The Project Gutenberg eBook of How much bolshevism is there in America?
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: How much bolshevism is there in America?
Author: Arno Dosch-Fleurot
Release date: May 12, 2024 [eBook #73613]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The World, 1921
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Brian Wilson, Bryan Ness, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW MUCH BOLSHEVISM IS THERE IN AMERICA? ***
How Much Bolshevism Is There in America?
By ARNO DOSCH-FLEUROT
(_World European Staff Correspondent_)
Who Has Lived for Years Under the Bolsheviki in Russia and Has Just
Completed a Tour Over the United States Studying Social Unrest
_The Dosch-Fleurot Articles Appeared in The World Jan. 16, 17, 18, 19,
20._
_Also a Series of Articles Entitled_:
“Russia From the Inside”
_By HECTOR BOON._
A New York Business Man, Recently Returned From a Long Stay and
Extensive Travel in Russia
_Published by_
[Illustration: The World]
_New York, January, 1921_
_The Hector Boon Articles Appeared in The World Jan. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14._
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
PRESS PUBLISHING CO.
(NEW YORK WORLD)
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Mr. Dosch-Fleurot travelled about the country to see how much Bolshevism
he could find. He has been trying to determine how much effect the
social revolution in Europe has had upon America. Returning to New York,
he has written five articles:
In No. 1 he contrasts the industrial situation in this rich country to
the war-impoverished countries of Europe.
In No. 2 he tells how much Bolshevism he found and how much he did not
find.
In No. 3 he gives a new picture of what the industrial unrest in America
is and explains the efforts to organize labor industrially instead of in
trades.
No. 4 goes into the question of industrial peace and how it can be
reached by “industrial councils.”
No. 5 shows how the farmers’ organizations are succeeding in doing what
the “proletariat” has not been able to do in the way of organizing
industrial unions.
❧
ARNO DOSCH-FLEUROT
Mr. Dosch-Fleurot needs no introduction to the American public. He may
be called an expert on Bolshevism, as he was the only American
correspondent in Petrograd when the revolution broke out in March, 1917,
against the Imperial Government. He remained throughout the
Lenine-Trotzky revolution until the dictatorship of the proletariat was
firmly established in the fall of 1918. In addition to this remarkable
experience, he reported for The World the first vital six months of the
German revolution, when the Spartacists attempted repeatedly to upset
the Ebert-Noske Government. His careful and faithful studies of social
conditions abroad during the period of the war, travelling in Russia,
Germany, Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Greece,
the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, France and Great Britain, have been
features of The World’s news for the past two years.
Mr. Dosch-Fleurot recently has been appointed The World’s chief
correspondent for Germany and Central Europe, with headquarters in
Berlin. His despatches will be regular features of The World.
❧
AMERICA’S WAR-BORN WEALTH INSURANCE AGAINST SPREAD OF BOLSHEVIST TAINT
HERE
Study of Conditions in Various Sections of the United States, From the
Point of View of Europe, Convinces Arno Dosch-Fleurot That Same
Problems of Unrest Do Not Affect Our Workmen and Ground Is Not
Fertile for Insurrection—Prosperity of Workingmen Cause for
Thanksgiving Rather Than Complaint.
_The biggest questions in industrial, social, political and economic
life in America are_:
=Is Bolshevism finding root here?=
=Is America facing a political revolution?=
=Are we tainted by the vast social unrest now so characteristic of
England, of all Europe, as well as Asia?=
=What impulses common to those countries are to be found in our labor
structure?=
_In an effort to throw light an these vital matters, The World brought
Arno Dosch-Fleurot back from Europe, where he has been the last four
years, to make an investigation. The results of his extensive inquiry,
covering the past three months, during which he has visited those
centres of activity from which he could best obtain first hand
information, are set forth in five articles._
_By Arno Dosch-Fleurot._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
For the past three years I have been living in the midst of the social
revolution in Europe. A great deal of it has been active revolution,
with the machine guns in the streets. During this time I have often
wondered how much of this unrest was being communicated to America or
how much we were developing here on our own account.
Looking at America from the point of view of Europe, particularly
Eastern Europe, I have wanted to know—
=First—How the Bolshevik revolution in Russia affected America.=
=Second—Whether the class war into which the World War developed had
hit America too.=
=Third—How the United States was readjusting itself to the inevitable
social changes.=
At the time the Bolsheviki seized the power in Russia, we Americans who
were there used to say to one another as we discussed the industrial and
social problems that faced the world, “At home we are going to work this
thing out another way.”
Are We Working Out the Problems in Another Way?
For several weeks I have been able to search for the answers to my own
questions. I have been going about the United States studying the social
and industrial unrest. To some of my questions I have answers which are
satisfactory, at least to myself. Behind others I must still leave
interrogation points. In addition I have seen things I had not thought
of, some of them tranquilizing, others disquieting.
In this and the succeeding articles I shall give my impressions of the
unrest in America and its significance from my point of view.
=In the first place, I am overwhelmed by our wealth. I had been away
long enough to forget how rich we were, and we have in the mean while
grown much richer. That fact is of prime importance. Being rich, there
is not the gruelling struggle for existence that makes the problems of
unrest in Europe dangerous. It eases off enormously on whatever strain
there might otherwise be.=
Everywhere I turn, in every city, every street, every shop, every home,
there is so much wealth it is hard to believe. After Europe one would be
inclined to say we are disgustingly rich, if the new-wealth, in spite of
the war fortunes, were not so widely distributed. I hear people complain
that workmen have been making so much money they have been buying
themselves $10 silk shirts and their wives are wearing $50 hats.
It does not seem to me a cause for complaint. Rather it would appear to
be cause for thanksgiving that such things can be. =I have myself seen
factory workmen, men who make their living with their hands, men who
belong to unions, going to work in their own automobiles. I should like
to tell that to some workmen of my acquaintance in Moscow.=
Wealth Obscures Depression.
Even though the country is going through an industrial depression there
is so much money about that a casual traveller would not know it.
In Detroit, where 150,000 factory workmen have been laid off, it is
interesting to see how little difference it has made in the daily life
of this city of a million. Half the families in the city are affected,
but they have money and go on spending it. I could not believe so many
people could be out of work without evident sign of suffering somewhere,
but I spent half a day unsuccessfully trying to find a soup kitchen or a
bread line in Detroit.
Yes, we are rich, and that has spared us much. But with wealth have come
pride and intolerance. I was in a measure prepared for this, but I did
not expect to find it generally accepted as right and proper.
George Russell, the Irish writer, said to me just before I came home:
“War is an exchange of characteristics. You have been fighting
Prussians. You may find America full of Prussianism.”
I should have thought our sense of liberty were proof against
contamination, but apparently not. As the first sign of Prussianism we
seem to have curtailed free speech. In a dozen cities where I have been
a man need only get on a soap-box and he will land in jail. The corner
orators who used to act as safety valves for over-heated brains don’t
dare show themselves. Men have gone to jail for reading sections from
the Declaration of Independence. I admit they did it with mocking or
malicious intent, but what of it? Since when, has the democracy of
America grown so weak it needs policemen to protect it? In the West a
man need only carry an I. W. W. card in his pocket to get arrested. They
say in Seattle, “The Red Squad has driven the cards into the shoes.”
There are 3,000 “Reds” in jail for various causes. The most important
ones are serving long prison sentences.
There seems to be a common impression that the Imprisonment of “Reds” is
suppressing Bolshevism in the United States. =My observations lead me to
the belief the only chance of revolution, and that not immediate, might
come from continuing to keep these men in prison.= Those who are under
prison sentence were convicted under the extraordinary conditions
developed by war. These extraordinary conditions no longer exist, but
these men are still under sentence. =The longer they stay in prison the
stronger grows the resentment at their imprisonment. I find an
undercurrent of bitterness, not very wide but deep, that can breed
trouble.= The small minority that is thinking about revolution is
thinking about it hard. If these so-called revolutionists were turned
loose without further ado, under a general amnesty, it would ease off on
that hard thinking and would be helpful to the liberal movement in
industry that is trying to “work this thing out another way.”
The same spirit in the country which is backing the red squads of the
police seems to be actuating a Nation-wide, open-shop campaign. Men with
any liberalism at all—and there are liberals managing great
industries—are not in favor of either. They do not want the closed shop,
but the ruthless way many employers’ associations and groups of
associated industries are trying to use the present reaction as well as
the existing depression to “break the back of labor” is regarded by them
as the madness of power and wealth.
I find only two groups of rebels against democracy who view with favor
this knock-down-and-drag-out fight for the open shop. I might call them
roughly Bolshevik employers and Bolshevik employees.
As I travelled about the country I found that the active advocates of
the open shop frequently referred to it as “the American plan.” The
employers’ association which is pushing it also has a way of
ostentatiously flying the Stars and Stripes. This is particularly
noticeable in the mining communities where there are large bodies of
foreign laborers. At first I could not understand how one group of
Americans came to have the temerity to arrogate to themselves the word
“American.” Then I discovered it was a survival of the war period. In
fighting the Prussian we have adopted some of the Prussian’s
disagreeable characteristics. The war is over, but we have licked
militarist blood. What surprises me most is how few people recognize the
danger of it. The phrase “American plan” has been allowed to stand
without protest, though it practically says to union men who are just as
good Americans as the members of employers’ associations that they are
not Americans if they persist in their union ideas. It is not difficult
to imagine how this is misused in the daily contact between workman and
boss. It cannot help but do harm.
In Butte I was walking along the street with some labor leaders, bound
for their headquarters. Thinking we had reached it, I started to turn
into a building over which the Stars and Stripes were flying. “That’s
not it,” said one of them. “Don’t you see the flag of the American
plan?”
No Serious Bolshevism Here.
=And yet there is no serious Bolshevism in the United States, I have
been looking for it, and I have not been able to trace a consistent
effort at a Bolshevik movement. There are no doubt enough people who
believe in Bolshevism who would like to start a Bolshevik movement—but
they have not been able to do it. At least they have not succeeded in
starting it among wage-paid workmen, and there is no other place to
start it.=
There is, however, something which is called Bolshevism, and, as it is
also rebellious against the existing order of society, it has been
labelled Bolshevik, but it is really something different. I refer to the
rather crude and unscientific but active, anarcho-syndicalism of the
Industrial Workers of the World.
The two have been confused even by some of the leaders of the I. W. W.,
so it is not surprising that the general public, not to mention the Red
squads of the police, have not always been able to make the distinction;
but the difference is there and is of sufficient importance to prevent
the growth of Bolshevism.
Bolshevism, by which is ment the idea that lies behind the Bolshevik
Government in Moscow, is a long way from the One Big Union—the effective
idea behind the I. W. W. Bolshevism has proved to be state Socialism in
action. The I. W. W. is anarcho-syndicalism trying to make headway in
industry.
=But even the I. W. W. is not getting anywhere. It may some day, because
it has a broader philosophy than Bolshevism behind it and because it is
aiding in the movement toward industrial unionism, which is making some
headway. But as an immediate revolutionary movement the I. W. W. is
powerless before the powerful forces that oppose it.=
=Chief of these is the American Federation of Labor. The I. W. W. has
never even had a chance to play a serious role in the United States
because the A. F. of L. has fought it consistently since its inception
fifteen years ago.=
Industrial unionism, when revolutionary in purpose, even when developed
apart from the I. W. W., has met the same opposition. If there had been
no system of craft unionism in this country there might have been
industrial unionism in this country long ago. Certainly the I. W. W.
would have had a much freer hand. In that case the employers of the
United States would, like the employers of Europe, have been faced with
labor syndicates instead of labor unions, and that is a very different
story.
In Europe labor leaders look upon the American Federation of Labor as
almost a part of the capitalist system. Rumors that the big American
industrials were trying to break the power of the A. F. of L. had come
to Europe before I left and it could hardly be credited. The syndicalist
labor leaders could not understand why the American manufacturers were
fighting their ally.
Since I have been travelling about the United States I have also found
many employers of labor who can also not understand why there is this
vicious open-shop campaign. The industrial manager of one of the
greatest industries in the world said to me hotly:
“=If Judge Gary and Wall Street knew what they were leading to they
would stop this anti-union campaign. They are trying to break down the
conservative American Federation of Labor. If they succeed in destroying
the power of Gompers they will remove the only barrier that stands
between us and a real revolutionary labor movement, industrial
unionism.=”
Just how revolutionary industrial unionism is I shall examine later on,
but it is certainly much more revolutionary than the A. F. of L. And as
the craft unions of the A. F. of L. find it increasingly harder to
breathe under the smothering process that is going on under the
“American plan,” the industrial unions find a freer field to work in.
The revolutionists of America, such as they are, could ask nothing
better than the carrying of the open-shop campaign to its most ruthless
finish.
Right now the enemies of union labor of any kind can do about what they
please. There are plenty of men looking for work and they can break
almost any strike that might be declared. Union men and I. W. W. leaders
alike are sitting tight and are trying to save what they can to go on
with when the fight is over. They are not afraid of being done in
forever. They know this period of depression will pass, and, even if
meanwhile the open-shop campaign were carried to the point where every
union in the country were killed off, the union movement would spring up
again. Next time, however, they believe it might take the more
revolutionary form of industrial unionism.
LITTLE OF BOLSHEVISM FOUND IN I. W. W., MOST RADICAL OF AMERICAN LABOR
MOVEMENTS
_By Arno Dosch-Fleurot._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
The most radical labor movement in the United States, the one that makes
the most to-do over its revolutionary programme, is the I. W. W.
Whatever there may be of revolutionary tendency in America is in the I.
W. W., or closely affiliated. =But looking at America from the point of
view of Europe, if that is all we have produced in the way of
revolutionary material we are certainly in no immediate danger of
becoming a “Soviet republic.”=
The I. W. W. is popularly considered Bolshevik, and has thus been
advertised by the attacks the police have made upon it. There have also
been “criminal Syndicalist” laws passed against it which have enhanced
its importance. But an examination of what it is does not give cause for
serious alarm.
The I. W. W. has never been able to boast of much of a membership, and
it has barely enough members now to keep it alive. During the past few
weeks I have taken a fairly close look at the I. W. W., or what I could
find of it, and I should say it is more of a purpose, more of a labor
philosophy, than a movement. It is out for One Big Union, but it has not
even one small union that stays put.
Provided Organization of Labor Where No Other Union Could
It has provided a chance for organization when there was no other union
to do it. It went into the woods and the harvest fields and organized
the migratory workers. It had a free and easy way of organizing, and
they were free and easy men. In the woods it acquired some permanency.
