REPRESSION THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION

...This unrest is in places developing unquestionably into seditious agitations and conspiracies...

...The two things, in other words, go together...

...Nothing could have saved the situation, as it then existed, but a "change in the spirit of the government...

...But the significant thing is that, while revolutionary movements were destroyed, the revolutionary spirit remained untouched...

...The sound method of procedure to be used today, has been so well stated in an "Address to the President," by Dr...

...America through her policy of repression, is stirring the emotions of the people in just the way best calculated to do her ill...

...Instantly this man finds his suspicions justified...

...The whole truth, after all, is summed up by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay on "Politics...

...And I see no element in the present situation which will prevent the habit of the ages from taking the same course here in America as elsewhere...

...Why, it was in just such an experience as this, if our present rulers only had sense enough to remember it, that the United States was brought into being as a separate and independent nation...

...From Unity...

...by such a spirit could we end them...

...What we have before us today is unprecedented social unrest...

...I refer to the fact that repression gives the example, sets the pace, for the use of violence...

...They are not slow to invent devices for stirring up this feeling, so that in the love of men the nation may find its strength...

...By such methods would we discover the causes of unrest...

...America is just like Russia— government in one place is just like government in another:—freedom is synonymous with destruction of all government...

...And the same thing is true in our time...

...Men act not when their minds are convinced, but when their sentiments are stirred...

...But when we do, we shall discover, as all great prophets have affirmed, "that thousands of human beings might share and obey each with the other the grandest and truest sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers...

...BUT there are, of course, deeper causes of the social unrest of our day than the repression which is now upon us—causes rooted in what Bacon calls "poverty and discontentments...

...What does the government do, not with the bodies but with the minds of people, when it becomes terrified for its own safety, and makes resort to repression...

...Repression, after all, is simply the use, by law or in spite of law, of violence...

...Nay, it flourished in the atmosphere of repression...

...Nothing in this world is more contagious than example, for the reason that man is essentially an imitative creature...

...for repression not only kills in the hearts of thousands all love for the government, but it develops in those same hearts a new and terrible love for the enemies of the government...

...is to destroy government...

...Let radical journals be published freely * * * and let courts, prosecutors, legislators and executors study them anxiously, to see what evidence they may possibly present of crimes which they have overlooked...

...It declines to give an accused man his day in court...

...as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be...

...and think that they can do with this weapon of repression what has never been done before, even by those who have known neither legal restraint nor moral scruple...

...It takes the confused or maladjusted alien to Ellis Island, and teaches him that the answer to his question is deportation...

...Repression, in other words, is itself a cause of the unrest which it is sup-posed to cure...

...and this unrest has been growing in intensity and vigor just as fast and as far as new repressive measures have been directed against it...

...The Russians developed a system of repression which for completeness of efficiency is destines perhaps to stand as a model for all future time, and for years this system seemed to justify itself by the success with which it uprooted and destroyed one revolutionary movement after another...

...Let President Wilson and every governor and every mayor designate great public meeting places—-in halls and in public parks—where the freely chosen representatives of every group * * * may express their views...

...Governments understand this well enough in ordinary times...

...but those enemies have been able to accomplish nothing, for the reason that they have never been able to win the confidence and love of the people...

...nor are these causes difficult to discover...

...The laws of psychology are not suspended on our soil, any more than the laws of astronomy are suspended in our skies...

...No line of thought could be more logical than this, in the case of the man whose political experience has been limited to Russia before the War...

...and he is honestly convinced, as a result of his experience, that the only way to secure freedom THE English, as though they had learned nothing in America, have tried repression in Ireland for a hundred years, with the result that the Irish are more irreconcilable today than ever before...

...He discovers that he was right after all...

...Let legislative assemblies give patient hearing to delegates who come to them from such assemblies...

...First of all, there is the fact of repression itself, as we have seen...

...Our officials are simply walking in the footsteps of a vast host of emperors and kings, who have tried repression to the limit, and always in the end to their own humiliation and defeat...

...Repression The Road To Revolution Our Officials Are Walking In the Footsteps of Autocratic Emperors And Kings Who Have Used the Policy to the Limit By JOHN HAYNES HOLMES 1believe it no exaggeration to say that repression is perhaps the shortest road to that revolution which it is supposed to prevent...

...That act, in other words, instead of allaying unrest, created it...

...The Austrians tried repression in Italy, with a reverity unmatched in modern times, with the dramatic result of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour, and the astablishment of the Kingdom of United Itals...

...and that if the phenomenon is to be removed, the cause must be removed...

...Nor is it difficult to indicate what such "change" involves...

...Slumbering on a Volcano I ANSWER these questions by the famous words spoken by Count de Tocqueville, in the French Chamber of Deputies, in the year 1848...

