THE SCAVENGERS OF CIVILIZATION
Borah, William E.
The Scavengers of Civilization President Wilsons Address Commended and Profiteers Scored As a Tarantula Burying Its Fangs In the Veins of the Wounded By WILLIAM E. BORAH, United States Senator...
...THE Congress of the United States is now * advised unmistakably in terms which cannot be contradicted or about which there can be no doubt that this profiteering is active and the evidence indisputable...
...Nothing is truer than that statement...
...The Scavengers of Civilization President Wilsons Address Commended and Profiteers Scored As a Tarantula Burying Its Fangs In the Veins of the Wounded By WILLIAM E. BORAH, United States Senator from Idaho On May 31, United States Senator William E. Borah of Idaho introduced a resolution in the United States senate calling upon the federal treasury department to furnish the facts that show the extent of profiteering in this country...
...If the government of the United States possesses the facts as to the existence of these profiteers and fails to prosecute, fails to deal with them by taxation or otherwise, the government is derelict and justly subject to the criticism of everybody who is for the people, and not only for the people but in the broader sense for the government for a government cannot long exist which will not eliminate the profiteer...
...While we might provide the revenue a month or a month and a half or two or three months from now, the profiteer should not be permitted to escape beyond the time within which we can act intelligently and effectively...
...There is such profiteering now and the information with regard to it is available and indisputable...
...You cannot reach it in all instances, in its subtle and devious ways of carrying on its work, by criminal statutes...
...In many instances where it could not be reached at all by any other method it can be reached effectively by taxation...
...No government which is for the profiteers can also be for the people...
...The profiteer...
...President, a few days ago a noted woman in this country with whose methods as to government most of us disagree but with whose humanitarian objects and purposes many of us agree, was convicted in an American court...
...I take it that he would not have incorporated jt in his message had he not regarded it as of transcendant moment and worthy of the speedy consideration of Congress...
...President, I regarded that statement, when made by the President, as somewhat startling...
...In the name, therefore, of the success of this war, in the name of every patriot in the land making his sacrifice and contributing his efforts to the common cause, let as proceed to his destruction...
...If we would have the people contented and confident, if we would have our country relieved of a multitude of prosecutions, it devolves upon us here and now to remove the evil which is now conceded by the government to exist and the facts concerning which are at our disposal...
...There is one portion of the President's great message upon taxation delivered a day or two ago, to which it seems to me sufficient attention has not been given in public discussion, and that is the part which reads as follows: There is abundant fuel for the light in the records of the treasury with regards to profits of every sort...
...ONE shudders to contemplate the deprivation, the self denial, the suffering and the sacrifice which its payment will involve...
...he takes his life in his hands to serve that country...
...Now, a government may close the lips of an individual, you may reduce them all to silence for a time, but every time you close the lips of an individual and fail to remedy the wrong you put a thousand more to thinking and you cannot prevent people from thinking...
...No government which is for the profiteer can be for the people...
...The foreign spy is at least loyal to his flag, he is loyal to his country...
...Summer or no summer, vacation or no vacation, that should have our immediate Attention...
...On offering hia resolution Senator Borah made the following address.—Editor's Note...
...Now it is up to Congress to justify the conviction of Rose Pastor Stokes in that court...
...President, of course in referring to a profiteer we do not refer to a man who is simply conducting his business in a skilful and efficient way and'securing the reward of such skilfulness and efficiency by taking a reasonable profit for his efforts...
...The President is right...
...but, Mr...
...IDO NOT assume at this time that the government is friendly to the profiteers but there will be no defense to the charge made by these people if the Congress shall adjourn without most drastic legislation concerning the mattery...
...Here is the statement upon which that conviction was founded, or at least one of the counts of the indictment...
...The President, in my judgment suggests a very proper and efficient way in which to deal with the subject of profiteering and that is by taxation...
...but the man who claims the protection of the flag, who professes his loyalty to the government and his devotion to the flag, and at the same time takes advantage of the nation's peril and the government's dire necessities to increase his private gain thereby demoralizing the efforts of the people, impeding the progress of the war, and finally working for its ultimate failure, is infinitely lower in morals, in my humble judgment, than the foreign spy who takes his life in his hands for his own government...