The loggers of Oregon, Washington and Idaho are about the only active
members it has. The important consideration is how much revolution did
it instil into them? According to my observations, very little.
The loggers were told about the preamble of the I. W. W., the theme of
which lies in its first words: “The working class and the employing
class have nothing in common.” With those sentiments the loggers were in
hearty accord. They knew better than the I. W. W. organizers how true it
was in the woods. They wanted better camp conditions. The I. W. W. gave
them a chance for organized protest, so they joined. They are
frontiersmen with the virtues of the frontier; they stand by their
friends. So they stand by the I. W. W. But to say they become
class-conscious revolutionists is absurd.
The leadership at the I. W. W. has syndicalist purpose, but its
membership is merely looking for better working conditions. The average
man who joins the I. W. W. would as willingly join a union that had less
to say about revolution if it were there. The I. W. W., like the
Salvation Army, works where more bourgeois organizations fail. At the I.
W. W. headquarters in Chicago is turned out a varied supply of I. W. W.
reading matter, but you do not see workers pouring over it. They glance
at occasional pamphlets, but they do not bother themselves with the
anarcho-syndicalist theories. Some few harvest workers have tried
sabotage, and that is about the most serious charge against the I. W. W.
No Consistent Idea.
Out of the scores of leaflets and pamphlets they can get no consistent
revolutionary idea. They are a confusion of syndicalism, anarchy,
Socialism, Communism and Bolshevism. That is inevitable, as the writers,
not always very thoroughly informed, have tried to adapt their
individual conceptions of the various social revolutionary movements in
Europe to American conditions. The I. W. W., being the one outstanding
revolutionary movement, has drawn to it so many different types of
revolutionists they have mutually destroyed each other’s theories.
The Bolshevists in the I. W. W. have recently had a serious jolt. They
tried, without success, to induce the loggers to support the Third
Internationale, the propaganda body of the Bolshevik Government in
Moscow. They told the loggers that, as part of the proletariat, they
should give their indorsement to the dictatorship of the proletariat and
the organization of the world revolution from Moscow.
The loggers are not very long on political ideas, but they wanted to
know about it first. So the editor of the Northwest Industrial Worker,
one of the I. W. W.’s most important publications, explained it. He is
himself a syndicalist and no Bolshevist. Moreover, he lives in Seattle
and knows the loggers are not to be turned into rubber stamp
revolutionists by the propaganda of the Lenine-Zinovieff school. So in
the Northwest Industrial Worker for Oct. 20 he printed the following
editorial:
‘What about the Russian Workers:’
“A vote for the indorsement of the Third Internationale by the members
of the Industrial Workers of the World means a vote indorsing the
actions of the small political group which now holds Russia under its
rule, the Communist Party. There should be no doubt in the minds of
members as to that fact. If the vote for indorsement carries, members
should realize that we shall have indorsed a political state that is not
only upheld by bayonets but which has sent conquering armies to invade
other countries.
“It is unfortunate that members of the I. W. W. have never received any
accurate information as to the actual condition of the workers of
Russia. We have heard many generalizations as to the conditions of the
Russian people, singing the praises of the Soviet Government. But have
members of the I. W. W. ever heard a report made by industrial unionists
or by syndicalists containing reliable information upon the following
matter?”
Questions Are Asked.
“Are the workers of Russia permitted by the Government to organize upon
their own lines without interference?
“Are the workers of Russia permitted to freely travel through the
interior looking for employment?
“What percentage of the workers in the large industrial sections are
organized, and upon what basis?
“Are workers permitted to maintain their own press without governmental
interference?
“Until the members of the I. W. W. have information upon these and many
other matters they are voting in the dark upon something of which they
know nothing. They have a right to know whether Soviet Russia is a
‘working-class government.’ Communist Party propaganda will not afford
satisfactory answers to these queries.
“We are endeavoring to get enlightenment upon such matters at first
hand, and have already secured some information, but we realize that we
have no right to influence, or attempt to influence, the vote upon a
referendum which is pending. We want the truth about affairs in Russia.
We are interested in the Russian workers more than we are interested in
anything pertaining to that country.”
Absurdity of Label.
I have reproduced this editorial in full partly to show the absurdity of
simply labelling the I. W. W. movement Bolshevik and letting it go at
that. Also, I have never seen an abler editorial against Bolshevism. And
this, mind you, was published in the most important organ of the I. W.
W.
There were people in the I. W. W. movement who did not like it, and they
brought pressure to bear to remove the editor, J. C. Kane, from his
editorial chair. But the loggers read the editorial and liked it. They
would probably never have read it if there had not been a fuss raised;
but, at any rate, they did read it, and approved. Then they heard that
the editor had been fired and they got a little “mass action” into play
and put him back. And they did not indorse the Third Internationale.
That is a long way from Bolshevism. Nothing like that could happen in
Russia. As an incident it is symptomatic. It shows the members of the
movement insist on running it according to their individual will. =In
other words it is not a Bolshevik movement directed by a highly
centralized labor autocracy. It is rather an anarcho-syndicalist
movement bossed from the “job.”=
Is “Job-Controlled.”
The Bolshevik-minded within the I. W. W. do not really belong there. The
I. W. W. happens to be the most radical band wagon and they have climbed
on. Incidents such as I have just quoted show them where they get off.
The men who understand better the I. W. W. movement know it must be
based on “job control.” Every time it has ever done anything it has been
a case of “job control”—in other words, the men on the job decided what
they were going to do. Their successful strikes in the woods the summer
of 1917 were, for instance, declared in the camps.
In the I. W. W. dogmatic concepts do not get far. Revolutionary phrases
take on new meanings and disconcert their originators. The phrase
“direct action,” for example, is well understood in the revolutionary
patter to mean direct revolutionary action to put a workers’
dictatorship into governmental power. But it does not mean that in the
logging camps. It means direct action by the camp crew and not action
according to the decision of the I. W. W. headquarters.
Are Fundamental Democrats.
Fundamentally the I. W. W. members are democrats like the rest of us.
They have no far political vision, and they wish to ameliorate the
condition in life of workingmen, but they could be trusted in the final
analysis not to follow any doctrinaire revolutionist who had thought it
all out for them and told them to come along. Lenine could do that with
the Russian workers. But no one could do it with American workers. And
the membership of the I. W. W., particularly in the woods, is largely
American.
The I. W. W. has its ups and downs, and just now it is down. But it will
not go out of existence and disappear because it stands for an idea,
industrial unionism. There are other labor organizations, such as the
Automobile Workers, which also stand for industrial unionism, but the I.
W. W. has proclaimed it loudest, though it has perhaps done less
effective organizing than some of the others.
Industrial unionism is essentially inimical to the craft unionism upon
which the American Federation of Labor is built. The individual unions
in the A. F. of L. could unite along industrial lines, and some have,
but the results have not been sufficiently striking to remove from the
I. W. W. further excuse for existence.
Not Essentially Revolutionary.
There is nothing essentially revolutionary in industrial unionism,
though the I. W. W. tries to make it so, concluding its well known
preamble with the sentence: “By organizing industrially we are forming
the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.” But that
is largely rhetoric. In the body of the preamble is written: “We find
that the centring of the management of industries into fewer and fewer
hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power
of the employing class.” All industrial unionists are of this point of
view. Their position was well described to me by William A. Logan,
President of the Automobile Workers, who is not a member of the I. W. W.
“Industrial unionism is no one’s invention,” he said. “It naturally
follows the combination of manufacturers in an industry. Manufacturers
absorb industries which furnish them, so labor does the same thing. The
combinations of industries in large plants has so highly specialized the
work that no one workman need be a rounded mechanic. Men can also be
shifted easily from one machine to another. Common and semi-skilled
labor has almost entirely taken the place of skilled labor in industry.
I used to be an auto-fitter. There is now no such job. The manufacture
of even such a finished article as an automobile has been specialized to
a point where one man need know very little. He may have merely to start
a nut. So all the men in the industry are on the same footing. There is
no longer point in splitting them into crafts. The logical way to
organize them is industrially.”
Merely New to United States.
That is all there is to industrial unionism. It is comparatively new to
America, but it is an old story in Europe. To organize industrially is
just as democratic as to organize by crafts. It all depends upon what is
done with the organization once it is formed. Industrial unionism only
becomes revolutionarily syndicalistic when a union of industrial unions
announces it is going to take over the Government in the name of its
syndicalist workers.
The I. W. W. says, “The army of production must be organized not only
for the everyday struggle with capitalists but also to carry on
production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.”
The less revolutionary automobile workers, whose correct title is United
Automobile, Aircraft and Vehicle Workers of America, say more
conservatively: “We know that the workers will never know how to manage
the State if they should gain that responsibility through political
action, until they learn how to act collectively in getting some of
their immediate needs satisfied.”
Nothing to Fear.
The I. W. W. foresees the uniting of all the different industrial unions
in one big union. It says, “One union—one label—one enemy.” The
automobile workers say more modestly, “One union, one industry.”
So the industrial union may, or may not, be used with revolutionary
intent. Of itself it is nothing to be afraid of.
Practically industrial unionism has between it and success what even the
comparatively mild automobile workers refer to as the power of “Czar
Gompers and his Grand Dukes.”
Theoretically the A. F. of L. is not opposed to industrial unionism. Any
of the crafts may join forces. But practically the A. F. of L. machine
prevents it.
“PROLETARIAT OF AMERICA” JUST GOES AND GETS JOB, WORLD INVESTIGATOR
FINDS
_By Arno Dosch-Fleurot._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
At Akron, O., where the rubber industry swelled to enormous proportions
in the last few years, business dropped like a skyrocket recently and
there were reports of tens of thousands of men thrown out of work. So I
went to Akron to see how great were the sufferings of the “proletariat.”
Here, at least, I thought I should find a mass of unskilled labor and a
proletarian class consciousness such as I have been in the habit of
associating with big industry in Europe.
I found Akron pretty well shut down, but there was no proletariat about.
There were no bread lines, no soup kitchens. Still there was no question
but that there were some 50,000 fewer men working in the small city than
there had been a short time before. Where were they?
They had gone home. They had acquired no stake in Akron. Most of them
were from West Virginia. They were migratory workers, and when they were
not wanted conveniently disappeared. They went to other towns, other
industries, back to the land. Broadly they were a migratory class, but
they had no consciousness of class. To-day they were seeking the highest
pay in the factories, to-morrow they will be tilling the soil. To a
would-be proletarian leader they must be exasperatingly elusive.
I found the manufacturers of Akron deeply grateful to them. They came
when they were wanted and took themselves away when they were no longer
wanted. Without them it would have been impossible to build industries
so rapidly to meet the demands of a day, and if they did not take
themselves off when the slump came they would create a disagreeable
responsibility for the manufacturer who got them together. It is a
situation that is purely American and would leave bewildered any one who
tried to fix European ideas of industrial organization upon American
institutions.
No Upheaval When Labor Turnover Makes Jobs Vacant
At the plant of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron I was told
that the plant had been reduced from 30,000 men to 6,000 men in less
than six months without turning men off wholesale. The labor turnover
did the trick. The plant stopped taking on new men several months ago,
when it began to look as if the strong demand for tires was not going to
hold. Each week thereafter some of the migratory workers left. Normally
they would have been replaced by new migratory workers who presented
themselves for jobs, but in this way each week the payroll decreased
automatically. Week after week the usual number of men called for their
time and struck out, some because it was summer and their native
mountains called them, some to wander further afield into other
industrial towns. This went on all summer and fall and when, in
November, it became necessary, the management thought, to curtail
production sharply there were only 14,000 instead of 30,000 in the
plant. The rest had disappeared in the normal labor turnover. In the
other rubber plants in Akron the same process went on, so it was not a
case of turning tens of thousands of men into the streets when the real
slump came.
Much the same thing happened in Detroit. Last year it had more than
100,000 more people than it could properly house. These people had been
drawn into Detroit by the high wages. Handy men with intelligence were
getting $15 to $30 and more a day. Then came the slump in the automobile
market. Beginning last May, the demand for labor in Detroit began to
decrease, factories took on fewer men, but the city did not become
crowded with idle men. For a certain number took their time each week
and moved on. The overpopulation began to disappear. Detroit as a
working man’s bonanza was working out. Coming eastward in November from
the Pacific Coast, I encountered everywhere men with a few hundred
dollars in their pockets, “easy money,” made in Detroit, looking now for
something else. By the time I reached Detroit I found the factories had
150,000 less workmen than they had four months before and there was no
idle “proletariat” standing about.
Not Possible in Europe.
It is only in wonderfully rich America such things can happen. Here
alone we dare organize industry on this bonanza scale. In Europe the big
industrials know that if they build in this rapid fashion they must be
prepared for the slump. The soil will not reabsorb the migratory workers
as it has done for Akron and Detroit. In Europe the workers belong to a
proletariat divorced from the soil, descendants of a long line of
workmen. They are also class conscious and they do not conveniently
disappear in the labor turnover.
Thanks to the different state of affairs in America the present
readjustment in the country is going on with little difficulty from the
side of labor. In Europe, where there is a process of social revolution,
there can be no thought of a readjustment of any kind without first
finding out what effect it is going to have on the working classes. But
here there is no proletariat, no hard and fast working classes, hence no
class consciousness.
I have found recently in my travels about the country that all kinds of
people are agreed that prices, rents, wages, everything must come down
to somewhere near what they were. Before talking to labor leaders I find
the same reasonableness. This would be impossible if there were any
sentiment for class war.
Now is the time to test how much of the social turmoil in Europe has
been communicated to us. Flush times are passing and whatever discontent
there is is sure to show itself. I may be looking for something too
precise, but I do not find it. There is the usual discontent over the
struggle for existence, but it is not class conscious, as the phrase is
used in revolutionary circles abroad. The situation has not even
increased the following of the I. W. W. or of the industrial union
movement. It would seem like a propitious moment to make a drive, a
campaign of instruction, in the effort to convince workmen that
industrial unionism is their way to economic freedom. But I see very
small signs of such activity.
In Eastern Europe in its present frame of mind a readjustment could not
take place without workmen seizing rifles and machine guns and making
armed demands. Such doings are not in the American picture.
Workers Are Not Organized.
One reason may be that the portion of the working classes most hit is
not organized. Craft unionism has not kept pace with the growth of
industry. The important centres of diversified industry, as well as what
the Germans call the heavy industries, are not unionized. In the
Pittsburgh district there are approximately 400,000 workmen and whatever
organization exists among them is too small to count. No big
manufacturing centre in America is now union. Chicago, for instance, is
industrially open shop. So is Detroit or any other city where industry
has had rapid growth. It amused me in asking about the open-shop
movement to see the eagerness with which I always was informed that the
open-shop principle had always maintained in whatever community I might
be asking about.
