Mahlon Pitney

“ Defendants took the witness stand and severally testified, in effect, that their sole purpose was to gain converts for Socialism, not to interfere with the operation or success of the naval or military forces of the United States. But their evidence was far from conclusive, and the jury very reasonably might find-as evidently they did-that the protestations of innocence were insincere, and that the real purpose of defendants-indeed, the real object of the pamphlet-was to hamper the government in the prosecution of the war. ”

“ As this determination was to be made from the reading of the leaflet unaffected by any extrinsic evidence the question was one for the court. To hold that a jury may make punishable statements of conclusions or of opinion, like those here involved, by declaring them to be statements of facts and to be false would practically deny members of small political parties freedom of criticism and of discussion in times when feelings run high and the questions involved are deemed fundamental. ”

“ Now you call every person traitor, slacker, proenemy who will not go crazy on the subject of killing; and you have turned the whole energy of the nations of the world into the service of their kings for the purpose of killing-killing killing. ”

“ Why did you ridicule us and call us impractical dreamers when we prophesied a worldstate of fellowworkers, each man creating for the benefit of all the world, and the whole world creating for the benefit of each man? ”

“ We mean by that to say that the claim of complainants cannot be the subject of proof as of an ordinary fact; it cannot be proved as a fact to be a fraud or false pretence or promise, nor can it properly be said that those who assume to heal bodily ills or infirmities by a resort to this method of cure are guilty of obtaining money under false pretenses, such as are intended in the statutes, which evidently do not assume to deal with mere matters of opinion upon subjects which are not capable of proof as to their falsity.'
The cause of a war-as of most human action-is not single. ”

“ While the children of the poor clamor for their bread and the well to do shake their heads and wonder what on earth the poor folks are doing;
The poor folks are growling and muttering with savage sidelong glances, and are rolling up their sleeves. ”

“ Our entry into it was determined by the certainty that if the Allies do not win, J. P. Morgan's loans to the Allies will be repudiated, and those American investors who bit on his promises would be hooked.
Socialism would have settled that question; it would determine that to every producer shall be given all the value of what he produces; so that nothing would be left over for exploiters or investors.
With that great question settled there would be no cause for war.
Until the question of surplus profits is settled that way, wars will continue ”

“ War is ordinarily the result of many co-operating causes, many different conditions, acts and motives. Historians rarely agree in their judgment as to what was the determining factor in a particular war, even when they write under circumstances where detachment and the availability of evidence from all sources minimizes both prejudice and other sources of error ”

“ The fundamental right of free men to strive for better conditions through new legislation and new institutions will not be preserved, if efforts to secure it by argument to fellow citizens may be construed as criminal incitement to disobey the existing law-merely because the argument presented seems to those exercising judicial power to be unfair in its portrayal of existing evils, mistaken in its assumptions, unsound in reasoning or intemperate in language. ”

“ Averments that defendants unlawfully, willfully, or feloniously committed the forbidden acts fairly import an unlawful motive; the third count specifically avers such a motive; the conspiracy charged in the second and the willful attempt charged in the sixth necessarily involve unlawful motives.
The third and fourth objections point to no infirmity in the averments of the indictment. Whether the statements contained in the pamphlet had a natural tendency to produce the forbidden consequences, as alleged, was a question to be determined, not upon demurrer, but by the jury at the trial. ”

“ Starvation begins to stare us in the face-and we, people of the richest and most productive land on earth are told to starve ourselves yet further because our allies must be fed.
Submarines are steadily sending to the fishes millions of tons of food stuffs; and still we build more ships, and send more food, and more and more is sunk ”

“ The fourth section makes criminal a conspiracy 'to violate the provisions of sections two or three of this title,' provided one or more of the conspirators do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy. Such a conspiracy, thus attempted to be carried into effect, is none the less punishable because the conspirators fail to agree in advance upon the precise method in which the law shall be violated. It is true the averment of the conspiracy cannot be aided by the allegations respecting the overt acts. ”

“ In order to determine whether the leaflet furnishes any evidence to establish any of the above enumerated elements of the offenses charged the whole leaflet must necessarily be read. It is as follows:
THE PRICE WE PAY.
By Irwin St. John Tucker.
Conscription is upon us; the draft law is a fact!
Into your homes the recruiting officers are coming. They will take your sons of military age and impress them into the army;
Stand them up in long rows, break them into squads and platoons, teach them to deploy and wheel;
Guns will be put into their hands ”

“ Shortly after the July 11th meeting it became known that District Judge Rose had directed an acquittal in that case; and at the next meeting of the local, held July 25th, it was voted to rescind the motion 'against distributing 'The Price We Pay' and call for distributors.' Four members of the local, two of them native Americans, one a naturalized citizen, and the fourth a foreigner who had filed his first naturalization papers, volunteered as distributors. ”

“ It was distributed among civilians; and since the conviction on the first count has been abandoned here by the government, we have no occasion to consider whether the leaflet might have discouraged voluntary enlistment or obedience to the provisions of the Selective Draft Act. ”

“ Subscribe to The American Socialist, published weekly by the National Office, Socialist Party, 803 West Madison Street, Chicago, Ill., 50 cents per year, 25 cents for 6 months. It is a paper without a muzzle. ”