Untrammeled liberty of speech from the man in the street usually is not seriously regarded unless the utterances transcend the limitations of decency and rational patriotism. But the voice from the academic halls which speaks words inimical to the well-being of the Government and its people is a dangerous voice.

President Wilson is not alone in observing a certain recrudescence of dangerous influences in certain quarters. Enemy propagandists in American public institutions should be given short shrift whenever their iniquitous and sinister activities become evident.

No one would abridge the right of free speech. Academic freedom of speech is closely related to general freedom of speech, with this difference: There may be reasons, more or less substantial, why a man should not be permitted utmost liberty of speech in institutions sustained by public or private funds. The organic law does not contemplate the surrender of the right of free speech by men in public institutions, but its right interpretation does place on all such men a higher that ordinary responsibility to the Government and the people. The wings of thought are not to be clipped by rules or conventions, nor crippled by traditions, but speech, the sovereign vehicle of thought, must be curbed properly if the destiny of the nation is to be worked out along lines designed by the founders of the Republic.

Our universities are not asked to discourage freedom of speech; rather they are asked to encourage it. But license must not be substituted for freedom in academic any more than in popular utterance. Radical propagandists in universities or in the market place, whether they are spreading their doctrines boldly or surreptitiously should be suppressed. Any man, or group of men, thinking a Republic founded on that of Russia is preferable to this free land of ours, should be promptly deported.