PHILIPP AND THE SECURITY LEAGUE
Philipp And The Security League The National Security League, made up by Wall street to promote the business interests in the war, was the gTeat agency in the campaign for silence and secrecy...
...They had to get into the game somewhere and in the place of news they published the propaganda handed out to them...
...the late Henry C. Frick, director of the United States Steel Corporation...
...It will be news to many Wisconsin readers that such a thing happened here...
...W. K. Vanderbilt of the Grand Central Terminal, New York...
...Men were arrested and prosecuted for speaking disrespectful of the House of Morgan...
...Big Business poked its hungry snout into every cranny of the government's service...
...Dollar a year men," heads of big business, got on the government pay-roll and learned its secrets...
...The governor had two bills introduced in the senate and both passed that body...
...H. H. Rogers, director of the Standard Oil Company...
...One bill, No...
...Secrecy of business methods was made the order of the day...
...Clarence H. Mackay, director of the Postal Telegraph and Cable Company, and many others with similar financial connections...
...Both were most vicious in that they provided for punishment of attempts which required no overt act...
...We want "Americanism" but who wants the National Security League kind of Americanism...
...War supplies did not come forward...
...CS passed the assembly after Assemblyman Evjue had secured an amendment limiting it to the pres-ent war and the governor signed it...
...The National Security League was backed and financed by J. P. Morgan, director of the United States Steel Corporation, whose net profits in 1917 were $478,204,343 as against $46,520,467 in 1914 during the pre-war period...
...However, sight must not be lost of the fact that it was conceived in London by an attorney representing sugar, steel, and other large interests both in this country and abroad, and that at its very inception in New York others representing like interests are found among those who became the most active in its organization...
...Neither bill was limited to the period of the war as were the federal acts...
...Both had for their purpose horrorization of the public against criticism or discussion of the war...
...At this time Mr...
...Both these bills had their inspiration through the National Security League...
...Then followed government contracts by which the government was mulcted out of millions upon millions of dollars...
...118, provided twenty years' imprisonment for any one who should "attempt to incite sedition," and making it a crime for any person who aids or abets in advocating "disloyalty," punishable by jail and fine...
...and, next, when the organization had thrown aside its pretense of being engaged only in 'preparedness' and had reached the real purpose of its undertaking, Mr...
...Philipp And The Security League The National Security League, made up by Wall street to promote the business interests in the war, was the gTeat agency in the campaign for silence and secrecy during the war...
...The other bill, No...
...The voters of this state know something of the profiteering that went on under cover of these "hush" bills...
...In February, 1918, Governor Philipp called a special session of the legislature in order, among other things, "to enact legislation prohibiting inciting or attempting to incite or aiding in inciting insurrection or sedition, and prohibiting the teaching or advocating of disloyalty to the national government or opposition to the state government, and prohibiting interfering with or discouraging preparation for national or state defense, and enacting such other legislation as will protect our citizens during time of war and providing suitable punishments and penalties therefor...
...Clothing, and food for soldiers, guns and ammunition, aeroplanes and ships were held up while contractors were robbing and thriving...
...Barney Baruch, whose financial connections are well known...
...All this under the great fear that had been put on the press and the people that any attempt to expose the crooks meant prosecutions for disloyalty to be followed by punishment swift and fearful...
...The Wall street gang became connected with all the war activities, the Morgans with the Red Cross, the Perkins with the Y. M. C. A., and food contractors were with the food departments, coal men with the fuel department and so on ad nauseam...
...Any criticism of the thieves was a criticism of the government, for they were a part of the government and Fort Leavenworth stared the critics in the face...
...Governor Philipp has promised the league his cooperation in the movement for the organization of thousands of parades of citi-zens similar to the 'preparedness parades' in 1916...
...So the newspapers, no longer allowed to exercise their functions, became propagandists for the crooks...
...Mortimer L. and Jacob Schiff of the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., bankers and directors of the Wells Fargo Express Company, Western Union Telegraph Company and Union Pacific...
...Orth to it added the harvester and packing interests, street railroad and other public-service corporations, some of which were the clients of the founder of the league...
...Through it a hush was thrown over all...
...And the bill making it a crime to advocate disloyalty under the interpretation of some courts made disloyalty to a profiteer under government contract disloyalty to the government...
...A recent press dispatch from New York shows the governor's relation to the National Security League...
...The same report further declares that "no sooner had the League thrown off its mask of "preparedness" and was out actively in the political campaign than it made the great jump, and that was from New York to Chicago...
...Here it is: "Governor E. L. Philipp of Wisconsin has enthusiastically endorsed the National Security League's plan for turning May 1 into 'American Day,' through the holding of nation-wide, popular demonstrations of Americanism on that day, which has been the time-honored occasion for radical celebrations...
...OS, made it a crime to circulate any printed matter which "attempts to advocate" that a citizen of the state should not enlist in the army or navy, or who should advise in a meeting of more than five persons that a citizen should not enlist...
...Joseph H. Choate, deceased, former ambassador to England...
...The other bill was killed in the assembly by a vote of 38 to 26...
...But that was not the worst of it...
...Governors of states in many cases joined hands with the profiteers...
...Charles D. Orth was selected to take charge of its real activities, which unquestionably were political in nature, as will be shown later in this report...
...R. B. Price of the United Rubber Company...
...Of this league a committee of the House of Representatives after a thorough investigation declared: "It will be impracticable in a report of the length to which by necessity this must be confined to take up all of the "foreign entanglements" of the originators of the National Security League...
Vol. 12 • March 1920 • No. 3
