EXECUTIVE PERSECUTION

The Wheeler Defense Committee, an impromptu organization with the purpose of helping the senator from Montana to protect himself from the machinations of the Department of Justice, is soliciting the nation at large for funds. Although this appeal probably will not meet a very great material response from American undergraduates for reasons which reflect not at all on the worth of the cause, it deserves at least their sympathy and moral support.

If ever a man were persecuted in an enlightened age of justice, Senator Wheeler is that man. When the leader of the Senate probe of the alleged corruption of the Department of Justice was first named in a federal indictment in his home state, it seemed outrageously patent to most people that the district attorney was not serving the simple ends of justice but following the dictates of a higher authority, seeking revenge. The Borah investigating committee cleared Senator Wheeler of the charges against him, but such an acquittal did not satisfy this higher power. The persecution continued,--this time in the Great Falls trial, which terminated recently, and, in which the methods of the persecution brought forth the almost unanimous condemnation of the American press. Wheeler was acquitted by a jury of his neighbors, and a disgraceful incident seemed closed.

But far from being closed the persecution of Senator Wheeler has reached a third stage more serious perhaps than either of the two that have gone before. A new indictment technically based on different grounds has been brought against the Senator, so that he must again face trial, not in Great Falls among his neighbors and constituents, but in Washington, 2500 miles away from the scene of his alleged crimes. There is every reason to believe that the perjured testimony which distinguished the last trial will again be offered by the prosecution, but in the new trial it will be received by minds less friendly to the Senator, and, if the hopes of the Department of Justice are well-founded, less likely to revolt against its injustice.

The intense activity of the Department of Justice in the Wheeler case is all the more unnatural when placed beside its former record in the prosecutions of Fall, Sinclair, and Doheny. In these instances such was the incompetence of the government that no indictment was framed which could hold water, and men whom the whole nation believed guilty went scot-free. Today the man who was responsible for the discovery of their guilt is pursued with ruthless energy. If this persecution is successful Senator Wheeler's political career will be forever ruined. Whatever its outcome, his financial resources are certain to be exhausted in the expense of conducting three defenses. Only the charity of the country can save him. That charity, if expended, will not only keep Senator Wheeler from bankruptey, but will destroy the new and dangerous precedent of using the executive departments of the Government for personal or party revenge.