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Show THE CITIZEN 4 That is what I am afraid of, replied the accused. ' Great Britain and France are standing by their partner in iniquity. To'sccure the help of Italy in the war they agreed to the nefarious Pact of London. Americans who leaped into the war as giants and felled the enemy cannot appreciate he terror struck the blows-thathat clutched at the throats of the allies in 1915 when the Pact of all-conquer- ing t London was drawn. . Great Britain and France saw the need of obtaining Italys aid at all costs, for Italy was negotiating with Austria. It became a contest in which the highest bidder was to win. At that time Germany and Austria were in exalted mood. The enemy in the east, mighty Russia, was being hurled back after victories which had brought her legions inside the mountain walls of Hungary. It was this circumstance that gave Austria a fatal confidence. She refused to concede all that Italy demanded and Italy went over to the allies. For the Teutonic coalition the decision was fatal, because the and heroic soldiers of Italy warded off complete defeat from the allies and gave them a new lease of life; When we say that the Pact of London was iniquitous we must not forget these extenuating circumstances. By that compact Italy was to receive not only the Irredenta provinces she had sought so long, but territory distinctly not Italian. She was to be given the region of Brenner pass and the Upper Adige, which is Teutonic to the core, and also the highlands of northern Dalmatia, where the population is solidly Slav and In those days Italy wanted not only Trieste but Fiume. To Fiume she resigned her claims because Russia insisted that the Slavs d should have a outlet to the Adriatic. Italy was then in a commanding position to make good her claims to Fiume, but she forgot the call of brotherhood and no Sicilian bandit and poet was abroad in the land to write fiery lyrics and prose poems of oratory demanding Fiume or death. She relinquished her claims to Fiume and its mixed population in exchange for a long strip of the Dalmatian coast line occupied by Slavs, brothers of the Serbs and Montenegrins who were battling against hopeless odds to uphold the allied cause. This much of history must be remembered in order to grasp the Italian state of mind at the peace conference. There Premier Orlando found a stranger at the board President Wilson, a Don Quixote from across the Atlantic who examined the Italian claims and the Pact of London with an icy eye. Italy had dreamed of making the Adriatic an Italian lake. She saw herself perched high and deeply intrenched in the Dalmatian mountains; she saw herself holding Trieste, Pola and Fiume and thus made perpetually powerful to dominate the Adriatics eastern shore and obtain those raw materials from the hinterland that were to restore her industries, blot out socialism and anarchy, revive prosperity and content and harmoniously adjust her internal life. At Versailles she was given more than the Pact of London called for, but she was not given as much as were obtained by her partners to the pact. Great Britain obtained 800,000 square miles of enemy territory with promise of more. Fiume profited in proportion, but Italy, although she received rich provinces and cities, some of them was treated shabbily in comparison with the treatment accorded her partners in the contract which had induced her to enter the war. It is possible to see that the realization of Italys dream had become almost a necessity. In the Balkans were the coal, iron and raw materials she needed for her industries. If she did not obtain them she must rely on importations from remote America. In possession of these materials, she could solve her economic problems and start immediately on the Via Sacra of hope and happiness. Without them she must stand exposed naked to the annihiliating attacks of anarchy. To save herself Italy must be unjust to the Slavs. Nor was she in any mood to listen to the Presidents idealistic plea after he had surrendered to the demands of Great Britain and Italy and had shamelessly handed over 35,000,000 inhabitants of Shantung to Japan. Was Italy the only great nation to be accorded strict and death must be sacrificed that Italy dealing justice? True, Jugo-Slavmight enjoy the larger life, but had not the allies sacrificed weak peoples everywhere to give Great Britain, France, and Japan; what ia ... they wanted ? That is why Great Britain and France feel themselves bound tc give Italy at least the equivalent of the Pact of London. If the Slavs will not concede that much then they shall have far less than President Wilson hoped to obtain for them. 1 , well-train- ed . anti-Italia- n. much-neede- non-Italia- n, FANATICS AND PATRIOTS may be committed in the name of liberty were WHAT crimes by Senator Norris of Nebraska while discussing some of the measures. During the war American liberties were suppressed and all of us, with good or bad grace, joined in a chorus of approval. Liberty bonds were sold by means that were as base as blackmail and as cruel as coercion. No one dared to speak his mind above a whisper for fear of being called a traitor. In fact, we agreed that the war must be won by fair means or foul and that the end justified the means. Now that we are trying to suppress the communists, anarchists and terrorists we are proposing laws which, as Senator Norris points out, may ultimately destroy the free government they are designed to protect. Usually these laws are proposed by sincere men who do not calculate the ultimate consequences of their proposals. All of us incline to the view that the terrorists ought to be shot, but in our fervor to annihilate them we prepare high explosives to annihilate ourselves. law Senator Norris told an engrossing story of an passed in Nebraska during the war and used as an instrument of oppression. The legislators were animated by the highest motives of patrir n and bewildered by the fear that unless otism, but wrere all Americans pulled together the kaiser would conquer the world and shackle our glorious states to his chariot wheels. And so it came about that the Nebraska legislature passed a law defining and punishing sedition. The maximum penalty under the law was twenty years in the state prison. Part of Section I of this act reads as follows : If any person with intent to obstruct, hinder, delay, discourage, hamper, or otherwise interfere with the efficient prosecution of the war in which the government of the United States is now engaged, shall And then it enumerates a number of things, beginning with (a) and running down to (m), and (m) is as follows : Being physically able to work and not engaged in any useful occupation, refuse employment, or remain habitually idle when useful employment is obtainable In a word, anyone who refused to labor at a task which some one else deemed to be useful could be sent to the penitentiary for twenty anti-sediti- on anti-sediti- on panic-stricke- years. Sheer madness, the reader will say ; no such law could be enforced. But witness how near the law came to enforcement in aJ. most amazing case. The attorney general of Nebraska was called upon to render an opinion as to what constituted a useful occupation and he said that all persons engaged in the organization of clubs, leagues, societies, or associations which did not have for their object the furtherance of the progress of the war were not engaged in useful occupations. A man, whose name is not given by Senator Norris, was arrested because he was engaged in organizing for the Nonpartisan League.. The case was pressed against the accused on the theory that he was not engaged in a useful occupation and the attorney generals opinion w'as cited as a sufficient sanction for the arrest. The people of Nebraska were justly incensed against the Non-- 0 partisan League at that time. They believed that its leader, Town-lewas not a true American and that many of the members were longing for the success of the kaiser. That they were not altogether wrong is evidenced by the subsequent conviction of Townley as a y, traitor. |