In European Courts there
was vindictive illegality: in American Courts there was raving
lunacy. It is not for me to chronicle the extravagances of an
Ally: let some candid American do that. I can only say that to us
sitting in our gardens in England, with the guns in France making
themselves felt by a throb in the air as unmistakeable as an
audible sound, or with tightening hearts studying the phases of
the moon in London in their bearing on the chances whether our
houses would be standing or ourselves alive next morning, the
newspaper accounts of the sentences American Courts were passing
on young girls and old men alike for the expression of opinions
which were being uttered amid thundering applause before huge
audiences in England, and the more private records of the methods
by which the American War Loans were raised, were so amazing that
they put the guns and the possibilities of a raid clean out of
our heads for the moment.
The Rabid Watchdogs of Liberty
Not content with these rancorous abuses of the existing law, the
war maniacs made a frantic rush to abolish all constitutional
guarantees of liberty and well-being. The ordinary law was
superseded by Acts under which newspapers were seized and their
printing machinery destroyed by simple police raids a la Russe,
and persons arrested and shot without any pretence of trial by
jury or publicity of procedure or evidence.
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