from 3,000 to 6,000, who have been taking their ease in their inn at our expense. Banded or disbanded, when the American Protective League says that law must be passed, it will be passed. And then we shall begin to have an America and not a mining camp with open doors. Hunt out Americans for your leaders. Vote for them. Where have we ever found better leaders?
The Department of Justice officials are on record to the effect that these interned aliens should not be left in this country to make future trouble and to serve actively as German agents. They were often trained propagandists; men involved in bomb plots; men who plotted against our shipping, against the transportation of our troops. We have no law by which we can punish those men further. Are they good citizens to retain? Our Department of Justice thinks not.
Among these interned prisoners are bank presidents, exporters and importers, college professors, merchants, musicians, actors, former officers of the German army and navy and merchant marine. Many of the names which have appeared in the testimony of the Senate Overman Committee appear also on the internment rolls. There are consuls, officials and noblemen, so-called, who also have been in our internment camps. Do we want them in our homes? The Department of Justice thinks otherwise.
Not less disloyal than these greater figures are thousands and hundreds of thousands of minor figures, paid or unpaid propagandists of Germany in this country during the war, pro-Germans, hyphenates, silent or outspoken, who are not Americans at all. Do we want them in our citizenship? If we cannot get rid of them, ought we to import any more of them?
Already Americans stir uneasily under the revelations of treachery within our gates. They ask of themselves,—Since these things were true but now, what guarantee have we for the future? How can America protect herself against the future treachery of so large an element of her population?
The answer to that question is very easy for bold men. Let us clean house. If the existing broom is not sufficient for that, let us make another broom. The revocation of citizenship for acts of disloyalty to this country is a reme-