...That statement is evidently based upon facts within the knowledge of the administration, and, I take it, in the possession of the Treasury Department...
...The basis of the resolution was the address of President Wilson before Congress asking that the profiteers be taxed...
...If it had been said by some private citizen, it would likely have started him upon the way to the penitentiary...
...In Accord With View...
...We can deal with him effectually and conclusively by^taxation and I trust that in the passage of this bill we will not falter in doing our full duty in that respect...
...To my mind, and I presume I simply express the view of every patriot, the man who does that is upon a lower moral level than the foreign spy...
...That should be dealt with at once...
...If we delay one .iour beyond the time necessary to shape the .aw "to deal with the execrable wretch, the hat-?d of earth, the alien from hell who would prof-•_t off of his country's perils, we will deserve vhat we will receive, the anathemas and the curses of posterity...
...that scavenger of civilization, that tarantula burying its ..angs in the veins and arteries of the wounded and the grief stricken, yet the President says _ie is in our midst, that the evidence is here and indisputable...
...1AM, therefore in hearty accord with the expression of the President with reference to the method of reaching profiteering...
...In time their thinking will ripen into action...
...While criminal statutes are desirable and should be passed whenever it is thought that they can meet the situation, there is no doubt but that an effective aid to any criminal statute is that of taxation...
...From decade to decade, from generation to generation families will bend under the burden and the average citizen through the long years will feel its haunting presence at the fireside and at his table...
...And I am for the people while the government is for the profiteers...
...If that be true there should be no talk of adjournment until this bill shall have passed...
...The man to whom the President refers, and I presume to whom we refer when we speak of profiteers, is the man who takes advantage of his country's condition, its perilous situation to gather extraordinary profits, who is taking advantage of his country's stress and trial to increase enormously and unjustly and unfairly his individual and private gain...
...When we think of the reluctance of a national debt once established to release its hold upon the sweat and toil of men, when we reflect upon its remorseless demands for annual tribute we can well believe that two and a half centuries will still find a portion of this obligation we are so speedily imposing a burden upon the people...
...The profiteering that cannot be got at by the restraints of conscience and love of country can be got at by taxation...
...But if we falter in cutting out waste and extravagance we will receive and justly the execrations of those who .nust meet this gigantic debt...
...It is up to us to demonstrate beyond question that the government of the United States is not with the profiteer, and we cannot do so if we leave .the evidence before undealt with and legislation unenacted...
...But the President has made the statement and it was most proper ¦—indeed, not only proper, but has devolved upon us the duty—to discuss the subject and to deal with it...
...With every necessary dollar expended no patriot will find fault—it is the price we pay for the liberty we love, for the freedom we would transmit to our children...
...If the facts are here and the President tells us and the American people they are here and we fail to deal with the situation, Rose Pastor Stokes will no longer be a criminal but a martyr, inis government cannot be a slacker in dealing with those who pad payrolls and cheat the tax payer, who scheme for the possession oT the money which the government must have to prosecute the war, who while our boys are dying and liberty stands in hourly peril extort through overreaching and fraud from their struggling nation and at the same time justify the conviction of those people who denounced it...
...Profiteering Is Active...
...IASK the indulgence of the Senate for just a moment until I explain my object and purpose in introducing this resolution, and my desire that the information be brought to the Senate and, after having been brought to the Senate, that it may have the consideration of the Senate...
...Must Act Now...
...President, I do not desire to go further into detail or take th^ time of the Senate longer at this time...
...The Future Sacrifice...
...We can either arrive him from his prey—the American people— •,r we can turn his ill gotten gains into the v.reasury of the United States to meet the bur-i.ens of this war...
...But in conclusion let me say this Congress now assembled will mortgage the energy and the capacity of the American people for the next 250 years...
...To say that profiteering is here, and that the evidence of it is indisputable and that it is subject to the call of Congress is to notify the Congress that more important than dealing with the general subject of revenue—which we might deal with later, perhaps, effectively, is dealing with this particular subject of profiteering...
Vol. 10 • June 1918 • No. 6