The truth is, of course, that the big industries have been able to
prevent unionizing by keeping a steady flow of immigrants coming into
the country and they were clever enough to take them from the farms in
Europe, so they did not bring any class consciousness with them. Ever
since the famous Homestead strikes the steel industry has been
non-union. It was only when the flow of immigrants was dammed by the war
that a chance to unionize it came. It was then that John Fitzpatrick and
William Z. Foster began. But they tried out organizing industrially
first in the Chicago stockyards, and the steel manufacturers watched
them from afar, so, as one steel man said to me in Pittsburgh, “We saw
them coming and we were ready for them.”
What struck me as an interesting comment on the unionizing of factory
workers was made to me in Detroit by Mr. C. M. Culver, director of the
Employers’ Association, an institution which handles the labor problem
for its members. He said:
“When employers do not combine to hold down wages, unionism does not
grow. When employers are competing for workmen, as they have been doing
here in Detroit, when they are too busy turning out machines, when the
inventive minds are just boiling and the native American genius is
concentrated on getting results, men do not join unions.”
Unionism certainly made very little headway in Detroit. The A. F. of L.
played a very small role there and the automobile workers had succeeded
in enrolling less than one-twentieth of the men who were eligible to
this industrial union. It is significant, however, that the automobile
workers, even with their small membership, have their importance in the
industry, and the manufacturers consider their growth alone a possible
menace. It shows the power that would pass into the hands of the factory
worker if industrial unionism ever gets a hold on American industry.
In Detroit the percentage of foreign or foreign-born among the workers
is about 70 per cent. In Pittsburgh it is even higher. Manufacturers in
both places say they do not fear labor organization as long as this
percentage persists. Labor organizations built among the foreign workers
do not last. They can be organized quickly, as William Z. Foster found
when he organized the steel strike in 1919. They give their money freely
and enthusiastically for organization, but they expect quick results and
do not stand up under adversity. I have just passed through the steel
region in Ohio and Pittsburgh where Foster organized most successfully a
year ago and there is hardly a trace of his work to be found. With
difficulty I found the emaciated skeletons of the flourishing unions
Foster developed in a few months.
After visiting the steel towns and the modern factory cities I agree
with the I. W. W. that American industry is not organized. Labor, as
distinguished from industry, is organized, but the factories, with their
hundreds of thousands—added together, their millions—of unskilled and
semi-skilled labor, are quite unorganized. The A. F. of L. has not
interested itself in them, and the I. W. W. has tried to do it on so
pretentiously revolutionary a scale that it has not succeeded. The field
is open. The American field of industry is practically unhampered by the
prejudices or the hard conditions of Europe. The European-trained
agitators have sown the American industrial field time and again with
their European-born ideas, but they have not yielded a crop.
There are, broadly, two kinds of employers in American industry. There
is the “catch ’em young, treat ’em rough and learn ’em nothing” kind
which is loud in support of “property rights” and is backing the
ruthless open-shop “American plan.” The steel, coal and copper
industries, the heavy industries, are dominated by this spirit even at
this late date. To them labor has no rights. It is enough to make a
Bolshevik out of any workman who comes in contact with them. Take Butte,
where the Anaconda Copper Company rules. If a miner comes to Butte he
must go through the copper company’s passport bureau before he can even
apply for a job. If he succeeds in getting a “rustling card,” a sort of
passport bearing a description of him, he can seek work at the mines. If
he is a member of a union that is not in favor, he has to lie about it
and say he is not or he does not get a “rustling card.” This is
industrial feudalism, and there is no calling it by another name. I was
in the office of the Bulletin, the labor paper published in Butte, and I
noticed half a dozen rifles in the corner of the plant. “Have you got a
Red Guard?” I asked. “No, but the company has a White Guard,” was the
answer; “we have to protect ourselves, especially around election.”
Efforts to Solve Problem.
Combating this spirit there is a type of American employer who realizes
he has a responsibility toward the men he gathers together in his
factories. He comes nearer representing the modern spirit in American
industry. He usually begins with some patronizing welfare work, but ends
up with whole-hearted co-operation. Men of this type see the gulf
between capital and labor, and instead of trying to widen it and
perpetuate industrial strife like the leaders in the heavy industries
they are throwing out flying bridges across the gulf. They are trying to
establish a decent human relationship between employer and employee and
give the lie to the I. W. W. preamble that “the working class and the
employing class have nothing in common.”
The men who are making these attempts are fairly sane and do not think
they are “solving the labor problem.” They are trying to re-establish in
modern industry the touch that was lost between the master mechanic and
the journeyman mechanic when they stopped working over the same bench.
Some are having a real success. Others cannot make it go. It depends
upon the amount of sincerity in the undertaking. But there are some 700
plants in America being run on this voluntary “industrial conference”
system. They do not pretend to be throwing more than a flying bridge
across the gulf, but they may have some permanency. At any rate, it is
the most interesting experiment in American industry. If it succeeds it
will establish new standards in industry and we shall be able to say
that America has succeeded in working out another way the industrial
problem that has led to the social revolution in Europe.
INDUSTRIAL COUNCILS SHOW EMPLOYER AND WORKER WAY TO REAL PEACE AT HOME
_By Arno Dosch-Fleurot._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
There is a way to peace, at least comparative peace, in industry. The
warfare that is forever being carried on through the open shop, the
closed shop, the strike and the lockout, is coming to be considered just
as uncivilized as any other form of warfare. All that is considered
necessary is the give-and-take of “industrial councils.”
The idea is being worked out in one way in England and in another way
here. The English have had to come to it, forced by the fact that their
factory workers are organized in industrial unions. Here it is
voluntary, for the industrial workers are not organized in America. The
British factory workers are organized because they are all, or nearly
all, British. The American factory workers are largely foreign. In
England it is a question of Englishmen dealing with Englishmen. Here it
is Americans dealing with foreigners.
The British have tried to get down to a uniform system or “industrial
conference,” known as the Whitley system. There it is an even game, with
organization and intelligent leadership on both sides. Here the
homogeneous leadership is all on one side. The industrial workers are at
such a disadvantage, in the fact of their not being all Americans, that
they cannot get together and hold together, like the workers of England,
France, Belgium or Germany, where industrial unionism is already
traditional.
American Employee Has Powers Which Boss Thinks Best for Him
The American situation is peculiar to itself. It can only be approached
from one point of view, that of the employer. The employee has only so
much power as the employer may consider wise to yield him. This might
not seem like a very successful starting point for an idea that is
supposed to be leading to industrial peace, but at that it appears to be
so doing. At any rate it is a very important move in the history of
American industry, and, whatever it may be leading to, it is going to
have a far-reaching effect.
It may, for one thing, put an end to unionism, or render it much less
important. It is pretty sure to interfere with the organization of
industrial unionism, which might prove to be the road to revolution.
While union leaders in England favor the idea because they can approach
it on an equality with the employers, in America, union leaders fear it.
Instead of stabilizing unionism as it is doing in England, here it is
choking unionism out.
“Chattel-slavery,” said John Fitzpatrick, President of the Chicago
Federation of Labor, when I mentioned the industrial conference. “A way
to get men into such a position of humble obedience that they belong
body and soul to their employer.”
What the I. W. W. has to say against it is worse. It is, whatever may be
the means, easing off on the social unrest, and the I. W. W. thrives on
discontent.
Big Industries Independent.
On the other side the heavy industries, coal, steel and copper, refuse
to have anything to do with it. The United States Steel Corporation has
not even an industrial manager. Similar great industries in Europe
cannot take so independent an attitude, but here it is obvious that
neither now nor in the immediate future can the great masses of factory
workers get together and force recognition. They will eventually, of
course, if the situation demands, but they are, on account of their lack
of organization, for the time being helpless.
This makes the American experiments in “industrial councils” the more
interesting. While they have been motived often by an expensive strike
that set employers to thinking, the actual development of the system
comes from a sense of the practical. It is also growing rapidly enough
to make it appear American industry may be soon dominated by the idea. A
year and a half ago there were perhaps fifty concerns working with shop
committees. Now there are at least 700, and there may be many more.
Impersonal Capital.
To give a list of the important concerns is like reading the Stock
Exchange list, General Electric, Westinghouse, du Pont, General Motors,
International Harvester. These are concerns of a similar type. Most of
the money invested is from the outside, mere impersonal capital. The
managements have grown up from within the plants. The labor is in much
closer human relationship to the management than the capital. If capital
earns big dividends it is satisfied, but the other two elements,
management and labor, live and work together every day. Once an
industrial council is established reuniting the management and the
workshops, it is rarely let drop. It eases up the day to day
difficulties. No matter what system is used the daily contact is certain
to avoid some strikes. There are three systems, generally speaking, in
vogue:
To organize the industrial councils on the same plan as the Federal
Government, with Senate, House and President the employees elect the
House, the Senate is made up of superintendents and the President and
his managers are the Cabinet. This plan is popular in the textile
trades. It keeps firm control in the hands of the management.
A second plan, which also keeps the control firmly in hand is arrived at
by the management asking the employees in a factory to form a “shop
committee,” which will recommend, but has no vote.
Third Plan Outlined.
The third plan, the one that best expresses the spirit of the movement,
provides for a joint council with definite voting powers. This council
usually handles everything relating to what goes on within the factories
up to and including wages. It has nothing to do with the outside
business, buying or selling, and, in the final analysis, does not settle
the general scale of wages. But, within the factories, under these
limitations, it comes to agreement about every detail, or there is an
appeal to the manager or President of the company. Arbitration boards
are even provided for, but that is hardly necessary, as the whole affair
is only a domestic arrangement.
All these plans are mere devices for smoothing out the daily industrial
life, and have nothing to do with large economic questions. But it is
extraordinary how much trouble they avoid. When it comes to a showdown
they can prevent neither strikes nor the lowering of wages. That is not
their importance. They prevent the misunderstandings which grow out of
the lack of human contact, and experience is beginning to show that most
industrial trouble comes from minor considerations.
In one case an effort is being made to utilize the idea to a far greater
extent. It has been brought into use to control a whole industry,
lumber, in the Pacific Northwest. The movement has a peculiar history
which needs to be explained.
Handling of Migratory Worker.
The lumber workers and loggers are mostly migratory. They had no unions
to speak of until the I. W. W. began working among them during the war.
It met with quick response and by the summer of 1917 was able to carry
on a serious strike, which the Government had to settle, as fir and
spruce were badly needed in the manufacture of ships and aeroplanes.
With war on, it was impossible to use extraordinary repression and make
unusual appeals. Gen. Brice P. Disque, who was in command, induced an
agreement by which both the employers and the employees were to leave
the settlement of all labor questions, including wages, to the
Government. The men agreed not to strike.
The movement got a certain momentum while the war was on, and when the
armistice came, it continued to function by agreement. Its very name,
Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen, indicates the circumstances
behind it, but, nevertheless, it was found to be a workable arrangement.
It controlled, and still controls, 75 per cent. of the lumber production
in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. These three States, which produce half
the lumber of the country, are divided into twelve districts, each with
representatives from both the lumbermen and the loggers on an equal
basis, and they settle all questions under the Chairmanship of Norman F.
Coleman, President of the “Four L’s,” as the organization is called for
short.
Such a body could hardly have been created without the unusual
conditions of war, but its progress since is interesting. It has had to
keep the good will of the loggers on a falling market.
First Crisis Is Avoided.
When I was in Oregon a few weeks ago, it had just weathered its first
crisis. It was one of the principles of the organization that,
regardless of the minimum wage, $4.40 per day, the “going wage” was to
be determined “on the job.” In the Coos Bay District in Oregon, wages
last May, June and July went to $5.30. On Aug. 1 the lumbermen asked to
go back to $4.80. A district council of the “Four L’s” was held, the
operators producing figures to show why wages must come down and the
loggers showing the cost of living was too high to permit it. An
agreement was reached by which the loggers agreed to increase production
sufficiently to earn the extra 50 cents a day, and did it.
But the lumber market went steadily down and the operators appealed
again for a lower wage. This time it was admitted by both sides that the
price of everything would have to come down this winter to a lower
level, and they would find a way to let down wages and living costs at
the same time. So they called in the local merchants of Coos Bay, who
agreed to the same facts and promised to make a 15 per cent. cut at
once. This was sufficient to cover the cut in wages, and the only
persons affected were the merchants, who admitted they had to pocket the
loss anyhow.
This instance is illuminating, because it shows how far this idea can be
carried and how much trouble can be avoided by men getting together with
those to whom they pay wages and coming to an understanding.
Works in Unsteady Market.
If the lumber market should be bad all winter it is apparent the strain
would be too great for even so elastic an organization as the “Four
L’s,” but by what it has already done it has proved what can be done by
human contact. If it can work at all in the lumber industry, which is
subject to a very unsteady market, it could certainly work in any other
industry. Nor is lumbering a kid-glove industry. The average lumber
operator is a plunger, and until the “Four L’s” got started it was
always a question of whether the operators were going to “break the
back” of labor or whether the loggers were going to “break the back” of
the operators.
None of the concerns which have seriously adopted the “industrial
council” system pretend they have solved everything. They say they are
simply restoring the human relationship which was lost through the
growth of industry. They pretend to have found no new principle. Some go
in for profit-sharing as a stimulus, others say it is not desirable.
That is a matter of opinion. The important consideration is the spirit
with which the problem is approached. The mere fact that the management
of a factory wishes to introduce such a system would indicate it has not
a pinchpenny attitude. But those who oppose it, mostly labor leaders,
hold that it is a farsighted scheme to get a bunch of faithful slaves
who acquiesce in the smooth arrangements prepared in council, so that
they become wage-slaves of the most hopeless kind. They also say, and
with justice, that the system removes the incentive for joining labor
unions, and, even though the management plays perfectly fair with union
men, unions wither up and die, as they get no nourishment.
Makes Men Feel Safer.
At the rate at which the “industrial council” idea is catching on it can
be safely predicted that it is going to interfere with the growth of
industrial unionism which would otherwise begin to show itself. It has a
tendency to make men feel surer of their jobs, which induces them to buy
homes and unite their destinies with the industries they serve. It makes
them feel they have a stake in the industry. If the spirit behind the
movement is wrong this could, as Mr. Fitzpatrick said, lead to a sort of
chattel-slavery. But I have noticed in the few plants with “industrial
councils” which I have been in that there was a spirit of service. I
notice that the bigger American plants have become in a sense
institutions, they have a code of conduct developed out of the special
world which the institutions create. The people who get the dividends
are far away, but the management and the plant are in intimate daily
contact.
