Page:Max Eastman's Address to the Jury in the Second Masses Trial (1918).pdf/27

 tory only, I desire that it may be known that you have not proceeded in your course unadmonished and unforewarned."

Now one of the things that has been advanced as particularly showing our un-American and disloyal intent, is that we attacked the Government in time of war. I want to show you how Daniel Webster attacked the Government—and he said these things not only in Congress but out of Congress and all the time, because he believed them. He said, "It is time for Congress to examine and decide for itself. It has taken things on trust long enough. It has followed executive recommendation till there remains no hope of finding safety in that path. What is there, sir, that makes it the duty of this people now to grant new confidence to the administration and to surrender their most important rights to its discretion? When it calls thus loudly for the treasure and lives of the people; what pledge does it offer that it will not waste all in the same preposterous pursuits which have hitherto engaged it?"

I call that blocking the subscriptions to the Liberty Loan—"The same preposterous pursuits which have hitherto engaged it." And then he declares that the conscription law is unconstitutional, and it has been so held ever since that declaration of his up to May, 1916. He says, "Is this, sir, consistent with the character of a free Government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our Constitution? No, sir, indeed it is not. The Constitution is libelled, foully libelled. The people of this country have not established for themselves such a fabric of despotism. They have not purchased at a vast expense of their own treasure and their own blood a Magna Charta to be slaves. Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents