The Brattleboro Daily Reformer

The government has begun to strike back at the heart of the anti-war propaganda. Its officers have entered the headquarters of the Industrial Workers of the World and other organizations from which treason has flowed and taken possession of their belongings.

The attorney general of the United States has given assurance that those who have been engaged in treasonable work will be indicted. Treason is to be made odious. The full power of the government will be exercised for its suppression.

The people of the country have been eagerly waiting for energetic action against these elements of disloyalty. This sore has been festering long enough, and needed to be cut out, for it menaced the health of the body politic.

It is too much to hope, perhaps, that anti-war propaganda will be made to cease altogether, for there is some of it in places of high authority. Seats in the Congress of the United States are occupied by men who take no shame in proclaiming it. The time is coming when they too will have to hide their diminished heads, though they are beyond the reach of prosecution. They will be pilloried with the Benedict Arnolds of the Revolutionary war and the Clement L. Vallandighams of the Civil War, if they continue in the error of their ways.

As for those whose pro-German activities have been exercised through the conspiracies of such organizations as the Industrial Workers of the World, the government has manifested its intention of putting them out of business. The risks are to be made too great for an open flaunting of hostility. They will have to go into hiding and their intrigues will be so circumscribed as to have small chance of being successfully carried out.

This anti-war propaganda is so revolting to the loyal sentiment of the country that the government could not do otherwise than to put all its energies to work to stop it. It is heartening to see that it has been alive to the situation, and that it proposes to deal with treason in the sternest way.