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If the authority
of the courts should be destroyed
-- if their carefully determined
decrees are arbitrarily and without
investigation, merely upon suspicion
and general belief, set aside --
if recourse is to be had to blackmail
or for terrorism, sabotage, dynamite
and murder -- if the doctrines of
direct action, are the Bolshevist
and the IWW -- the weak are the
ones who will suffer in any such
decision. I venture to say that
with all the imperfections of human
nature from which we cannot escape
under any system the wit of man
ever devised, and with all the mistakes
the mind of man, however well intentioned,
may sometimes make, there is not
a state nor a city between the two
oceans in this great republic where
an honest laborer, seeking protection
or justice, cannot find a judge
who will zealously guard his rights,
his liberties, his property, his
life, with the shield of the law
against the hand of the despoiler.
Tear down
the courts and the law, and there
is left the spectacle of a bloody
tyranny -- of ignorance, avarice,
cruelty, imposing their brute will
upon all who differ with them or
stand in their way. We see that
spectacle in Russia today, and those
who are writhing there in the gratification
of their lawless desire for power
are the counterparts and co-workers
against law and established government
with the authors of these resolutions
and other propaganda of murder,
assassination, revolution, direct
action, sabotage and anarchy which
is stalking through the land.
The greatest
issue that confronts not only the
American people, but the western
world, is the suppression of this
arrogant, insolent, and tyrannical
movement. Its leaders must be subjected
to the will of the government. The
intellectual vagaries of benign
but irrational visionaries, the
abysmal ignorance of masses of its
innocent human tools, and the murderous
instincts of avowed criminal enemies
of social order, are the materials
with which it works. Many of its
parts are not conscious of their
connection with one another. But
it all moves as a cohesive and coordinate
whole on the lever which is worked
by the master criminals of mankind.
Their proposed prey is the human
and of material accumulated wealth
of the world. It is an astounding
occurrence. And to us, awakened
from our long dream of peace,
seems difficult of conception.
These conspirators
against the peace and happiness
of mankind have taken the gifts
of God, the intelligence that has
come with civilization, the inventions
of science, the products of modern
art, and turning them into instruments
of destruction, have made war on
their own creator. The good gifts,
which were put into the hands of
man for good, have been perverted
to evil. It is as though they had
eaten of the forbidden fruit of
the tree of knowledge of good and
evil, and that they will hear the
voice of God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day and saying
to this: "Adam, cursed is the
ground for thy sake, and in sorrow
shalt thou eat of it all the days
of thy life." It is as though
again, the man be driven out, and
again be placed at the east of the
garden of Eden, cherubim and a flaming
sword which shall turn every way.
So keep the way of the tree of life.
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