As I wandered through these plants, each with its own life, it occurred
to me that within these plants was developing what the modern
sociologists call the social conscience. If it has not such a spirit it
does not succeed. The calculating employer who is only pretending mutual
interest will not get the service in return.
These same modern sociologists hold that the present era is chiefly
remarkable for having created the individual conscience, and the next
era will produce the social conscience. They point to Russia and
maintain that the theories of Lenine develop the social conscience. Any
one will go so far as to say that a social conscience is necessary if
Lenine’s ideas are to have a fair show. It would be ironic if the social
conscience were to develop quicker in the despised American bourgeois
republic than in Bolshevik Russia.
FARMERS’ GROUPS PORTEND FAR-REACHING CHANGES IN NATION’S ECONOMICS
_By Arno Dosch-Fleurot._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
American farmers are organizing industrial unions. The wheat men are
getting together in one union, cotton in another, wool in another. They
may not call their organizations “unions,” but it is a part of the new
industrial alignment. They are organizing for mutual backing, and the
wheat farmers have gone so far they are carrying on a strike.
Labor has not made much headway in organizing industrially because there
are too many difficulties in the way. These are principally the American
Federation of Labor, and the associations of manufacturers. The
organizers of industrial unionism also stand in their own light, as they
try to organize labor industrially and cry revolution at the same time.
And there is no revolutionary spirit in America.
Certainly there is no such spirit among the farmers, but what they have
in mind means such a decided change in national economy as to be a real
revolution, one that may make a decided change in the life of the
country and carried on by effective organization, instead of by the
silly parade of arms and loud talk about the proletariat, the way it is
done in Europe.
The revolution the farmers have in mind is this: They refuse longer to
be dominated by the cities; it is their purpose to dictate terms to the
cities. As it is, they are held under what they consider a financial
tyranny directed by the powerful interests of the country. They purpose
organizing so effectively that, jointly, they will not only be as
powerful as the financial interests, but having the staff of life in
their hands they will be able to force their will.
The wheat farmers are right now in revolutionary foment. They are
carrying on industrial strike. They refuse to sell their wheat. They are
asking a high price, but that is merely symbolic. What they want is to
get the price at which the wheat is finally sold. They are striking for
the profits now made by the operators, the elevator owners, the
speculators and the shippers. They have not yet carried their strike to
the point of refusing to plant more wheat unless they get the full
profit they demand, but it is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Kansas and North Dakota Non-Partisan League Centres
The strike is being carried on most effectively in North Dakota, where
the Non-Partisan League has been actively organizing the farmers for
several years, and in Kansas, where the Wheat Growers’ Association of
America is busy. The Non-Partisan League, while active politically, has
as its principal purpose the uniting of farmers into a group that can
get governmental action. Its chief field of operations is the Northwest,
North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, but it is also
spreading further and was concentrating its attention on Nebraska when I
was out there a short time ago. The Wheat Growers’ Association of
America is also operating in Nebraska and is spreading its influence
over Oklahoma and Texas as well as Kansas. It claims 100,000 membership.
Between the two they control the wheat producing States, and if there
were not a big idea behind the revolt it might prove to be a serious
kind of industrial strike.
The story of the revolt was best told to me by Senator Edwin F. Ladd of
North Dakota. He is the original champion of the wheat growers in North
Dakota, and as head of the chemistry department of the North Dakota
Agricultural College, went out years ago and told the farmers they were
not getting their share. He is a born agitator, it was his work that
made the Non-Partisan League possible, and he has just been elected on
the Non-Partisan League to the Senate of the United States. He is going
to Congress to represent wheat. I saw him recently in Fargo, N. D.,
where he was laying his plans for his revolutionary coup in favor of the
farmers.
I went to him to talk about the Non-Partisan League, but, though he had
just acquired his seat in the Senate on the Non-Partisan ticket, he
talked perhaps ten minutes on the league, and an hour or so on the
revolt of the wheat growers and the other farmers.
_Farmers Realize Situation_
“The farmers who grow wheat,” he said, “are in revolt because they have
come to understand their position in the economic life of the country.
They know they do the work of growing the wheat and the profit is
largely taken by others. Here in North Dakota the situation is so simple
it is easy to grasp, and once seen, cannot be forgotten. The rich city
of Minneapolis is exceedingly prosperous on the money it made out of the
wheat grown in North Dakota. There stands Minneapolis and here are the
North Dakota farmers who realize they are not richer on account of the
wheat operators.
“The method of handling the wheat crop is also simple enough for any
farmer to understand. During the spring and summer the banks lend money
to the farmers to grow and harvest the crop. Their notes fall due early
in the fall, when they are supposed to sell their crops. The small
banks, which did the lending, backed by bigger banks in the bigger
cities, reassemble this money, ship it back to the big city banks, which
lend it over again to the operators and speculators who handle the wheat
through its second period. They are in turn supposed to make the
turnover in a few months, to sell and repay the banks, which lend the
same money for a third time to the shippers who finally dispose of the
wheat.
“The farmer now asks why he should be forced to liquidate his crop so
quickly. Is it only so other men can clean up fortunes yearly on the
manipulation of the crop he has raised? He wants to know why. He sees no
reason why he should let this process continue. So he is making the only
protest possible. He is sitting on his wheat and refuses to play the
game as it has always been played. He will not hasten to liquidate his
crop right away in order to finance the wheat speculator.”
_North Dakota Banks Close_
“Here in North Dakota the refusal of the farmers to sell has closed
thirty or more banks. These banks are not insolvent, but they have no
money. It is all in the wheat upon which the farmers are sitting and
refusing to budge. When they decide to sell they will pay their notes
and the banks will again be able to resume business.
“It is a strike, if you want to call it so. It is a protest against the
economic system and shows the spirit that is moving. The Non-Partisan
League has been voicing this protest and organizing it. That is why it
has grown and is growing now faster than ever in spite of the political
fight that has been put up against it. It may look for a harder fight as
the organized bankers and wheat manipulators see their profits
threatened by the preparations the farmers are making to voice their
protest even more effectively through the American Farm Bureau.
“This is what is really happening among farmers. One way or another they
are beginning to understand they have been the victims of
disorganization. They have marketed all together and have bred
speculation. Now they intend to change. They do not mean to hold up the
country, but to force a change, so they are organizing, the wheat men in
one group, the corn in another, the cotton and wool in still further
groups, &c. There are dozens of different organizations all working to
the same end, and their strength is being united in the Farm Bureau.
They wish to sell through their own organizations and make the full
profit.
“So far in the United States only the raisin growers of California and
the prune growers have organized effectively. They sell their crops
co-operatively.”
_Canada’s Wheat Financing_
“The wheat growers and the others mean to do the same thing. The method
is simple. It is only necessary to get the different groups organized
and the banks will have to finance us. I have just been making a study
of how it is being done, and how it has been done for the past six
years, in the three wheat provinces of Canada. There it was operated
through the Canadian Government during the war, but it is now being
operated by the banks. There are some 700 co-operative elevators where
the farmers can store their wheat, and from which it is finally disposed
of.
“The method there, which we shall adopt, is to pay the farmer a price on
delivering the wheat and giving him a receipt which entitles him to a
share in the future operations. Last year when the wheat was placed in
the elevators the farmer was paid per bushel $2.15 in cash. When the
price was more definitely fixed he was paid another 30 cents, and when
the transaction for the year was ended another 18 cents. So he got all
that was coming to him. According to the system in vogue here he would
have got the $2.15 perhaps, and that is all he ever would have got. The
other 48 cents per bushel, which totals up on the year’s crop to
millions of dollars, would have gone to enrich the speculators and wheat
manipulators, ‘Minneapolis,’ as we say here.”
“What we need to do is to organize ourselves as they have done in
Canada, store our wheat in our own co-operative elevators and make the
banks finance us through the different periods in the handling of the
crop. There are three periods now, the farming, the holding and the
handling of the wheat. It only needs co-operation for the farmer to
share in all three periods.
“In this period of unrest following the war is beginning a new era in
agriculture. Following the Civil War came the growth of manufacturing.
After this war comes the reorganization of agriculture. For years now
two-thirds of the population has been dependent on one-third. The cities
have dominated. Now the country is going to share equally with the
cities.”
Senator Ladd has vision. There are others too, but there is danger in
vision. The farmers, being in revolt, want to do everything at once.
They want to develop the Farm Bureau into an economic machine that would
rival the power of the Federal Government. They want to centre the
selling of the whole agricultural crop in a single body. It would be
much more successful for each type of farmer to organize apart and go
forward slowly as the raisin and prune growers they emulate have done.
_League Voices Protest_
I wish to say just a word about the Non-Partisan League. It is a
farmers’ organization, but it has been developed largely by the energy
of a single man, A. G. Townley. It has, in consequence, made many
mistakes, mostly political. But its enemies, fighting by fair means and
foul, have not been able to kill it off. As a league it is chiefly
important because it expresses the protest. That is also why nothing can
kill it. The one convincing thing about it, to any one, is the way the
farmers will unhesitatingly pay the $18 dues it demands. Farmers are not
so notably open-handed they would cheerfully hand over $18 if they were
not after something the league was working for. It is economic
independence.
The League’s purpose, and its only excuse for existence, is the
establishing of a new and fairer method of marketing wheat, but where it
is at work politically it is always fought on other issues—because it is
“socialistic,” because “Townley is radical”—anything but the real issue.
It was defeated in Minnesota this fall because it was declared to be a
movement in favor of free love. It appears some books of Ellen Key,
bearing on sex problems, were found in the North Dakota public school
reference library. Promptly its enemies cried down these books and
virtuously declared against the “free love movement.” In Minnesota its
enemies quickly seized upon the party cry. The wheat manipulators of
Minneapolis, who, being rich, dominated socially, sent their wives out
to tell the women of Minnesota to vote against this “free love” party.
These ladies, being rich and powerful socially, went with the virtuous
plea into every town in Minnesota and, being known as rich and prominent
socially, swept the woman vote of Minnesota with them. The Non-Partisan
League, that organization of free-loving North Dakota Scandinavian
farmers, was not allowed to pollute the virtuous State of Minnesota.
It is ironic, but it cannot stop the farmers’ protest. If Senator Ladd
is right, the protest will be organized so effectively that the farmers
will all be in industrial unions long before the industrial workers.
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
* * * * *
“RUSSIA FROM THE INSIDE”
_By Hector Boon._
A New York Business Man, Recently Returned From a Long Stay and
Extensive Travel in Russia
_Reprinted from_
[Illustration: The World]
_January 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 1921_
* * * * *
“AN AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN ON THE SITUATION IN RUSSIA”
To The New York World justly belongs the credit for giving the American
people the best description of the present situation in Russia that has
ever appeared in the American press. Beginning with Sunday, Jan. 9th,
and ending on Friday, Jan. 14th, The New York World has published daily
articles by Hector Boon, who has just returned from Soviet Russia, which
he entered on April 6th and left on Oct. 12th, 1920, after spending more
than half a year in Lenin’s kingdom.
Altogether, Mr. Boon spent ten months in Russia, of which four months
were spent in the so-called “buffer state,” the Far Eastern Republic,
which extends from Verkni-Udinsk to Vladivostok, and more than six
months in Soviet Russia proper, mostly in Moscow. * * * To this is added
that Mr. Boon was in Russia in 1917, before the Bolsheviki came into
power, and thus he was able during his last visit to compare the
conditions in Bolshevist Russia with the situation in Russia during the
first months after the March Revolution.
_From an article by A. J. Sack, Director of the Russian Information
Bureau in the United States._
INSIDE FACTS OF RUSSIA TOLD BY NEW YORK BUSINESS MAN
Hector Boon, Trading Expert, Describes in Series of Articles Prepared
for The World Conditions Under Regime of Soviet Which He Believes
Will Not Last More Than Two Years Longer—First Instalment Relates
Experiences in Eastern Siberia After Defeat of Kolchak—He Sought
to Recover 5,000 Furs Stolen by Bandit Chief Semionov.
_Here is Russia from the inside as seen at close hand for ten months
by an unusual observer—not an author, not an artist, not a
propagandist, not a sympathizer, not an enemy, not a Socialist, not a
reformer, not a reactionary, but a hard-headed, clear-seeing,
unimaginative, fair-minded, give-the-other-fellow-a-chance kind of
American business man._
_Hector Boon saw things as they are—not as some one else says they
are—not what Russia promises but what Russia is performing. And in a
series of articles which he prepared exclusively for The World he
tells plainly and with exactness what he has observed, what he has
heard, what he has thought._
_Mr. Boon, although of English nativity, is a thorough New Yorker—a
keen, wideawake, practical man of affairs, whose business as a
financial expert and trading expert, particularly for fur importers,
has taken him to many parts of the world. He has just returned from
Russia, into whose condition he had opportunities for thorough
insight. It was not new territory to him; he knew the country before
the Red regime and is able to draw contrasts between that period and
the present. He believes the Soviet rule will not last more than two
years longer._
_The World offers his narrative to its readers for exactly what it is
on the face of it—the actual and recent experiences of a plain
business man in the land which has been so clouded in mystery despite
the reports of writers of various types. Mr. Boon stands sponsor
personally for all the statements and opinions contained in his
articles._
_By Hector Boon._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
Sitting here comfortably in New York, with peace and plenty on all
sides, I find it hard to realize that it is only a little more than ten
months ago since I said goodby in Harbin to one of the principals of the
New York firm I represent, and then set forth on my long and interesting
journey into Soviet Russia.
During the summer of 1919 we had purchased large quantities of raw furs
in Eastern Siberia, and with the defeat of Kolchak these had fallen into
the hands of the Bolshevists; so my object in going into Russia was to
induce the Soviet authorities to release these furs.
Brands Wells’s Articles as Skilful Bolshevik Propaganda
I entered Soviet Russia on April 6, and left it on Oct. 12, when I
crossed the Russian-Latvian line at Sebesh. I arrived in London on Oct.
19, spent some time there recuperating from the effects of months of
semistarvation in Moscow, and reached New York Dec. 23.
During my stay in London I read the diary of Mrs. Clare Sheridan, the
sculptress; Mr. H. G. Wells’s articles on Russia which were published in
the London Sunday Express, and Mr. Winston Churchill’s reply to that
modest gentleman who permitted the newspaper in which his articles
appeared to describe him as “the world’s greatest living author.”
