1917] Persecutions under Espionage Act 



if any German spies were taken through its opera- 

 tions, but the lives and properties of loyal Americans 

 were placed in jeopardy if some among their neigh- 

 bors were unscrupulous enough to frame any sort of 

 denunciation. One district attorney, himself a man 

 of character and ability, whose duty it was to prose- 

 cute under the Act, said to me that by means of it 

 the government "could ruin any man/' It was 

 particularly used to break the lives of young men 

 who (in Thoreau's words) "do not keep step with 

 their companions because they hear a different 

 drummer." 



From time to time during the course of 1917 and 

 1918, I underwent annoyances from superheated or heated 



111 i i iii/- patnot- 



superserviceable heresy-hunters, but hundreds of ism a 

 other men suffered more grievously than I. Abroad P roduct 

 the struggle for democracy also counted its victims; 

 hysterical intolerance is a natural product of war. 

 In England Liberal papers were muzzled, and the 

 most outspoken of them, The Nation, Common 

 Sense, Cambridge Magazine, Labour Leader, and War 

 and Peace, were prohibited from circulation outside 

 of Great Britain itself. Meanwhile the Defense of 

 the Realm Act (popularly known as D.O.R.A. or 

 "Dora") was turned with ruthless malice against 

 protesting minorities or even against those who 

 might be expected to protest on principle, whether 

 they did so or not. It was to this situation that 

 Francis Neilson 1 referred when he said to me: "If 

 ever America goes into the war, you will see here all 

 the intolerance, bigotry, and cruelty shown in Eng- 

 land." 



1 See Chapter XLII, page 478. 



