THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES THE conscription feature of the aviation bill, appropriating $640,000,000 for the extension of the aeroplane service in the war, occasioned a spirited debate in...
...but if this bill should pass as it passed the House of Representatives he would also be authorized to draft as many additional men into the military service in the United States as would be required to carry out the provisions of this bill...
...There is no limitation upon what may be paid for aeroplanes under this bill...
...I thought, when the question was before the Senate, that we would be absolutely forced to declare war on Germany...
...Reverses American Policies ''STARTING out to destroy Prussianism, it is as-' serted that we must Prussianize this country in order to accomplish it...
...He has got a right to do it, and to deny his paper the privileges of the mail for publishing his thoughts violate the spirit and letter of the Constitution and the very genius of our Government...
...I am not afraid to ^rust the people to attend to their own public business...
...I still have faith in the patriotism of the American people...
...Mr...
...I also have noticed, as suggested by the Senator from Oregon in the report made by the House committee this statement with reference to the point I am raising: Section 3 authorizes the President to raise and maintain an additional enlisted force in this particular service, either by voluntary en-ment or by draft...
...I do not agree with much that some of these papers say, but I deny the right of any officer, from President down to constable, to proscribe, limit, or abridge the right of free speech...
...The excluding from the mails of certain newspapers that are guilty of no offense except the exercise of the blood-bought privilege of an honest patriotic citizen to express his convictions on governmental and social questions...
...Undoubtedly under the law already passed the President could detail, or the military authorities could detail, for the service of the Signal Corps or many branch of it, including the Aviation Service, any of the men who were conscripted for military service...
...Senators may rest assured that they will fight it, if we ougnt to,have a war at all...
...So long as it remains such, although it be-came such against my will and without my vote, I yield to its provisions that implicjt obedience that every good citizen owes to every law of the land, whether he approved its enactment or not, so long as it does remain the law of the land...
...Any one of the men who may be conscripted under the existing laws can, as I have already stated, be assigned to this service, anyway...
...President, that it will be an unhappy day for America when her citizens are denied the right to express their sincere and honest thoughts about public questions...
...6,000, and $7,000, jumping up now to ten, twelve, fourteen, twenty thousand dollars, and I have seen in the public press a statement that this sum—-$640,000,000—will buy some 22,000 aeroplanes, when, in point of fact, on any rea-able basis it ought to buy many times that number...
...really, they have had a little more, 1 think, than they relish...
...Senator Hard wick, addressing the senate, said: "Mr...
...but that being expended by the Congress...
...The tyranny of the Prussian despot is out of place in this Republic, and the methods of the despot can not last long among free people, and he who undertakes to transplant that noxious social weed upon American soil will find that it will grow up to clog his pathway and lacerate his feet...
...1 am not willing to sit here and impose taxes upon the people of the United States without any limitation whatever and leave no adequate safeguard to protect the people of this country against departmental or indirect, graft of any kind...
...It was very gratifying to me to see from the newspapers a day or two ago the manifestations of Independence and patriotic courage on the part of our brethren across the border in Canada...
...Senator Owen contended that the contracts entered into for the manufacture of aeroplanes should be reviewed by a committee to be named by the president...
...The public servant, from the President of the United States down to the most insignificant officer in the State, wfll make a grea* mistake, even during the stress of war, to refuse to listen to the voices of the men and the women whose toil produces the wealth of the country, maintains its commerce in time of peace, and fights its battles in time of war...
...I would rather that our people be hungry than that their patriotism and their honor should be questioned...
...I do not see any needconduct...
...President, a feature of this bill which I think ought not to be overlooked is the failure to provide in it any adequate method in which to protect the interest of the United States in the making of these contracts involving $640,000,000...
...President, this Is a Government which ought to derive all of its just powers from the consent of the governed, and it should also be a Government of the people, by the people, and for the people...
...For the defense of this country, if it is conceivable that such a tiling were necessary, I would draft American manhood from the cradle to the grave...
...It is their government...
...I saw no escape from it...
...think we have had enough conscription in this country for the time...
...Vardamann's Speech Senator Vardaman, addressing the Senate, said: "Mr...
...There is a limit even to the possibility of response of the people of the United States if we do not adequately safeguard- these expenditures...
...Opposes Conscription ''T'HE conscription act is the law of the land...
...People Will Fight ''A LL the patriotism of the country, thank God, is not possessed by the men who hold Federal offices in Washington, clip coupons in Wall Street, or who held commissions in the Regular Standing Army of the United States...
...Mr...
...The American people have grown to their present greatness, to their present power by the application of American ideas and American, ideals to lives and Personal liberty, individual freedom, competition, are among the greatest and most powerful factors in all this world's affairs...
...Have we abandoned the principle of selective conscription...
...There is no danger, no harm is to come, from the free and full discussion of all public questions, and I think the closing of the mails against such publications is unwarranted, and the further effort to put a padlock on the mouths of the free men of this country at this time is unfortunate in the extreme, and it will recoil upon those who do it...
...I dispute that...
...They contended that the use of conscripiton in the aviation serviac was indefensible...
...President...
...of unnecessarily going any further along that line...
...Of course, if these airships are needed in the war, we have got to have .-iem...
...I would with great pleasure, in spite of the very large amou'nt of money involved, support this bill if it could be disentangled from this fundamental objection which I have to the conscription system...
...but I find it utterly impossible to vote now, as I found it utterly impossible to vote then, to apply the conscription principle to the people of this country...
...President, as pointed out by the Senator from Oregon, it is unnecessary that that question should be injected Into this bUL I think we have enough conscription already...
...I believe that there are enough patriots left who will readily volunteer to render any service necessary to the triumphant success of the Nation's cause...