...Reviewing the agitated conditions of tha time—so agitated that he gave it as his "profound conviction" that "we are slumbering upon a volcano"—and deprecating the tyranny practiced by the administration, he exclaimed, amid the hostile cries of his audience, "Change the spirit of the government...

...Thousands and tens of thousands have been confirmed in the last few weeks by the intolerable activities of the Department of Justice...

...Let the secret service men attend, not to find Victims for prosecution, but to catch the faintest whisper of a just complaint...

...But George III discovered that he had made a terrible mistake—that his policy of repression, so far from quieting the Americans, was the very thing that brought about the triumphant revolution which cost his kingdom the most precious jewel in its crown...

...The first thing which we must do today, to heal our disorders, is to repeal our laws of repression, cease our acts of repression, and return to those orderly ways of law and justice which were once our ancient custom...

...To demonstrate the truth of this assertion, it is only necessary to turn to the pages of his-tory, and read there the long continued story, running through every age of human experience, of the repression that leads to revolution...

...Nay, it flourished in the atmosphere of repression...

...It has taken a frightened, suspicious refugee from tyranny, all ready to be converted into a good American by friendliness and good will, and confirmed him in anarchy...

...It has given a case to its enemies...

...Let it be considered bad form to characterize any man as a Bolshevist merely because you do not agree with him...

...In coming to America, he is reminded of wonderful" stories about freedom in this country—he is told these stories anew upon his arrival...

...Let them refuse to men the opportunity of speech, let them rob men of representation in Congress and in the New York Assembly, let them deny men the ballot and the right of open political organization...

...This country has had its enemies in the past, as every country has had them...

...Let it be understood that once again, not opinion, but only crime, is to be pursued and punished in this country, and unrest in its most acute form will disappear...

...We must "change the spirit of the government...

...Let the industries be represented by their detectives, not to spot agitators to discharge them, but to make careful notes of any bad practices which might be reformed...

...but in their place there spring up three thousand or three hundred thousand aliens, hitherto peaceful and contented, who use this deportation as argument for justified revolt...

...Repression, in other words, has done its perfect work...

...Let us have parades of Socialists or Communists, or Christians, or any other sect than can muster enough enthusiasm and confidence in their cause to make a showing...

...Let grand juries weigh their complaints, whether against individuals or against any existing abuse which might be remedied...

...it is strengthening, just as Russia strengthened the Nihilists, and England today is strengthening the Sein Feiners, such enemies as she may have...

...If we do not suppress these conspirators against the order and safety of the Republic, what can we do with them...

...Is Case Against Itself...

...We foolish people still rely on force, not yet learning that force can only bring us force, as hate brings hate...

...It asserts that the place for the agitator and reformer is the prison cell...

...Or if there be fuel prepared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it on fire * * * As for the just cure, it must answer to the particular disease...

...But he is suspicious—he will "wait and see"—government is government, and what the rulers do in one country, they will in all probability do in another...

...to refuse a respectful hearing to those who speak in the name of a more perfect justice, in the name of a better social order...

...What these causes are is known to nobody but the people who are restless...

...Repression must itself be ended, if unrest is to be ended...

...If the reactionaries in this country want to make sure of assassinations and riots and revolts, let them continue in the way that they now are going...

...The certainty of the failure of repression as a method of quieting agitation—the equal certainty of its success as a method of fostering revolution—becomes easily understandable, if we turn from history to psychology, and analyze some of the factors that are involved...

...But the significant thing is that, while revolutionary movements were destroyed, the revolutionary spirit remained untouched...

...Is an Old Lesson...

...He believed exactly as does our Attorney General today, that if you fill a country with spies, arrest and imprison all citizens who dare for a moment to think for themselves, suppress newspapers and break up public meetings and proclaim martial law, the people will be successfully terrorized, and thus made loyally obedient to their sovereign...

...The springs of action, said Herbert Spencer, are not intellectual but emotional...

...Things are what they are," said Bishop Butler, "and they will be what they will be...

...And around each single person thus oppressed, there are friends and kinsmen by the score, who are taught to feel the same sentiments of indignation as flourish in the soul of the one who suffers...

...The people have had no grievances against the government—they have loved it and not hated it, and, therefore, desired it to be not destroyed but maintained...

...To hate a government means sooner or later to love the man who would destroy that government...

...And yet there are those in America who do not know, or will not know...

...For this reason do we have a situation in this country today, which for the first time in its history, is dangerous...

...I refer to the fact that the government, through its policy of repression, teaches thousands of persons who love it, or are ready to love it, to hate it for its injustice and cruelty...

...It is for this reason, based on the psychology of emotion, that repression must be described as the road to revolution...

...The enemies of the government there were dangerous, for the reason that they had the love of the people, just as the government had their hate...

...And it is there, in these places hidden away from the air and light of day, that the argument of "violence for violence" is irresistible...

...and by thus ending them, end the "seditions and troubles" that beset us...

...It is for reasons such as these that I declare, in the words of our text, that "repression is the seed of revolution...

