344 THE CLASS STRUGGLE CURRENT AFFAIRS 345 own officers and their fellow citizens, and the Germans are still marching unresisted across the prostrate nation in spite of a treaty of peace. The only ones who have profited by the Russian excess of liberty are the Germans, who do not believe in personal freedom except in the countries they wish to conquer. The passage of this amendment would greatly weaken American efficiency and help none but the enemy. Results, not motives count in war, therefore the law and its executors should be concerned with procuring desirable and preventing dangerous results, leaving motives to the mercy of the judges or to the perspective of historians.
In an earlier memorandum the Attorney General enumerated the current types of dangerous and effective propaganda against which the amendments are particularly directed.
The Department of Justice designates among others International Socialism and its propaganda against war as the product of capitalist rivalry between groups of national capitalists, as types of propaganda that the Administration intends to stop with the enactment into law of the new sedition bill. The following excerpt from this memoranduin shows this clearly. Another class of effective propaganda, by which mean propaganda that has an effectiveness in reducing the fighting force of the nation and contains the dangers of actually disintegrating the fighting force of the nation, is that which is engaged in promoting the proletarian revolution. Its cardinal principle is that hostility between nations is due to commercial and capitalistic rivalry; that the real hostility is between the proletariat of all nations and the capitalists of all nations. We know that this type of propaganda has had serious results in weakening the fighting effectiveness of Russia. It contains few assertions of facts, at any rate; assertions of facts can easily be avoided without reducing the effectiveness of the propaganda.
On its face its motive is not treasonable; that is, on its face its motive is not to assist the enemy. Where a treasonable motive exists, this motive is concealed and seldom discoverable. To introduce the element of motive is to render the statute practically useless against this type of propaganda. Another type analogous to the previous type is that which promotes the theory that international Socialism is opposed in principle to this war. The promotion of international Socialism can not, when representing genuine convictions, be attributed to bad motives. It represents one theory as to the best way of promoting human happiness, and the promotion of human happiness is a good motive. Yet this propaganda sometimes takes a shape which might have great effectiveness in obstructing war preparation and the conduct of the war.
Very little remains to be said. If this bill becomes a law it will mean that freedom of thought and speech have been wiped out of the Magna Charta of the American people, and the working class movement in all its phases will be the first to feel the heavy pressure of these newly created conditions.
The military situation in Europe and the powerful sentimental appeal that lies in the fate of Finland and Russia has in some cases dulled the perceptions of our comrades to actual conditions. To them this piece of legislation even without the notorious bill, should bring a rude awakening.
Foch and Siberia: Contrast Fighting the whole world seems, at first glance, so impossible a task that he who would undertake it must of necessity be bereft of his senses. Nevertheless, the job has been undertaken, and carried out more or less successfully many times in the history of mankind. And what more, those who undertook this seemingly impossible task were adjudged great by their fellow men, even when they failed of ultimate success.
Of the two last attempts at this kind of job prior to the great world war, those of Frederick the Great and of the great Napoleon the first was fairly successful and the other was a success for almost twenty years. It is true that the Napoleonic attempt ended in complete, final and decisive failure. But Napoleon is