Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Sep 3, 1903

An order has been issued at the government printing office by Public Printer Palmer requiring the employees in the office to take the oath of allegiance to the United States government, as is required of clerks under the civil service law. While the public printer explains that this action is merely in accordance with civil service regulations, it is believed that it is meant to have an important bearing on the issue which has been raised by the recent disturbance in that department growing out of the attempted removal of Foreman Miller by the labor union members in the office. Mr. Miller was reinstated by order of President Roosevelt, and has been retained in spite of a threat by the labor union to inaugurate a strike which would tie up the government printing plant. Such a strike, if it should be ordered now, would be a more serious affair for those engaged in it than would have been the case before they had taken the oath of allegiance. The president has declared that the laws of the United States are superior to the laws of labor unions, and the order requiring the oath of allegiance from labor union members is regarded as signifying that he has taken his stand firmly on this ground. But as labor unions have never been known to regard any other interests as being superior to theirs, it is not to be expected that they will refrain from striking on account of this oath, or that peace between them and the government is thereby assured. There can be no peace unless one of the parties concerned shall recede from the principles which have hitherto governed its course of action.

In a letter to Governor Durbin of Indiana, commending his firmness in repressing the lynching mob in Evansville, President Roosevelt makes statements showing that in his view the spread of lawlessness threatens the greatest possible calamity that could befall the nation. He says:—

Surely no patriot can fail to see the fearful brutalization and debasement which the indulgence of such a spirit and such practices inevitably portend. Surely all public men, all writers for the daily press, all clergymen, all teachers, all who in any way have a right to address the public, should with every energy unite to denounce such crimes, and to support those engaged in putting them down.

. . . The corner-stone of this republic, as of all free governments, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by black man or white, we are by just so much weakening the bonds of our civilization, and increasing the chances of its overthrow and of the substitution therefor of a system in which there shall be violent alternations of anarchy and tyranny.

Such is the result that is threatened, but to point out the fact is not to provide a remedy for the danger. The mob spirit has sprung up in the land, and of late has been spreading everywhere like a pestilence which no quarantine could control. Will it die out? or will it spread more and more until free government is overthrown, and in its place there comes a despotism with “violent alternations of anarchy and tyranny”? Men talk hopefully of the future, but who has the wisdom to assure us that his words will come true? Only those can calmly face the future who can say from the heart, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.” Ps. 46:1, 2.