As these articles have doubtless also appeared in American journals, I
venture to believe that the American public will be interested to read
the experiences of a New York business man in Russia (notwithstanding
that he is an Englishman) and compare them with those of Mrs. Sheridan
and Mr. Wells.
I have no aptitude for “sculping”; I lay no claim to literary ability; I
am not endowed with the sweet womanly nature which would render me sad
at the thought that I should never see again that foul, blood-drenched
scoundrel Dzherjinsky; I am simply a business man, and at that have had
no experience of life behind a draper’s counter. Had I had, I should
probably, like Mr. Wells, be able to tell England and the world how to
trade with Russia.
Mrs. Sheridan’s diary, piled with sympathy for the butchers and precious
little for their victims, can be dismissed as a breach of good taste on
the part of a notoriety seeking female, but we cannot thus lightly
dismiss the articles of Mr. Wells. Whereas Mr. Wells’s experience of the
Bolsheviks, according to his own admission, was gained as the result of
a two weeks’ stay in Russia, mine dates from the time of Lenine’s first
attempt, in July, 1917, to overthrow the Kerensky Government.
I regard Mr. Wells’s articles as the most skilful piece of propaganda
which the Bolsheviks have so far put forth. Mr. Wells makes no attempt
to cloak the appalling conditions of life which to-day obtain in
Petrograd and Moscow. In fact he has drawn a very faithful picture of
them. Having done so he proceeds to tell the world that these conditions
were brought about not by Bolshevism but by the imperialism and
capitalism of the Czar’s regime. Nothing could be further from the
truth, and I propose, in the course of this series, to show that the
Bolsheviks, and the Bolsheviks alone, are responsible for the deplorable
condition in which Russia finds herself to-day. In order to do this I
shall take the reader with me on my journey through Russia.
In June, 1917, I travelled from Vladivostok to Petrograd over the
Trans-Siberian Railroad. On that occasion the journey took ten and a
half days, all stops included; this year our actual running time (all
stops excluded) was twenty-eight days.
In 1917 I remained in Russia until September, when I went to New York,
returning to Petrograd in December, where I remained until April, 1918,
when, with my assistants, I was forced to escape on sledges through
Karelia into Finland. In October, 1918, I arrived in Vladivostok and
remained in Siberia, a close observer of the Kolchak regime, until I
crossed the Urals in June this year on my way to Moscow.
In June, 1919, the Ataman Chief Semionov stole from my firm some 5,000
white fox skins at the Station Manchuria, and in July I proceeded to his
headquarters at Chita to negotiate for the return of them. I was
unsuccessful and went to Omsk, where I spent two-and-a-half fruitless
months endeavoring to secure compensation from the Kolchak Government.
_Dictator in Name Only._
During my stay in Omsk, where I came into contact with the leading
members of the Government, I had an opportunity of studying the methods
of Kolchak and his Cabinet. Kolchak, admittedly a man of great personal
courage, was a dictator in name only; he possessed none of the qualities
fitting him for such an onerous position; his Cabinet consisted
principally of unscrupulous adventurers who neglected no opportunity to
enrich themselves at the expense of the cause, which they ultimately, by
their corruption and treachery, destroyed.
In October, realizing that the fall of Omsk was imminent, I left and
went to Chita and reopened negotiations with the bandit of the
Trans-Baikal. My stay in Chita was somewhat unpleasantly disturbed by a
ten days’ sojourn in the Ataman’s jail which was brought about by my
calling him a thief to his face. On my release from prison, which was
secured by the British Military Mission, I remained in Chita until the
first week in December when, having secured a promise from the Ataman
that he would pay for the stolen foxes upon presentation of certain
certified statements, I went to Vladivostok to get them.
I left Vladivostok on the return journey toward the end of January. On
my arrival in Harbin, however, I was called to Tientsin for a conference
with my principals. At this conference they requested me to make an
effort to get to Irkutsk from Chita and endeavor to secure the return of
a large quantity of furs which we then had in Irkutsk and the
surrounding district.
On my return from Tientsin to Harbin I found my friend, Capt. H. S.
Walker, the British Military Mission’s representative in China, who had
recently left there under the impression that Semionov’s days were
numbered. My chances of getting through to Chita looked decidedly small,
and when Consul Gen. Harris with the consular staff, and Col. McMorrow
with the 27th United States Infantry from Verkni-Udinsk blew into the
town with much the same story as Walker’s, they looked even smaller.
However, I decided to try and break through and left on the post train
on the 22d of February for the Station Manchuria, although I was assured
in Harbin that it was impossible to get past that point as the Baikal
Railroad was blocked on both lines with the Czech evacuation. At
Manchuria, by great good fortune, I found Lieut. Lee of the American
Railroad Corps, with a train of flour destined for the coal miners west
of Chita who were supplying coal for the Czechs, and he very kindly
agreed to take me through in his private car. We made the journey in 32
hours, a remarkable performance considering that it had taken evacuating
Americans ten days.
_Saw Remnants of Army._
We got to Chita just in time to witness the arrival of Gen. Voitzikofsky
with the remnants of the Kolchak Army, which had retreated from west of
Omsk, a distance of nearly 3,000 miles, partly on sledges and partly on
foot, in the depth of winter, through a semi-hostile country—a
magnificent feat of courage and endurance.
Those of us who were anti-Semionov had great hopes of Voitzikofsky. We
looked to him to oust the bandit and his pillaging, murdering
associates, and set up a democratic form of government in the
Trans-Baikal. When E. B. Thomas, the American Vice Consul and myself
interviewed Voitzikofsky, a few days after his arrival, he indirectly
led us to believe that he intended to depose the Ataman.
However, he delayed action and his army diminished daily as the result
of wholesale desertions. He was credited with having 27,000 officers and
men when he arrived. Three weeks later this force had dwindled to 7,000
and Semionov, who had been quaking in his shoes, gradually began to
assert himself. When the Japanese finally decided not to evacuate the
Trans-Baikal, which had been their intention as soon as the Czechs had
passed through, Semionov was once more in the saddle and Voitzikofsky
dropped into comparative obscurity.
My negotiations with Semionov came to nothing. It is true he signed an
order on the Finance Department to pay the claim in gold (of which he
had plenty, having stolen it from a Kolchak echelon some months
previously), but when the order was presented the Finance Department
declined to honor it and referred us back to Semionov. The Ataman, who
obviously had no intention of paying, then impudently referred us to the
Czechs for payment, stating that as they had been entrusted with the
safe conveyance of the Russian gold reserve to Vladivostok, they were
the people to apply to. This, of course, had reference to the action of
the Czechs at Irkutsk when, in order to insure the unhampered evacuation
of their forces, they traded Kolchak and the gold in return for
noninterference with their movement eastward.
I applied to the Japanese Military Mission for assistance, but although
the Japanese Foreign Office in Tokio had pledged us, through the
American Embassy, the active assistance of their mission in Chita, the
Military Mission not only declined to intervene but disclosed to the
Ataman private and confidential documents belonging to me, which caused
me great embarrassment and undoubtedly endangered my position in the
town.
_Troops Permitted Thefts._
The Japanese, throughout their occupancy of the Trans-Baikal, acted in a
manner prejudicial to the real interests of the White cause. Their
troops were engaged in guarding the railway, but they never on any
occasion intervened to prevent Semionov from levying on supplies en
route to the front or stealing goods belonging to Russian and Allied
merchants.
The seizure of goods by Semionov reached such proportions during the
summer of 1919 that merchants in Eastern Siberia refused to forward
goods through the Trans-Baikal, and in consequence Western Siberia was
deprived of the supplies which, if they had been forthcoming, would have
done much to win the support of the peasantry and townspeople for the
White cause.
Capt. Walker and his assistant, Capt. R. C. Carthew, returned to Chita
after I had been there a few days, and at once commenced, with the
assistance of the American Railroad Corps, who had a direct wire to
Verkni-Udinsk, to make inquiries in respect to the officers and men of
the British Railway Mission who had been captured by the Bolsheviks at
Krasnoyarsk.
When Capt. Carthew induced the Bolsheviks, through Krassnochokoff, the
Commissar at Verkni, to have these prisoners brought to Irkutsk, he
obtained a safe conduct to proceed there with food, clothing and medical
supplies and kindly offered me a place on his car provided I was able to
procure a similar safe conduct.
I then telegraphed Krassnochokoff intimating that I wished to go to
Irkutsk for the purpose of discussing trading possibilities with the
authorities there, and requested a safe conduct. He telegraphed me back
the Russian Socialistic Federated Soviet Republic’s full safe conduct to
travel to Irkutsk, guaranteeing my liberty of movement while there, and
the right to leave the territory of his Government at my will.
Armed with these documents we said goodby to “Johnny” Walker and Thomas
on a bitterly cold afternoon in April and proceeded with a special train
consisting of our private car and a goods wagon for our interpreters and
servants. We flew a large Union Jack from our observation platform which
created a great deal of attention at the stations at which we stopped.
We met the last Czech echelon east of Moxon and felt that we had then
said goodby to civilization, Carthew for a couple of weeks and
I—indefinitely.
PROSPEROUS IRKUTSK REDUCED BY RULE OF REDS
_By Hector Boon._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
At Irkutsk we found a small Japanese outpost under the command of a
junior officer who, although we presented our papers signed by the
Japanese Chief of Staff in Chita, declined to allow us to proceed until
he had first communicated with the staff. Eventually we were permitted
to go on, and reached the advanced Red position at 1 P. M. We called
upon the military commandant, who was careful to impress upon us that we
were not in Soviet territory but in that of the Far Eastern Republic, at
that time called the Buffer State. We were quite willing to take his
word for it, but we noticed with amusement that the entire population
was sporting hastily improvised red stars and rosettes. In the course of
the afternoon our wagons were attached to the post train which was
already running daily between Hilok and Irkutsk.
We arrived at Verkni-Udinsk at 11 A. M. the next day and the Commissar
Krassnochokoff’s aide-de-camp met me at the station with a motor car and
conducted me to the Commissar’s house. I found Krassnochokoff, who had
spent many years in America as the head of a Jewish orphanage in
Chicago, living in a small room modestly furnished with a deal table, a
few chairs and a truckle bed. He made a very pleasant impression upon
me.
When, however, he asked questions concerning the conditions in Chita and
the intentions of the Japanese, I had to decline to answer them. He was
at some pains to impress upon me that the Bolsheviki I had known in 1917
and 1918 had changed decidedly for the better since that time. He went
on to say that he realized, however, there was still a strong
disinclination on the part of the Entente and America to have trade
relations with the Far Eastern republic, and he therefore felt that the
establishment of the Far Eastern Republic, extending from Verkni-Udinsk
to Vladivostok, would provide a medium for trading with the Soviet. He
assured me that there would be no confiscation or requisitioning of
private property and that the communistic system would not be indulged
in.
Buffer State Only a Fiction; Is Part of Soviet Russia
Krassnochokoff, who is certainly a man of some ability, spoke of his
plans in a sincere and convincing manner, and I really think that at
that time he believed the scheme would be carried through just as he
outlined it to me. However, I must admit I was sceptical.
I had seen, drawn up in the station, the Bolshevik propaganda train, in
charge of Dvornik, who had been employed as an interpreter by the
American Railroad Corps until he was imprisoned by the Kolchak
Government for propagating Bolshevism. It did not augur well for a truly
democratic state. Subsequent events have shown that my estimate of the
situation was correct. The buffer state exists only in name. It is part
of Soviet Russia, administered by Moscow on the communist system. The
population is embittered, being half starved. All industry has died and
so have men and women at the hands of firing squads, because they
unwisely expressed their disapproval of commissar rule.
Krassnochokoff was in Moscow this summer. His efforts to persuade Lenine
and company to moderate their policy in the Far Eastern Republic met
with fierce disapproval, and for some weeks he walked on thin ice. The
butcher Dzherjinsky, of the extraordinary commission, was thirsting for
his blood, but he weathered the storm and eventually returned to his job
at Verkni-Udinsk.
We left that night for Irkutsk. I was most anxious to get there. I
wanted to see our prisoners and get into touch with uncamouflaged
Bolsheviks. I hoped to find the latter as Krassnochokoff had described
them. The atrocities committed by the whites in Siberia had alienated
all my sympathies for them. I was above all else anxious to see whether
the wild beasts I had known in 1917 and 1918 had become tame.
I was at this time predisposed in favor of opening up trade relations
with the Soviet power, feeling that this would do much toward solving
the Russian problem. These were my feelings and my hopes on the eve of
my entry into “Lenine’s Paradise” in April. I left that “Paradise” in
October determined to do everything in my power to dissuade the outside
world from having any dealings whatsoever with the Bolsheviki. They were
scoundrels in 1917—they are even greater scoundrels to-day.
We received a great welcome from Major Vining and his six officers and
seven men when we arrived in Irkutsk at 3 o’clock the following
afternoon. We found that they had with them a party of British civilians
who had been captured in Krasnoyarsk. These were evacuated by Carthew.
We found that the whole party had been through trying times. Some of
them had been dangerously ill with typhus, and all of them looked worn
and undernourished. They told us that the sight of the Union Jack flying
from our car as we rolled into the station was one which made them
thrill with pride. Months later, when in Moscow, I was suffering
severely from want of food and my position seemed desperate. I realized
just what the sight of that flag must have meant to them.
The day of our arrival in Irkutsk was a “prasnik” or church holiday, and
it was therefore impossible to call on the President of the
Revolutionary Committee until the morrow.
The town, even making allowance for the fact that it was a holiday,
looked dead. All the shops had been closed and their contents removed.
Many of the windows on the main street had been perforated by bullets,
and over everything there hung that air of gloom so indissolubly
associated in my mind with Bolshevism.
I had visited Irkutsk, several times during the Kolchak regime, when it
was a thriving trading centre, and now I found it hard to realize that
this red-beflagged, poster-besmirched conglomeration of buildings could
constitute the same town. The prosperous, well dressed, happy looking
townspeople of the past had been replaced by drab and dirty workpeople,
peasants and soldiers, all liberally bedecked with red stars. I
discovered later that all those who wore red stars were by no means
Bolsheviks; in fact, the great majority of them were “radishes,” or red
outside and white within, as the Russian phrase goes. With the Reds in
power it is advisable to present at least a red exterior.
Wherever one went on the main or side streets, one met lavish displays
of gaudy posters; some of an educational character, others blatantly
lewd. The majority had for their object the stirring up of class hatred.
