporia Gazette and a humble follower of William McKinley, wrote an apologetic article which he entitled; Whats the Matter With Kansas? There were divers persons who read farther than the title; but we were not among the number,. for. we chanced to live next door to Kansas and knew what the matter was. To use plain words, Kansas was, and for a long time prior thereto, as the lawyers say, had been making a fool of herself. Kansas was' then famous for three things corn, the memory of . . the grasshopper plague of the seventies and cranks. What the grassr hoppers failed to devour the cranks strove to destroy, but Kansas was too rich in resources and, in the mass, too sane to be driven to reformers. destruction by wild-eye- d Every now and then one of these glorious United States makes a fool of itself. Just now it is North Dakota., Some day North Dakota will settle down, look in the mirror and-sethat it has grown extravagant ears even for a jackass. Then, like' Kansas, it will cease from braying and occupy a few years in repenting of its asininities. Populism and cranks went together in the days when Kansas was sowing its wild oats, but Populism had some good ideas to its credit. These survived, but the party and the cranks were swept into the rubbish heap. If North Dakota with its League and.the leagues ally, the I. W. W., escapes as luckily as did Kansas, it will have the satisfaction of knowing that it did not get what was coming to it. After posing as saviors of society the North Dakota reformers in were caught robbing their principal bank. Detected, the act, they whined and snivelled hypocritically that they were,being persecuted by their enemies, but only the other day the. courts, delvr ing into the chaos, dug up a tangled mass of crookedness. The same spirit of hypocrisy was brooding over the legislature a few weeks ago when one of the legislators arose in his place, and acadministration of circulating in the. rural, cused the schools books that preached free love: and anarchy. If the people knew what was going on they would be down here with shotguns, he said. ; This legislator declared that the state librarian was filling the schools with books that would corrupt the minds of the children with wild radicalism and social degeneracy. At once the hypocrites put. forth the plea that the books merely expounded new thought and the latest ideas of the elect. In spite of their shifts and dodges, howinever, a committee wa appointed to investigate and now we are formed that the resignation of the state librarian has been demanded. Presumably the charges have been substantiated. Evidentlv North Dakota has all the vices of Bolshevism withoutj' bearing the official brand. Whatever the Bolshevists are teaching in Russia the nonsensical are teaching in North Dakota. In Russia the Reds have the courage of their convictions. When they think murder they do murder. When they think free love they establish it. In North Dakota, however, when they think murder they murder reputations with lies. When they think free love they teach it in the schools ami M; aX ; . J i . rT'0 build a United States navy second in strength to that of any other power is to provide in advance for its destruction. Wisdom dictates that in building a navy the nation should provide as certainly as may be for victory. It is not surprising, therefore, that the navy general board, in its recommendations, repudiates the program of Secretary Daniels. The navy of the United States should ultimately be equal to the most powerful maintained by any other nation of the world, not later than 1925, the report adds. Having decided to crook the pregnant hinges of the. knee to Great Britain, Secretary Daniels did not attach the boards recommendations to his report this year. It was omitted, no doubt, because President Wilson and Secretary Daniels, in Paris,, had decided that the United States should play second fiddle to Great Britain. And this in face of the fact that we had set out to build a merchant marine as big as that of Great Britain and therefore in need of as much protection as is required by the British mercantile marine. JL : e ... . 4 . GREATER NAVY NEEDED ' I . . Non-Partis- an red-hand- ed . Before going to the peace conference, Premier Lloyd-Georg- e made a reservation in behalf of his country. He said that the peace Conference must not take up the question of the freedom of the seas, arid the peace conference acquiesced. Tacitly it was agreed that Great Britain should be conceded command of the seas. Secretary Daniels returned from Paris and told Congress that this country would not need as big a navy as he had previously recommended. His reasons did not seem to be particularly lucid. He indicated that the changed situation at Paris, as a result of the League of Nations, had made it desirable that the United States should not try to compete with Great Britain in the construction of warships. In view of Great Britains dictatorial attitude the subservience of President Wilson and Secretary Daniels was amazing. To put it bluntly, Great Britains edict was a command to the United States to Non-Partis- an -- . take second place. Perhaps there would have been reason in the administrations policy had a settled plan of disarmament been adopted by the Versailles conference, but so far from guaranteeing disarmament the conference, in the first place, conceded Great Britains demand for O naval supremacy and embodied in the covenant only a vague proposal for reduction of armaments. Great Britain was not to be blamed because she realized the necessity of a navy capable of protecting the empire in any emergency prevaricate about it in the legislature. but she overstepped the bounds of international amity when she North Dakotas madness is passing, but not for years will her that a nation with interests as great as her own should bind mind be perfectly clear again. Meantime she will be a terrible warnitself, to a policy of naval inferiority. If it be true that the British ing to some of the other. states which are getting skittish as if they. empire is as much upon the sea as on the land it is going to be quite too, were eager to grow ass ears. as true that our interests will soon be world-wid- e at least in the com- ' mercial sense. If we willingly, assume second place in naval power Alexander Berkman, anarchist, tells the supreme court of the. his while striving for first place in mercantile marine power we are giving United States that his deportation to Bolshevik Russia will mean anarchists. -- hostages to fortune. We are failing to extend the American aegis of death. And yet death for others is the stock in trade of 'protection to a vital part of our own empire, for wherever American Berkman himself shot down Henry C. Frick in an effort to kill the merchant ships go there go also American honor- and sovereignty. man who had won the Homestead strike. We cannot afford to accept a position of inferiority so long as The Mexican government says that Jenkins planned his own kidthere is any nation insisting that the command of the sea is peculiarly napping and proudly points to the sworn statements of the bandits her own. who did the kidnapping. Non-Partisa- ns sug;-geste- d , ' A. . - ' |