...We have seen aeroplanes selling in this country for $5,000...
...The men of America have suffered the treatment usually accorded subjects rather than citizens quite enough...
...But I would not oppose the bill or vote against it on account of the amount of money it carries...
...Has it come to pass that in proposing this bill the War Department is willing that men shall volunteer, when it contended not very long ago that it was the most stupendous folly to permit it...
...I can' not now, as I could then, support any measure which proposes such a thing...
...is their inalienable right to know what their public servants are doing and to express their opinion, either In praise or in condemnation of the work of the publ^ officer...
...President, here is a proposed appropriation of $640,000,000—a gigantic sum, enough to stagger the imagination of any human being...
...No matter what might have been done to avert it at some time prior to the time when this war issue was forced upon us, at that time we had drifted into a position where ^.ermany had fired upon our flag and murdered our peaceful and inoffensive citizens upon the high seas, and we could not, unless we were willing to surrender nationality itself, according to my judgment fail to protect our citizens or fail to declare the war that we did declare...
...They are protesting against certain acts of injustice—of petty tyranny—on the part of the government, and they have a right to do it...
...Mr...
...Chamberlain) has said I am in partial agreement only...
...It is not treachery in a newspaper editor to express his disapproval of anything that the Congress or the President has done since the beginning of this war...
...most responsive to the public needs, which Is public sentiment crystallized...
...I earnestly hope, therefore, that we may strike those three words from the bill, so that Senators who are conscientiously opposed, fundamentally opposed, to this proposition may not have to vote against a bill which tuey favor because of the unwise and unnecessary intrusion o£ this question into this measure...
...Just think of it, Mr...
...President, $30 per family when there are thousands of families in the United States the squalor of whose home is made more horrible and the suffering intensitied by the wail of little children weeping for bread...
...and if the cause is a righteous cause they will shed their blood in defense of that cause, and if it is not a righteous cause they have got a right to demand that the cause for which they are asked to fight and die shall be a righteous cause...
...In the first place, I am fundamentally opposed, on principle, to the drafting of anyone for military service Outside of This Couxtby...
...Senator Owen's Comment SENATOR Owen of Oklahoma said: "Mr...
...and I want to say, Mr...
...1 therefore can not vote for this bill if this provision remains in it...
...I stated my position as plainly as I could to the Senate when the law which we passed on the subject was under consideration...
...but it looks like a pretty heavy burden upon the toiler when you realize that for this purpose, and this alone, a tax of about ?30 for the head of every family in the United States is levied...
...President, with what the Senator from Oregon (Mr...
...and, for one, I am utterly unable to see how Senators can hope-r-aad eay this with all deference to their opinions, for I know that many of them honestly entertain the other opinion—how Senators can hope that in a moment we can reverse the processes of American thought, the habits of American life, abandon the traditions of the American people, and fight a war more successfully, more gloriously, more effectively, than we could if we fought !t naturally, and as free men, who are willing, yea, anxious, to give their blood to its last drop to uphold the national honor and to provide tor the national safety...
...I have always been in favor of permitting the American people to volunteer to fight this war or any other war in wnica this country may be engaged...
...President, to that I am opposed for several reasons, which I think it my duty to the Senate and to the country to state...
...President, if we allow 200, 300, 400, or 500 per cent profit in the construction of these aeroplanes this $640,000,000 will soon be gone and we will be called on to appropriate more money and .:npose more taxes on the people of this country...
...President, my own fixed and unalterable conviction is that to draft a freeman for military service on a foreign soil is utterly incompatible with freedom...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES THE conscription feature of the aviation bill, appropriating $640,000,000 for the extension of the aeroplane service in the war, occasioned a spirited debate in the senate...
...Why, Mr...
...We have in the history of past wars every reason to know that human nattire Is open to temptation under extraordinary opportunity for making gains, and while I have every reasonable respect for our present organization of the National Council of Defense and its advisory committees, confide in them and believe in them, at the same time I do not feel willing to leave the doors wide open to have our officers, overtaxed as they wtn be, subjected to the hypnotic influence or the argumentation or the statement of alleged facts which may persuade them to enter into contracts that may be grievously unjust to the taxpayers of the United States...
...but, Mr...
...I believe that is the best law...
...With this conscript provision eliminated, I shall vote for the bill, notwithstanding the fact that I think the amount carried is ridiculously large...
...It may be that the patriotism which glorified the hearts of the fathers of the Republic is no longer in the heart of the present generation, but I shall not believe it until it is proven by their own recreancy...
...Senators LA Follette, Hard wick, and Vardaman objected to the provision of the measure authorizing the president to "maintain an additional enlisted force in the service either by volun-tary enlistment or by draft...
...I regarded it then, as I regard it now, as wholly unnecessary and wholly unwise, as well as wholly un-American...
...I say that with a great deal of reluctance, because with the exception of the three words which I have moved to strike out, namely, "and by draft," and of the proviso on the same subject that follows it in a line or two down in the same section, I am heartily for this bill, and would support it with more pleasure than any proposal that has yet been submitted to the Congress of the United States in connection with tne prosecution of this war...
...I am not going to delay the Senate in the final disposition of this bill by anything that I may do or say, but 1 will not vote for any measure which provides for compulsory military service...
...Mr...
...Having declared it, I am willing to go as far as any man in this Republic will go in order to wage it adequately, but I am not willing to take any man's dictum that we must do certain things that violate every American principle in order to wage it adequately...
...He maintained that for contractors to make a profit of from 300 to 500 per cent on this work would not be tolerated by the people...
...I am going to insist in this instance, as I have done in the past, that the patriotic Americans be given the opportunity to volunteer their services in this particular line of work without compulsion...
Vol. 9 • June 1917 • No. 7