_Hotels Taken by Bolsheviki._
We found that all the hotels had been taken over by the Bolsheviki for
the housing of Soviet officials and their families. The restaurants had
either been closed or converted into Soviet dining rooms for Soviet
employees, where meals of exceedingly poor quality and consisting mainly
of cabbage soup, without meat, and “kasha” (millet). These meals were
served at nominal prices on production of the inevitable card.
On the following day I called on Jansen, the President of the
Revolutionary Committee. He gave me a very cordial welcome and expressed
himself as most anxious to enter into trading relations with American
firms. He arranged a meeting with the heads of the various Government
departments. This meeting, which took place on the following day, was
the forerunner of a great many conferences which extended over a period
of nearly two months, and which brought me into close touch with the
leaders of the Soviet Government in the town, and afforded me an
excellent opportunity of studying their characters and their methods.
I found Jansen, at all times a reasonable, moderate and above all humane
man. He had a pretty good grasp of his duties and executed them with
efficiency and despatch. He was always ready to render me assistance,
and in all my personal relations with him I found him straightforward
and reliable.
Of the other leaders, Saxs, a nervous, highly strung little Jew, who had
spent many years in prison during the Czar’s regime for political
offenses, I found to be a very decent fellow. Despite the fact that his
mind has become politically unbalanced, he had remained human and there
is more than a little of the milk of human kindness in his make-up.
Waxhoff, who, despite his youth (he was about twenty-three), occupied a
position of importance as the head of a Government department, was the
source of unfailing interest to me. He was the son of a rich
manufacturer in South Russia and had commenced his career by organizing
strikes in his father’s factories. He was a youngster of natural
ability, but his head unfortunately was crammed full of half-digested
revolutionary theories. I found him even a lovable companion,
warm-hearted, honest to a degree and incapable of harming a fly. He
travelled to Moscow with me.
_Reduces the Town to Penury._
Taking then all in all, the men who held the reins in Irkutsk were
moderate men, but none the less in carrying out the orders of Moscow
they reduced that once prosperous and well-fed town to penury and
semistarvation within a few months.
The market was officially decreed closed, but the peasants still
continued to bring in foodstuffs until the “Chika” (the Extraordinary
Commission) commenced raiding it and arresting sellers and buyers,
confiscating their goods and imprisoning them. When I left Irkutsk only
a small number of peasants were bringing food into the town.
Siberia, even allowing for the land which has been allowed to go out of
cultivation in recent years, still produces, or did during the Kolchak
regime, enough to feed the whole of its population and still permit her
to export a considerable surplus to European Russia. Notwithstanding
this fact, which is incontrovertible, there is not a town of any size in
Soviet Siberia which is not suffering from a shortage of food. The
Entente blockade is certainly not responsible for this state of affairs:
it is the Communist system which is at fault.
I found in those Government departments which I visited a superabundance
of staff, occupied mostly in doing nothing. The people in these
departments had been forced to work for the Soviet, but they took good
care to do as little work as possible and that as badly as they dared.
Outside the spy service there is little or no real organization in
Bolshevik institutions.
FOOD IS SCARCE IN OMSK, AND MOSCOW IS NO BETTER OFF
_By Hector Boon._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
Thanks to Jansen, I was able to live in an apartment of six rooms, quite
an extraordinary privilege, bearing in mind that people were being
crowded four and five in a room. When I took possession of it my drawing
room was occupied by an engineer and his family and four other people,
making in all nine persons. This engineer, a well-known member of
Irkutsk society, had been turned out of his house to make room for a
Commissar. His presence in my house led to an unpleasant incident which
gave me a glimpse of the methods of the “Chika.”
I was awakened one morning at 2 A. M. by my servant with the news that
the house was being searched. On going out to investigate I found half a
dozen soldiers and a Commissar busily engaged in searching the effects
of the engineer and his family. I formally protested to the Commissar,
but as he most politely informed me that my personal rooms would not be
disturbed, I was left with no alternative but to go back to bed. I took
the precaution, however, of leaving my servant on guard, and he reported
to me at breakfast that the search party had left at 6 A. M. with the
engineer under arrest.
I inquired into the charges against this man and found that he had been
arrested primarily because he was supposed to be rich and also because
he had been associated with an organization for sending comforts to the
troops during Kolchak’s regime. He was still in prison when I left
Irkutsk.
Lack of Food in Omsk Due Solely to Soviet’s System
After two months’ negotiation with the Revolutionary Committee it was
found impossible to arrive at any definite arrangement in respect to
trading, and I received a telegraphic invitation from the Siberian
Revolutionary Committee to go to Omsk and discuss the matter with them,
which I accepted. Jansen placed a compartment at my disposal in a
private car which was attached to the post train, and I left for Omsk
with my two assistants and my servant on the 22d of May.
The journey to Omsk was quite uneventful. We found the town a replica of
Irkutsk, a superabundance of red flags, posters, soldiers and a scarcity
of food. The lack of food in Omsk, which is the centre of a great
agricultural and dairy farming district, is due solely to the
Communistic system. The problem of transportation does not even enter
into the question. The peasants refuse to hand over their produce at the
insignificant prices in worthless paper roubles which the Soviet offers,
and the Bolsheviki have so far not dared to proceed to extreme measures
in order to coerce them.
The peasants of Siberia are in the main small landowners and were so
under the Czar’s regime. Communism does not appeal to them and they will
have none of it. I am confident that the Bolsheviki will never succeed
in forcing the peasants to accept their theory of government and that if
they resort to military measures the peasants will come out on top.
_Method Embitters Peasants._
In the early summer of this year the Bolsheviki ordered the peasants in
Western Siberia to deliver a certain stipulated quantity of grain to the
railway stations nearest their farms. Only 25 per cent. of the quantity
demanded was delivered, which represented the quota of those whose farms
were in close proximity to the towns. The balance, despite
blood-curdling threats, was not forthcoming. This method of
requisitioning farm produce embittered the entire peasantry of Siberia,
and the net result was nil. Owing to the lack of transport the grain
obtained by the above method has not been sent to Moscow, for which it
was intended.
We spent ten days in Omsk. We slept on the train and took our meals in a
peasant’s house in which I had lived during the previous summer. At that
time my full board and lodging cost me a dollar a day; this summer,
however, dinner alone cost us $2 a head, and I doubt whether the
landlady made any profit. At this house I met a great many peasants and
small townspeople. All were without exception bitterly opposed to the
Bolsheviki. The majority of them had already suffered from requisitions
and they were terrified of the “Chika.”
I had a long talk with Smirnoff, the President of the Siberian
Revolutionary Committee. I found him very moderate in his views and a
man of heart and vision. He is regarded with suspicion by the ardent
Communists on account of his humane and kindly qualities, and but for
the fact that he enjoys the personal friendship of Lenine the “Chika”
would make short work of him.
I found it impossible to do anything in Omsk for the simple reason that
no one there had any authority to enter into trading agreements, and
when Smirnoff invited me to go to Moscow I accepted.
Our wagon was attached to a service train conveying supplies for the
Polisa front, and there travelled with us several Commissars and their
wives and families. The journey, which the post train makes regularly in
six days, took us twelve, as we broke down constantly owing to running
hot boxes, and when we did not break down we laid up for hours at a
stretch in order to arrive at search stations in the small hours of the
morning when the militia would be too lazy to bother about us. These
precautions were rendered necessary because our good Commissar’s friends
had with them a good wagon full of contraband, chiefly foodstuffs, which
they were taking to Moscow for their own use and also as a speculation.
On one occasion, when, owing to some miscalculation on the part of our
master speculator, the train commandant, we arrived at a search station
in the early afternoon a most amusing incident took place. The search
party consisted of an officer and six men. The officer informed our
commandant that he intended to search the train, whereupon our man
called out his guard of two N. C. O.’s and fourteen men, gave the order
to load, and then with a twinkle in his eye invited the officer to
commence his search. Thanks to our superior numbers no search took
place, but the militia got some white flour and sugar to help them keep
their mouths shut.
The heat throughout the journey had been intense, so that when we
arrived in Moscow we heaved a sigh of relief and were indeed glad to
have got there. We arrived on the afternoon of the 22d of June. As we
pulled into the goods station I noticed with mixed feelings a number of
British general service wagons and other British stores which had been
captured by the Bolsheviki in Archangel.
_Only Commissars Dine Well._
Waxoff offered to take me to the Moscow Soviet to inquire for rooms. We
took a cab outside the Jaroslavski Station. The driver at first demanded
10,000 roubles—i. e., $5, but after some bargaining agreed to take us to
the house of the Soviet, which was formerly the residence of the
Military Governor of Moscow, for half that sum. The pre-war fare was 15
cents. At the Soviet we saw a Commissar, who gave me a letter to the
Foreign Office, which, it appeared, arranged all accommodation for
foreigners. As this man interviewed us he partook of his dinner, which I
was interested to notice consisted of very good cabbage soup with a
large piece of meat in it, followed by a large plate of meat and
vegetables, good black bread and tea with sugar. This certainly did not
look like starvation. I later discovered to my cost that only Commissars
were fed thus well.
At the Foreign Office we met a Jew named Contorovitch, who spoke English
fluently. He furnished me with rooms at the Foreign Office Guest House
at No. 10 Mala Haritonofskaya, which formerly was the home of a wealthy
German merchant. At this house the first person I met was Mrs. Harrison,
the correspondent of the Associated Press.
The other people living in the house were Bobroff, a naturalized
American Jew (former Russian subject), who was soliciting orders from
the Bolsheviki; an Esthonian representative, two tame Bolsheviki from
Siberia, two red, or seemingly red, delegates from Corea, and Axionoff.
This man, formerly Colonel of the Imperial Guard, scion of a noble
Russian family, was ostensibly working in the Foreign Office, but was in
fact a spy for the Extraordinary Commission. He was specially planted in
the house to watch the movements of foreigners and report their
conversations to Mogilevski, the Chief Commissar of the Foreign
Department of the Vetchika (the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission).
During my stay in Moscow I saw a great deal of this mustache-twirling,
beard-combing, smirking, Iscariotic apology for a man, and the more I
saw of the cowardly renegade the more repulsive I found him. Axionoff,
however, was not the only member of the aristocracy I met who had sold
his honor and purchased a modicum of comfort and a degree of safety by
spying on and betraying his friends. By far the most dangerous spies in
Moscow were those recruited from the upper classes.
_Potatoes a Delicacy._
The meals at No. 10, which is one of the best guest houses in the city,
consisted of tea and black bread and butter or cheese for breakfast;
water soup, decorated with particles of vegetables and kasha, or
occasionally rice, for dinner, and black bread and again kasha for
supper. On rare occasions we were given as a special delicacy boiled
potatoes sprinkled with minute portions of meat. As the meat had
invariably been a long time dead we found it advisable to remove it
before eating the potatoes.
As at all the Soviet guest houses there were two soldiers always on
guard at the door, who carefully noted one’s comings and goings.
Visitors were only allowed to enter on production of their documents,
particulars of which, together with the name of the person visited, were
entered in a book which was periodically sent to the Vetchika. In
addition to the guard we had a rat-faced commandant who padded about the
house in noiseless boots, probably relics of his former occupation.
On calling at the Department for Foreign Trade, which had been presided
over by Krassin before he left for Scandinavia and England, I met a
Commissar of the name of Voronatzki, who expressed himself as most
anxious to trade with us. He proved to be a very decent fellow, but
possessed of little or no knowledge of the matters he was handling. The
proposition I made him was the same as that which I had advanced in
Irkutsk, namely, to supply the Irkutsk district with goods forwarded via
Mongolia and the Jakutsk district, in the fur-bearing region northeast
of Irkutsk, via Olan, a port on the Pacific, provided the Soviet power
agreed to return to us the furs they had seized in Eastern Siberia;
payment for the goods to be supplied by us to be made in furs.
These propositions were referred to the Economic Department of the
Foreign Office, which declined them on the grounds that they were of no
political interest.
AMERICANS JAILED BY MOSCOW REDS ON MERE PRETEXT
_By Hector Boon._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
The negotiations I have just described had taken about ten days, and
during this time there had been several fresh arrivals at No. 10,
notably Boni, the correspondent of the New York Sun, who was later
thrown into jail because it was alleged he evinced too much interest in
the affairs of the Third Internationale. He attended the opening of the
conference in Petrograd as the guest of Radek, the Bolshevik editor.
Shortly before the advent of Boni, Mrs. Harding, an Englishwoman, the
correspondent of The New York World, arrived. She was in the house
exactly four hours, during which time Rozinzki, formerly a tailor in the
East End of London and now a spy for the Vetchika, never left her side.
On the pretext that she was to be lodged in another guest house, she was
taken off in a motor car, accompanied by Mogilevski, and driven straight
to the Vetchika and placed in solitary confinement.
Others Thrown Into Prison.
The same treatment was later meted out to two American correspondents,
Estes and Flick, who on their arrival in Moscow were driven direct from
the station to the Vetchika, where they were thrown into prison and were
still there, in a semistarving condition, when I left Moscow. As in the
case of Mrs. Harding, they obtained the Soviet power’s permission to
enter Russia before they left Reval.
The Italian correspondent, Pennuncio, who stayed while in Moscow at No.
10, also had a dose of prison. It seems that an article appeared in his
newspaper which dealt with the morale of the Red Army. Without troubling
to inquire whether this had been written by him, they threw Pennuncio
into prison and kept him there for ten days.
In arranging for my passport to be visaed for England I came into close
contact with the Foreign Office, and in particular with one Rosenberg, a
Jew, who had spent several years in London as a master tailor in an East
End sweatshop. In 1917 he was secretary to Raymond Robins of the
American Red Cross in Petrograd. When I arrived in Moscow he was in
charge of the Western Section of the Foreign Office, and as the agent of
the Vetchika had the handling of all foreigners in Russia.
This man is without exception the most unpleasant individual I met
during my stay in Soviet Russia. He was invariably rude to every one,
ofttimes insolent, consumed with his own importance, and violently
anti-English, the country which for years had given him an asylum.
When some American friends of mine were arrested on an absurd charge and
thrown into prison I ventured to address a letter of protest to
Chicherin, the Commissary for Foreign Affairs. This letter came into the
hands of Rosenberg, who threatened me with imprisonment for insulting
the Soviet Government. I reminded him that I was in Moscow under the
protection of his Government’s safe conduct, to which he was pleased to
reply that that would not keep me out of prison.
This Threat Effective.
