Page:Max Eastman's Address to the Jury in the Second Masses Trial (1918).pdf/46

 the result was that instead of getting a new mailing privilege I got an indictment, and that, I believe, is how we came into this court. We came into this court because the United States Government—the Postmaster General—has hopelessly bungled a job which is the job of every Government which goes to war—the job of handling in a businesslike and courteous way the people who are opposed to the war on political grounds, but who want to conform to the regulations and don't want to impede the military operations of the Government.

Mr. Eastman, I do not like to interrupt you, but you have no evidence to support that statement. It is just your opinion.

Yes. What I want to lead up to in that statement is merely the summary of the whole thing: First I went to Creel. Then I wrote to Creel. Then I wrote to Burleson. Then I wrote to the President. Then I went into court. Then I went to Burleson. Then I telegraphed Burleson. Then I wrote to the President again. Then I went into court again. Then I went to see Burleson. Then I wrote to Burleson. Then I wrote to him again, and I telegraphed him twice—fourteen times I appealed to the authorities, either in the courts or in Washington, to find out what my right were under this law as a Socialist who did not believe in the war as it was being conducted by the Government. And I ask you if it is reasonable to believe that I would have made these efforts to find out what my rights were as a Socialist under this law if I had been intentionally trying to break the law—trying to promote mutiny in the army, and disloyalty and refusal of duty, and to create resistors to the draft, and conspiring to obstruct enlistment