...That de Tocqueville was right in his prophecy, is shown by the fact that this speech was delivered on the eve of the great revolution of 1848, which overthrew King Louis Phillipe, and destroyed his government...

...The Russians developed a system of repression which for completeness of efficiency is destined perhaps to stand as a model for all future time, and for years this system seemed to justify itself by the success with which it uprooted and destroyed one revolutionary movement after another...

...THE first thing that a repressive government accomplishes is to give people a case against itself—to convince people that they are right in desiring to weaken or destroy Here is a refugee from Russia, let us say...

...The Austrians tried repression in Italy, with a severity unmatched in modern times, with the dramatic result of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Cavour, and the establishment of the Kingdom of United Italy...

...Then, like a cloudburst, there comes the Espionage Law, the Conscription Act, the arrest and imprisonment of political offenders, the suppression of newspapers and public meetings, and as a climax the raids, seizures and deportations...

...What policy would you suggest, in place of that which is now being followed by our public officials at this moment...

...Use of Violence BUT there is a third thing accomplished by repression, that leads to revolution...

...If this were all that is accomplished by repression, the situation perhaps would not be so serious...

...Every alien deported, every citizen arrested and imprisoned, not for crime but for opinion, is turned from a potential lover into a potential hater of his country...

...What we have to do is not to repress these agitations, and thus drive them deeper underground and make them more dangerously explosive than ever, but to do what Lord Bacon recommended centuries ago in his essay on "Seditions and Troubles...

...Violence of this kind in the past has always been met by violence-force has been matched by force—repression by revolution...

...Not yet have we dared to try "the power of love, as the basis of a State...

...Repression," says President Wilson, using another figure of speech in the statement which I have taken for my text, "repression is the seed of revolution...

...It declares that the remedy for the discontented laborer is the policeman's club, or the army's machine gun...

...Government, therefore, to him, is synonymous with tyranny, just as the church to many people is synonymous with superstition...

...In this case, the government, in dealing with its people, refuses to talk or to listen...

...for God's sake, change the spirit of the government, for that spirit is leading us to destruction...

...They know perfectly well that security is dependent not so much upon the judgment as upon the feeling of the people...

...THE same lesson has been taught so mans times as to defy enumeration...

...If we would find and remove, therefore, the troubles that beset the land, let us do what we have always hitherto done in this country—listen to grievances, and then do what government is established to do, make redress of grievances...

...It is discouraging, if not actually destroying, its friends...

...But what are we going to do, you ask, to protect the government from the enemies in our midst who are undoubtedly ready to visit bloodshed and madness upon us...

...In this passage, Lord Bacon is having resort to the law of causation—a law as true in society as in physics—that where there is a phenomenon, there is a cause for that phenomenon...

...For few men act upon rational conviction, or determine their lives by argument...

...A true America is safe against all conspiracy, but an America transformed into a second imperial Russia must sooner or later meet the destiny of the first...

...Concerning the materials of seditions," he says, "it is a thing well to be considered: for the surest way to prevent seditions * * * is to take away the matter of them...

...The English, as though they had learned nothing in America, have tried repression in Ireland for a hundred years, with the result that the Irish are more irreconcilable today than ever before...

...Our government is flexible, we have the constitutional guarantees of free discussion and association, we have schools for the training of the ignorant and alien...

...But the impossible may easily be made possible, if we refuse to preserve the institutions and traditions which are ours...

...And this has another side which is equally disastrous...

...Edward T. Devine, one of the most learned and moderate social leaders of our time, that I venture to quote in extenso his weighty words: "Let all of those who have grievances be openly * * * invited to voice them...

...For there is nothing particularly new in the policy that is now being carried out so devotedly in this country...

...It would seem to be impossible to start a revolution here...

...He has never known any government but that of the Czar...

...In Russia in the old days, however, it was very different...

...George III bad an idea that repression was the right remedy for social unrest and disturbance in these thirteen colonies...

...There is no country in the world where revolution in terms of violence is more unnecessary, or violent conspiracy more indefensible, than in America...

...And yet it is in times like these, when the country is most in need of the love of all the people, that the government turns to repression, and therewith accomplishes a second thing disastrous to itself...

...The maddest "red" in this country today can have no other desire than that the government may continue steadfastly in the direction in which it is now moving...

...Let us make it the greatest offense against morals and manners to silence the voice of a prophet...

...If there is social unrest abroad in the land today, there are causes for it...

...It is a significant thing, as Senator France of Maryland pointed out the other day, that unrest in this country, in an acute and seditious form, appeared just after the passage of the Espionage Act, in 1917...

...Its result is always to drive agitation out of the warm free air of out-of-doors, into the dark and gloomy channels of underground conspiracy...

...Three hundred aliens are deported, and thus unquestionably gotten rid of...

...and has now resulted in a move-ment which threatens to engulf the world...

...So it has always been...