The situation appeared to call for bluff, so I invited him to put me in
prison and assured him that within twenty-four hours of my arrest
Comrade Krassin (the Soviet’s representative in England) would find
himself in prison in London. The threat was effective, for during the
whole of my enforced stay of three months in Moscow I retained my
liberty. I need hardly say that I do not believe that the English
Government would have arrested Krassin or that they would have done
anything for me if I had been arrested.
Once upon a time the British Government was a by-word among the nations
of the earth for the promptness with which it protected its nationals.
To-day the British Government has so little regard for its own dignity
that it carries on negotiations with a gang of marauders while its
nationals are being ill treated by them, and even appears anxious to
elevate that gang to the dignity of a de facto Government. At any rate
this is the feeling of those unfortunates who were allowed to starve in
prison in Moscow while Krassin was enjoying the comfort of his office on
the “Bondski Prospect” and revelling in the luxury of his quarters in
Curzon Street, Mayfair.
Repulsed by Krassin.
Just as I was preparing to leave for London Krassin returned to Moscow
and I postponed my departure in order to see him. Two days after his
arrival I interviewed him in his office at the Foreign Trade Department.
He was very full of his supposed success in London, assured me that the
trading agreement would be signed and speedily followed by complete
recognition of the Soviet Government and went on to tell me that he
would have no dealings, direct or indirect, with American merchants
until the United States Government fully recognized the Soviet.
He remained adamant on this point but suggested that I should see him
again on my return to London. Krassin impressed me as a very shrewd
business man, quite unscrupulous and ready to adopt any means to an end.
His personal conceit is colossal and he demonstrated it in many ways at
this interview.
When he attended a meeting of the Supreme Economic Council, which was
held during his stay in Moscow, he was questioned by an ardent Communist
as to why he proposed to give away Russia’s riches to British
concessionaires. His repay was typical of the man.
“Never mind,” he said. “Don’t fear; we shall give away nothing. We shall
get the concessionaires to put in their money, experience and machinery,
and when they have done that we will hang them.” This illuminating
incident was related to me by a man who was present at the meeting, a
man whose reputation is beyond question.
Lived in Commissar’s House.
Almost immediately after this interview with Krassin, and when the
Bolsheviks realized that they had nothing to gain from me, I was ordered
to vacate my room at “The House of Spies,” viz: No. 10, at two hours’
notice. This was the work of Rosenberg, but he cut off his nose to spite
his face, for during the rest of my stay in Moscow I lived in places
where there were no guards on the doors or aristocratic spies to entice
me into making counter-revolutionary statements.
As the Bolsheviks made no effort to provide me with other quarters I was
forced to live in a friendly Commissar’s car at the railway station,
which was then waiting to take him back to Siberia. I remained in the
car for a week and then found a room in an apartment house on the
Kuznetzki Most, the Bond Street of Moscow. The house, which was tenanted
chiefly by Soviet employees, was indescribably dirty and verminous.
It was only when, after having been forced to leave No. 10, I had to
provide my own meals that I realized what it cost to feed oneself even
in the most frugal manner. Taking the exchange current at that time,
viz.: 2,500 roubles to the dollar, and converting the rouble prices into
their American equivalent, black bread cost 25 cents a pound, white
bread $1, butter $2.50, rice $1, meat 50 cents, sugar $2.50, tea $6 and
potatoes, which were comparatively cheap, 4 cents a pound.
The foregoing are so-called speculative prices for foodstuffs which are
purchasable on the market, whereas the Soviet prices for food obtainable
with cards are only a fraction of these.
Buying and selling, except by and to the State, is illegal and the
market itself is an illegal institution. As, however, it provides a
source of large illicit income to the Commissars of the Emchika (Moscow
Extraordinary Commission) it is allowed to operate. The only sellers on
the market who are not subject to sudden arrest are those who have an
understanding with the Commissars and pay them a regular fixed sum per
month for their protection.
The market is raided by the soldiers of the Emchika daily. The arrests
per raid average about 60 persons, buyers and sellers. The arrested are
herded from the market to the point of preliminary inspection, which is
in close proximity to the market place. Here those who are able to make
it worth the while of the examining Commissars are set at liberty after
their goods have been confiscated; those less fortunate are thrown into
prison where they remain sometimes for months without ever being brought
before the semblance of a court.
HUNGER AFFLICTS ALL MOSCOW UNDER BOLSHEVIK RULE
_By Hector Boon._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
The saddest sight in the Muscovite city is the place I named the Lane of
Tears. It is an alleyway between two rows of permanent stalls on the
Sukarefka, where women and men, old and young, almost entirely of the
educated classes, with the exception of a few professionals who
occasionally compete with them, foregather and sell their personal
effects in order to keep body and soul together.
For three months I went to the market daily and never failed to visit
the Lane of Tears. I have seen gently nurtured women selling their
silken underclothing to the vulgar wives and mistresses of Commissars,
who, all unmindful of the feelings of the seller, held up the garments
for all to behold amid the ribald laughter and lewd jokes of the
soldiers standing near. I have seen a young widow selling an officer’s
tunic and strive to gulp down the tears as, with the proceeds, she
hurried off to the bread pitch. If I read the story right, that tunic
had been dear to her as the last remaining remembrance of the young
husband the firing squad had taken from her.
_Begs Money for Bread._
One day as I was having my shoes cleaned, a luxury which later I was
unable to afford, an elderly lady addressed me in rapid Russian. I did
not understand her as she spoke so swiftly and I told her so. She
immediately asked me in French, German and English, with hardly a trace
of an accent, what language I spoke. She told me in torrential French
that she was starving (she looked it), and begged me to give her a
little money with which to buy bread. She said all this as if she had
learned it by heart and had then had to summon up her courage to say it,
as after asking for the money she told me in a faltering voice that she
would not have done so but that she had not tasted bread in four days.
I took her to a food stall and insisted on her joining me at an early
dinner. The food was rough but good. As we ate I got her to tell me her
story. Her eldest son, an officer, had been killed in the war against
Germany; her second son and her husband had been shot by the Bolsheviks
in 1918, and the crowning blow had fallen only a few months previously,
when her only daughter and her husband were executed.
Having sold all her possessions, she was now starving, and, as she told
me, had only one wish in the world, to fall asleep one night and never
wake up. I gave her what I could. I never saw her in the market again. I
have often wondered whether her wish was fulfilled. I trust it was; for
that poor lady and thousands like her, death can hold no terrors, only
relief from untold suffering.
A lady getting on in years, whom I often met on the Sukarefka, selling
her clothing and other little trifles, has, I am glad to learn, arrived
back safely in England. She is an English governess who had been in the
service of a rich family living in the provinces. She made repeated
applications to Rosenberg of the Soviet Foreign Office to be allowed to
return to England, which were brutally refused. While the French Red
Cross was in Moscow she was fed, but when it was evacuated she found it
hard to keep alive. I was unable to help her, as I was desperately close
to starvation myself. This lady was living at the English home, where I
visited her several times. It was eventually taken over by the Soviet,
and the remaining English women were herded four and five in a room,
while the Bolshevik inmates lived in comfort in a room apiece.
_Brutality of Bolsheviks._
The seizing of St. Andrew’s Home was only an instance of the brutal
manner in which the Bolsheviks treated the British and the Americans in
Moscow. The action was all the more despicable and cowardly inasmuch as
the people living there were for the most part poor governesses, quite
destitute of funds.
When Krassin left Moscow I applied to Rosenberg for permission to leave,
which was refused on the ground that the frontier was closed. When the
frontiers were opened I again asked to be allowed to leave and was put
off with the excuse that the frontiers were still closed, although I
knew them to be open, as several foreigners had left. It was only when
Nuorteva, who came from Marten’s bureau in New York, took over
Rosenberg’s job that the Foreign Office put its cards on the table and
stated that they refused to honor my safe conduct and that they intended
to hold me as a hostage. It took me a month to persuade Nuorteva to
allow me to go. Nuorteva, leaving aside natural differences of opinion,
behaved like a white man and showed himself both kind and considerate
toward all the foreigners and genuinely desirous of helping them so far
as the Vetchika would allow him to.
During the last three months of my stay, while waiting for permission to
leave, I went closely into the life of the city. I visited all sorts and
conditions of Russians in their homes and gained an intimate knowledge
of how they lived, if one can use such a word to describe their bare
existence.
In nearly every house there was overcrowding, four and five and even six
people living and sleeping in one room. Their staple diet was black
bread, kasha, salt herrings and potatoes. If a family was able to afford
a little meat once a week and some milk, sugar and fruit, they were
living in comparative luxury.
_Card System a Farce._
The card system, except for the new aristocracy, that is to say the
members of the Communist Party, who number only 500,000 in all Russia,
is a farce. The bulk of the commodities one is entitled to purchase with
cards do not exist. The cards are really only good for the bread ration,
kasha, salt herrings and occasionally a little cooking oil, sugar, tea
and potatoes.
The bulk of the people exist on black bread, kasha and unsweetened tea.
The rations are just sufficient to maintain life. The people, to judge
by their outward appearance, which medical men can probably explain,
look healthy, but in reality they are terribly undernourished and are
without any reserve strength. If an epidemic broke out in Moscow the
people would die like flies.
The children are well taken care of. There are numerous creches,
children’s homes and children’s dining rooms. However, even in the care
of children the Soviet differentiates between the children of Communists
and the offspring of non-Communists. The main reason why the Bolsheviki
take good care of the children is because it enables them to bring up
the coming generation on Bolshevism, Communism and class hatred from the
cradle.
The sanitary arrangements of Moscow are deplorable. Most of the piping
broke during the winter of 1918–1919 and no effort has been made to
repair it since; in fact, no repair work of any description has been
done during the past three years. The roads and pavements are full of
yawning cavities and one risks his limbs if he goes out after dark. The
streets are unlighted.
No regular scavenger service is maintained. The work of cleaning the
streets, the railway stations, &c., is done by forced levies of
bourgeois and “eye wash” parties of Communists, who work on Saturday
afternoons for propaganda purposes. The street cars are running on a
limited service and are invariably crammed to suffocation. The shops, of
course, are all closed, with the exception of a few which sell milk,
fruit and vegetables. There are no restaurants and no hotels open to the
public. There are no newspapers except those published by the Soviet and
which are crammed with lies from cover to cover. There is not the
slightest freedom of pen or speech.
The population lives in a state of terror. The soldiers of the Chika are
dressed in weird Mephistophelian headgear in order to terrify the
people. House searches are invariably made at night or during the small
hours of the morning. People are arrested daily on the flimsiest charges
and thrown into prison without any form of trial. People accused of
speculation and counter revolution are shot in thousands, being given no
chance of proving their innocence. Eight thousand paid agents are
employed in Moscow alone. The Soviet spy system is probably the most
highly developed organization of its kind in the world.
_“Veritable Bird of Prey.”_
The most hated man in all Russia is Dzherjinsky, the head of this
system. He has done to death literally hundreds of thousands of men and
women. He is a man without a heart or a conscience, a veritable bird of
prey, whose appetite for blood is insatiable. When the Reds overran
Siberia after the fall of Kolchak, they announced as they advanced into
the country the abolition of the death sentence and guaranteed to all
White officers who surrendered a full pardon and permission to return to
their families.
This undertaking was broken almost immediately after they gained
complete control of the country. Thousands of Whites were butchered
throughout Siberia. The man who ordered this was Dzherjinsky. Mrs. Clare
Sheridan wrote in her diary that when she said goodby to him it made her
feel sad that she would never see him again!
I have talked with all sorts and conditions of people in Moscow, from
the lowest to the highest, and failed to find one person, apart from
those in favored positions in the employ of the Soviet, who had a good
word to say for Bolshevism or Communism or any other “ism.” On the other
hand, the working classes have no wish to be again under the old regime.
They all want the same thing—a Government that will give them a chance
to earn a decent living and will leave them alone. They are tired of
decrees, weary of rationed food and Communistic control and, above all,
they loathe the “Chika.”
The majority of the girls and women working in the Government offices
are leading irregular lives with the Commissars who furnish them with
additional food and clothing. Girls who in pre-revolutionary days, would
never have prostituted themselves, even in Russia, where morality was
always on a low scale, to-day are forced to sell themselves in order to
keep body and soul together. Bolshevism is the foulest prostituting
agency the world has ever seen.
SOVIET RULERS A GANG OF THIEVES, BOON DECLARES
_By Hector Boon._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
I left Moscow on Saturday, the 10th of October, by the courier’s train
which was carrying despatches for Joffe, the head of the Soviet Peace
Mission, and arrived in Riga on the morning of Tuesday, the 13th.
There travelled with me an English officer, Capt. J. S. Campbell, late
of the Gunners, who had been captured by the Reds in January when on the
Pechora River, East of Archangel, on a timber survey, and who had spent
a considerable time in prison both in Archangel and in Petrograd. My
other travelling companions were Mr. Hopwood, the assistant manager of
Kodak, who had been in Moscow for eighteen years, and his two daughters.
Both Campbell and myself will always affectionately remember the
charming reception given us by Col. Tallents, the British Commissioner
to the Baltic states, and the assistance which was rendered us by Mr.
Louden the British Consul. While in Riga we also saw Mr. Young, the
American Commissioner, to whom we gave all the latest information
respecting Americans held prisoners in Moscow.
In Riga we found it difficult to realize that we had finally escaped
from the Bolsheviks, and it was only when we arrived in London, on Oct.
19, having travelled via Berlin, that we really felt that at last we had
reached safety and civilization.
‘_Gang of Marauders._’
In London I found people who were interested in Russia actively
discussing the proposed trading agreement with the Bolsheviks, but
nobody who had had any experience of them supported the scheme or were
other than strongly opposed to it. I have spent the best part of the
last three years in Russia, partly with the Reds and partly with the
Whites, and during the whole of that time I occupied myself as a
business man.
All my personal business interests are centred in Russia, and I have
everything to gain by resumption of trade with that country, but
notwithstanding, I am absolutely and uncompromisingly opposed to any
trade relations whatsoever with the Soviet power. I shall have nothing
whatever to do with Russia in so far as trading is concerned while the
Bolsheviks remain in power. I regard trading with the gang of marauders
who now wield power in that country as unsound in theory and in
practice.
The basis of all business is credit, and the basis of credit is
reputation. The Bolsheviks are thieves. Their word is worthless and
their stock in trade is principally stolen gold, and I decline to become
a receiver of stolen property even at the instigation of the British
Government.
Mr. W. B. Vanderlip told me in Moscow that as soon as Mr. Harding took
office the United States would recognize the Soviet Government and
trading between the States and Russia, would be in full swing this
coming year.
