Page:Max Eastman's Address to the Jury in the Second Masses Trial (1918).pdf/42

 Merrill Rogers had been down there, and he had seen the magazine and told him to go ahead. And I may say that George Creel was a friend of mine, and a former contributor to the magazine and he knew all about it and was one of the writers in New York who was in this rebel spirit. He wrote to me and said. "Tell the boys to be as moderate as they can, and if you get into any trouble with the Post Office, write to me, and I will go over there and fix it up for you." He told me that, after this visit of Merrill Rogers, and after he had looked over the June issue.

Well Creel did not turn out to be the censor after all, but Burleson turned out to be the censor. And so we sent a letter to Burleson about the August issue, and asked, him to give us a ruling and give us definite specific terms as to what we could do, because we were socialists and some of us were against the war—and in every war in every country there are always some people against war, and the Government has to find some way to get along with them. They have to be dealt with. We knew we had to be dealt with, and so we wrote down there and said, "Tell us what to do—what our rights are," and we got no answer to our letter.

Then Merrill Rogers went down to see Burleson. I sent him. And he saw Lamar, and Lamar would not tell him anything—merely "I don't like your magazine." And he came back, and told me that the Postmaster General did not like my magazine, and that was all he could get out of them, and I ask you, as an American citizen, whether after being merely told that the Postmaster General, whom I conceived to be a reactionary southern politician, did not like my magazine I should be expected to give it up, and quit this enterprise which I had spent five years of my life trying to get afloat?