I
will not read it all.
(The caucus requests him to read it all.)
It is sent out to the press and to everyone. Here is a book that has
the expressions before the court that all these men made and they
stand on that as being proper.
"This letter says: 'The committee who sends you this letter are, for
the most part, near relatives or close friends of young men now
serving long terms in the disciplinary barracks at Fort Leavenworth
because of loyalty of principle. Nearly all of them are your fellow
workers and except for those in what we call the religious
group,--trade unionists--the public knows little of their unhappy
fate, even less than the other political or labor prisoners because
they have been sent to prison by military court-martials and some have
not even had the hostile publicity of a public trial in court.
"'The war is over; whether these men were right or wrong, they were
utterly sincere. Even military prejudice has to concede that, and the
sufferings they have unflinchingly borne prove it many times over, but
the point for the country to get just now is that right or wrong, they
cannot now have any adverse effect upon the military policy of the
Government to keep them in prison.' Here is the dangerous thing--'We
are trying to educate public opinion, and particularly labor opinion,
to the point where it will demand the release of these brave and
sincere young men.
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