A 100 Percent American

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The editorial that appeared in a recent CRIMSON comes as rather a shock to one after those which have appeared urging unity and All-Americanization. If an intelligent man has such "Honest Beliefs" as those of Mr. Debs, it is not only good but necessary that he be locked up and kept in confinement until such time as he has become harmless and has fully expiated his treason. You say that Debs is now harmless? How can a man with such "beliefs" as he displayed during the war be harmless when there are thousands, even millions, of uneducated unthinking near-Americans who accept his world as law because they have not enough reasoning power to form their own opinions. In future wars this case will be a splendid example to those who will obstruct the prosecution of that war. "If Debs got free after the last war, I surely will after this one," will be their perfectly logical reasoning. Too many slackers and cowardly "conscientious objectors" have been freed in the last year to wit: William Haywood, the I. W. W. leader, who was freed last year and who is now doing his best to stir up trouble against the Government.

The idea that an old man must be freed simply because he is such is not sufficient to set this disturbing man at large. The supposition that Debs cannot do more harm at large, than he can in Atlanta is patently ridiculous.

In brief, if a man's "sincere beliefs" are such that they hinder a righteous cause, such as our war with Germany, let him suffer the full penalty of his crime in the name of the brave men who died willingly for a real, Godly and pure ideal. F. VAN W. MASON '24.