Source: The Call 29th December 1918, p.1
Transcription: Ted Crawford
HTML Markup: Brian Reid
Copyleft: John Maclean Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2007. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
The following letter has been sent by John Maclean to the American President:—
Mr. Woodrow Wilson, President U.S.A.
Sir, — You are here in Europe to negotiate a “Democratic Peace,” as a Democrat. If so, I wish you to prove your sincerity by releasing Tom Mooney, Eugene Debs, Wm. Haywood, and all the others at present in prison as a consequence of their fight for “Working-class Democracy” since the United States participated in the war.
The Working-class Democracy of Britain forced the Cabinet to release me from Peterhead Prison where I was undergoing a five years' sentence under D.O.R.A.
I therefore write you, as an ease to my conscience and a repayment to the “World’s Working-class Democracy,” to release my above-mentioned friends and comrades. The Clyde workers will send me as one of their delegates to the coming Peace Conference, and there, inside or outside the Conference Hall, I shall challenge your U.S.A. delegates if my friends are not released.
After that I shall tour America until you do justice to the real American champions of Democracy.
Yours in deadly earnest,
JOHN MACLEAN,
42 Auldhouse Road,
Newlands,
Glasgow.