Page:The web (1919).djvu/360

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in language too foul to print, and seemed to think that no one in this country would resent anything he said. When called down by a loyal citizen, he dared anybody to make him stop talking. He said that England started the war and had an agreement with Belgium whereby England could go through Belgium in order to strike at Germany. He said England sunk a great many boats and then blamed it on the German submarines. He said that England sent one hundred and fifty newspaper men here to write up stories against the Germans; that he hoped the submarines would blow up every damned American boat on the ocean, and sink all the transports and ships carrying munitions; that the men the Yankees had in France in March, 1918, did not amount to anything; that the United States couldn't make him fight; that this —— —— Government was rotten to the core. He made other remarks of like violent nature, and his remarks against the President of the United States were coupled with such language that swift hanging would really have been about the only just punishment for him. He was arrested and undertook to deny the remarks reported against him. The jury found him guilty. He was sent to prison for three years. He ought by all means to be deported when he gets out of jail, and so ought any German in this country who has been found at any time to be guilty of any such talk. We do not need that sort of "citizens" in America, and we are not going to have them here.

There was another case, No. 300, in peaceful San Diego, in which the suspect seemed anxious to spread broadcast every manner of pro-German propaganda. He had been a naturalized citizen of this country for twenty years, and through his position in one of the city banks, he had been closely associated with many of San Diego's leading business men. Yet, still deep in his heart was that love for the Fatherland which made him willing to fight this free country where he claimed citizenship and where he had all the benefits of our too weakly-lenient Government. It finally dawned on the minds of some of the customers of the bank that this man was not right. A. P. L. was called on to investigate him and worked on the case for months. The man was finally taken into custody, and the issue was joined between the United States Government on the one hand and