Speech or Document 10

THE HUN WITHIN OUR GATES

THE Hun within our gates is the worst of the foes of our own household, whether he is the paid or the unpaid agent of Germany.  Whether he is pro-German or poses as a pacifist, or a peace-at-any-price man, matters little.  He is the enemy of the United States.  Senators and Congressmen like Messrs.  Stone, La Follette and Maclemore belong in Germany and it is a pity they can not be sent there, as Vallandigham was sent to the hostile lines by Lincoln during the Civil War.  Such men are among the worst of the foes o£ our own household; and so are the sham philanthropists and sinister agitators and the wealthy creatures without patriotism who support and abet them.  Our Government has seemed afraid to grapple with these people.  It is permitting thousands of allies of Berlin to sow the seeds of treason and sedition in this country.  The I.  W.  W.  boasts its defiance of all law, and many of its members exultingly proclaim that in their war against industry in the United States they are endeavoring to give the Government so much to do that it will have no troops to spare for Europe.  Every district where the I.  W.  W.  starts rioting should be placed under martial law, and cleaned up by military methods.  The German-language papers carry on a consistent campaign in favor of Germany against England.  They should be put out of existence for the period of this war.  The Hearst papers, more ably edited than the German sheets, play the Kaiser's game in a similar way.  When they keep within the law they should at least be made to feel the scorn felt for them by every honest American.  Wherever any editor can be shown to be purveying treason in violation of law he should be jailed until the conflict is over.  Every disloyal German-born citizen should have his naturalization papers recalled and should be interned during the term of the war.  Action of this kind is especially necessary in order to pick out the disloyal but vociferous minority of citizens of German descent from the vast but silent majority of entirely loyal citizens of German descent who otherwise will suffer from a public anger that will condemn all alike.  Every disloyal native-born American should be disfranchised and interned.  It is time to strike our enemies at home heavily and quickly.  Every copperhead in this country is an enemy to the Government, to the people, to the army and to the flag, and should be treated as such.

This pro-German, Anti-American propaganda has been carried on for years prior to the war, and its treasonable activities are performed systematically today.  The great majority of the men and women of German blood, are absolutely good Americans, and we owe it just as much to them as to the rest of our fellow countrymen with the utmost severity to suppress the tens of thousands of Germans and German-Americans who, having taken the oath of allegiance, yet intrigue and conspire against the United States and do their utmost to promote the success of Germany and to weaken the defense of this nation.  These men support and direct the pro-German societies.  They incite disloyal activities among the Russian Jews.  They finance the small groups of Irish-Americans whose hatred for England makes them traitors to the United States.  They foment seditious operations among the German-American socialists and the I.  W.  W.'s.  They support the German-language periodicals.  Their campaigns range from peace movements and anti-draft schemings to open efforts in favor of sedition and civil war.

These traitors are following out the vicious teachings of Prussian philosophers; there is no cause for surprise at their treasonable course.  Unfortunately there is cause for surprise at the license which the Administration extends to their detestable activities.  In this attitude the Administration is repeating its course of indifference to world-threatening aggression, and of submission to studied acts of murderous violence, which resulted, after two and a half years of injury and humiliation, in our being dragged unprepared into war.

If during those two and a half years a policy of courage, and of consistent and far-sighted Americanism, had been followed, either the brutal invasion of our national rights would have been checked without war or else if we had been forced into war we would have brought it instantly to a victorious end.  Our failure to prepare is responsible for our failure now efficiently to act in the war.  In exactly the same fashion it may be set down as certain that continuance of the present craven policy of ignoring sedition and paltering with treason will encourage and aid German autocracy, and will be translated either into terrible lists of Americans slain and crippled on the battlefield or else into an ignoble peace which will leave Germany free at some future time to resume its campaign against America and against liberty-loving mankind.