With all due respect to Mr. Vanderlip and his fantastic contract (which
is not worth the paper it is written on) I do not believe that the
United States of America will have anything whatever to do with the
Soviet Government or that the United States Government will follow the
lead of the British Government by entering into an ignoble contract with
the biggest bunch of murderers and scoundrels the world has ever seen,
or do any act which will tend to increase the power of a gang of
marauders whose aim is to smother the truly democratic form of
government which obtains in the States, and in the building up and
protection of which the sons of America have so gallantly shed their
blood in the past.
I should like the people of America to know that, apart from Mr. H. G.
Wells and certain misguided members of the British Government, there are
only two classes of people in England who desire that England should
trade with the Bolsheviks, viz: those manufacturers and merchants who
have large stocks of goods on hand which they are unable to dispose of,
and the Direct Action people and their associates. Outside these two
classes the people of England are opposed to any dealings with Lenine &
Co.
“_The Enemies of Mankind._”
For those manufacturers and merchants, whether they be English or
American, who wish to trade with the Bolsheviks, I have nothing but
contempt. They are the sort of people who fleeced their respective
countries during the war, who lost no opportunity of taking advantage of
their country’s plight, and to-day they are willing to deal with the
enemies of mankind, if by so doing they can fill their own pockets.
There are not more than one per cent. of real Bolsheviks in the whole of
Russia. The anti-Bolshevik elements in that country are unitedly opposed
to the lifting of the blockade. Whilst they appreciate that to a certain
extent their present deplorable conditions of existence would be
somewhat improved by the importation of goods of first necessity, they
prefer to undergo still greater hardships if by so doing they can bring
about the overthrow and final destruction of Bolshevism.
Mr. Wells has stated that the Russian population is roughly content with
the Bolshevist rule. I am at a loss to understand how Mr. Wells gained
the impression of “roughly content.” Had Mr. Wells spent a year in
Russia, as a free agent, unhampered by Bolshevik guides, and then made
the statement that the population was “roughly content,” I should have
characterized it as a cold, calculated lie, but inasmuch as he only
spent two weeks in Petrograd and thirty hours in Moscow (I was there at
the same time), we can attribute the statement to ignorance; in fact,
Mr. Wells has shown himself as remarkably ignorant in relation to many
of the vital factors of the Russian situation.
I do not believe that the honest trades unionist in any country is in
favor of that form of government which the Bolshevists have instituted
in Russia. I cannot but feel that if the genuine trades unionist in
England and America possessed the same first hand knowledge that I do of
Bolshevist rule he would be willing that the Government of his country
should trade with the Soviet Power and thereby strengthen it.
Nowhere in the world to-day is the genuine workingman so badly treated
as he is in Russia. Labor is conscripted and trades unions have been
abolished. The workingman has apparently no rights and no voice in the
government of his country. He is denied the right to strike or to
protest against his grossly inadequate wages.
The Bolshevist government is the government of the militant minority.
That minority comprises principally the criminal elements of the
country. Lenine time and again stated that the people, taken as a whole,
are too ignorant to be allowed to have a voice in the government of
their country. He maintains that the country should be governed by the
dictatorship of strong men who should decide what is good for the
people, and, having decided, should enforce their will upon the people
by means of military power.
I would recommend the workmen of America to note and inwardly digest:
(1) The people of Russia have no voice in the government of their
country.
(2) There is no freedom of pen or speech.
(3) Labor is conscripted.
(4) People accused of offenses against the Soviet laws, which are not
stable but are altered from day to day, are thrown into prison without
trial.
(5) There are no juries.
(6) Trade unions have been abolished.
(7) The right to strike is denied.
(8) There is military conscription.
And, having done so, to say whether or not they desire to bring about
the same conditions in their countries. I don’t think they will. I think
they will agree with me that such a government is impossible. Those
foreigners who have lived in Russia under the Soviet rule are unanimous
in denouncing it as the worst government the world has ever seen.
_Wells Knows Nothing About It_
Mr. Wells, after two weeks’ stay in the country, tells us that the
Soviet power is the only possible form of government for Russia at the
present time. He conveys the impression that inasmuch as he has decided
that “there is now no alternative to that Government possible,” that
that settles the matter and we must do as Mr. Wells advises us. Mr.
Wells ridicules Marx and yet, almost in the same breath, tells us that
the Bolshevist Government, which is a Communistic government, is the
only possible government for Russia.
It would seem to me that we are entitled to judge the value of Mr.
Wells’s advice on these two statements alone and that it is not
necessary to delve further into his impertinent literary gymnastics
except to say that Mr. Wells, despite his boast that he was not
hoodwinked during his stay in Russia, if judged by what he has written,
was fooled up to the hilt.
Mr. Wells states: “Much that the Red Terror did was cruel and frightful;
it was largely controlled by narrow-minded men, and many of its
officials were inspired by social hatred and the fear of counter
revolution, but if it was fanatical, it was honest. Apart from
individual atrocities it did, on the whole, kill for a reason and to an
end.”
Again, I suppose, we must attribute this statement to Mr. Wells’s
ignorance. There has never been in the history of the world a more
corrupt and dishonest organization than the Extraordinary Commission.
There is no greater scoundrel than a Dzherjinsky, the President of it.
But, ignorant and bumptious as you are, Mr. Wells, who are you to tell
the world that the Extraordinary Commission is honest? What do you know
about it? What have you seen of its methods? I venture to say that you
have seen nothing and that you are writing, as you frequently do, of
things you know nothing about.
You live in a free country, free from all persecution, enjoying every
human comfort, under an established Government; and you go to Russia,
spend two weeks there with your bleating, mouthing perversion of
humanity, Maxim Gorky, and come back and tell your countrymen that they
must support a set of blackguards.
A final word with you, Mr. Wells—leave Russia alone. You have done a lot
of harm and you have earned the just resentment of every true friend of
Russia. If you must dabble with poison, write another “Ann Veronica.”
The Russian problem is one which will be solved by men, not by literary
acrobats.
In conclusion, I would like to remind the great American people that
they fought in the great war to make the world safe for democracy. You
helped to destroy German militarism, but remember that German militarism
was nothing as compared with that of Soviet power. Having set out to rid
the world of militarism and make it safe for democracy, have you any
right to leave the task undone? Is there not a moral obligation resting
upon you to crush the militant minority which is exploiting and
terrifying 99 per cent. of the Russian people?
[Illustration]
The World
NEW YORK
ITS ACCOMPLISHMENTS—ITS AIMS AND ITS CLAIMS
THE WORLD as established by
JOSEPH PULITZER, May 10, 1883:
“An institution that should always fight for progress and reform,
never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all
parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes
and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always
remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely
printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to
attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”
More than thirty-seven years have passed since that utterance was made.
During all that time The World has tried mightily to realize the supreme
ideal thus set for it and to that end it is striving with all its power
now.
So it is not unbecoming to point out the degree of success which The
World has attained. There can be no boasting in measuring the altitude
this newspaper has reached in its ever soaring flight; no braggadocio in
reiterating its aims, in setting forth its claims.
For the millions of persons who read The World agree that it does big
things in a big way. Else they would not read it. Nor would they crowd
its columns with advertisements, themselves most interesting and
important reading.
Even to enumerate the big things The World has done in the last twelve
months, to rehearse the public services it has rendered, would take too
long here. But consider for a moment the last of these. The World’s
determination to improve the housing conditions of this city resulted in
its discovery and exposure of unprecedented building graft. The inquiry
by the Joint Legislative Committee on Housing, compelled by The World,
has resulted in further amazing revelations. No prophet is needed to
foretell that infinite good may come of it.
Really, it seems not impossible, if the Legislature will do its share,
that a New Yorker of moderate means will be able to house his family
decently and have enough money left to buy food and clothing.
_THE EDITORIAL PAGE_
The newspaper that would obey the precepts laid down by The World’s
founder has need of an editorial page, sound, strong and independent.
That The World’s attitude on public questions is guided by these
instructions of Joseph Pulitzer is generally agreed by the reading
public. Its editorial policy is one of intelligent liberalism. It would
seek for the evils of democracy a cure in more democracy. It would
welcome the widest opportunity for change and experiment in fitting
popular government to new conditions, while setting its face like a
flint against revolution by force and the subversive doctrines of
anarchy. It finds in freedom an assurance of safety alike from reaction
and Bourbonism and from half-baked soap-box theories of “direct action.”
Yet any man or woman who has something really worth while to say and who
can say it briefly and with propriety may find a hearing in The World’s
Editorial Forum.
A cartoon is an editorial—when it is one. The daily cartoons of Rollin
Kirby upon The World’s editorial page are almost as often reproduced in
Europe as in the United States as the finest examples extant of American
public opinion portrayed at a glance in pictorial form. They thus
combine present-day political effect with permanent historic value.
_POLITICAL WRITERS_
The World is particularly fortunate in its political writers. In that
direction, the greatest achievement of the year was Louis Seibold’s
interview with the President of the United States. By the courtesy of
The World the interview was published in newspapers all over the
country. It and the writer were lauded by magazines, reviews and papers
devoted to journalism.
Equally remarkable was the expose, by the same political authority, of
the underwriting of Gen. Leonard Wood’s campaign for the Presidential
nomination.
Charles Michelson heads the admirable staff of the Washington Bureau of
The World. It goes without saying that the White House and all the
departments are visited daily. Mr. Michelson never needs to deny or
amend his accurate despatches.
In Albany, Charles S. Hand reports the open sessions and the “inside”
doings of the Legislature with equal impartiality and fearlessness.
Women in politics, who since the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment
have taken their place in the Parties side by side with the men, serving
as associate leaders in District, County or State organizations, are
closely and accurately followed in their newly authorized activities.
_THE UNITED STATES—By Wire_
The New York World’s telegraphic news service in the United States
extends north and south from Duluth, Minn., to Brownsville, Tex., and
east and west from Eastport, Me., to San Francisco. Any point in the
country can be reached, no matter how small, through arrangement with a
correspondent in the nearest large town. Every city in the United
States, large and small, either has a World representative or has one
within telephone call.
The news queries to The New York World cover every section and every
variety of news, and are on the wires either by telegraph or telephone
at every emergency.
_FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE
and General European News_
Good Americans native born and good Americans of foreign lineage have an
interest equally deep in foreign news. This good American newspaper has
built up a superb organization to gather news from the most
authoritative sources all over the globe and to despatch it by cable,
wireless—by courier, when necessary.
The high standing and reputation of The World’s correspondents abroad
give them easy access to heads of Governments, prelates, diplomats,
scientists, captains of industry and leaders of labor.
James M. Tuohy, the London representative of The World, is the dean of
London correspondents. His knowledge of European affairs is admirable.
Joseph Pulitzer appointed him as head of the European clearing house for
news for The World and Mr. Tuohy has appointed correspondents for The
World in all the capitals of Europe, being personally acquainted with
each man and woman he selected. No one knows more than Tuohy about
politics in Ireland and British rule in Ireland, subjects in which tens
of thousands of The World’s readers are engrossed.
Every reader of The World is familiar with the names of its staff
correspondents abroad, for they, being certain of the facts they state
are only too glad to accept public responsibility for them. Lincoln
Eyre, in Paris; Arno Dosch-Fleurot, who has a roving commission at the
moment; Cyril Brown, in Berlin; Miss Beatrice Baskerville, in Rome, have
become the friends, even the guides, of the thoughtful who support this
newspaper—whenever and wherever the interest of mankind is focused,
there and then a staff correspondent of The World is present; at the
front headquarters of battling armies, at all important conferences of
diplomats, at discussions of bankers, at congresses of labor—in Moscow,
Constantinople, Vienna, Spa, Versailles and Geneva—anywhere. And the
lines of immediate communication stretch from London to the remotest
corners of the earth.
_THE CITY NEWS GATHERING DEPARTMENT_
The editorial and reportorial staffs of The World are composed of highly
trained, intelligent, quick-witted men, peculiarly gifted as writers.
They have broad human sympathies, which make them swift to see news and
stories of interest to humanity. These writers and news collectors have
been drawn from all parts of the country and from many countries. Each
one of them has some specialty, some unique gift of understanding, so
that when a story “breaks” the City Editor can select from his staff the
one man peculiarly fitted by nature to understand, unravel and write it.
As matters of great moment in business, finance and commerce, and court
trials, sporting stories, crime and detective stories, social affairs,
political intrigues, adventures, accidents, sea and shipping yarns, war
stories, hunting escapades, stories of nature, music, art and the
theatre are constantly “breaking,” it is necessary to have on the staff
of a great metropolitan journal men who can instantly “jump out” on the
story and grasp it, gather its many strands and come back in a few
minutes, or few hours, ready to write not only an entertaining but a
truthful and accurate story.
Through long experience—many of the men have been on the paper almost
from boyhood and others were trained in the best editorial rooms in the
country—these men have acquired professional skill, great reverence for
their work and a decent regard for the rights of the reading public. The
World, because of its complete local staff organization, has knowledge
of practically every news event in New York and prints everything that
is of interest to the public.
_FINANCIAL_
Forecasts made in the columns of The World as to the operation of
underlying of economic factors in finance have proved so accurate during
the upheaval attending the Great War, as to give the Wall Street
Department, conducted by Samuel S. Fontaine, an enviable reputation both
at home and abroad. Some of these predictions have been as startling in
the fulfilment as in their conception. Here is one notable illustration:
In the fall of 1914, when British bankers demanding almost hysterically
that the United States ship unlimited quantities in liquidation of
current liabilities and sterling was quoted at $7 a pound, the financial
editor predicted that, before the end of the Great War this country
would not only have purchased all United States securities held abroad,
but that the debit balance of England in this country would grow to such
startling proportions that the pound sterling would be driven below $4
in New York. English economists were aghast at such financial
iconoclasm. They dismissed it as a bit of Yankee ignorance and
insolence. Every high school boy knows how abundantly this prediction
has been fulfilled.
When the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, at the suggestion of the
Federal Reserve Bank, first began its campaign to force deflation by
means of high interest rates imposed on borrowers on stock collateral,
the Financial Editor of The World called the attention of the Washington
authorities of the fact that the necessity for liquidation was not
confined to stocks, but that it extended to all quarters of the country
and that the profiteering that was causing most discomfort to the people
was centred very largely in the South, where the banks had loaned
enormous sums on cotton at fictitious prices, and in the West, where
unwarranted credit was being extended grain and food orders.
The truth of this was immediately conceded by the national banking
authorities. Rediscount rates were made uniform at all regional
institutions, and the great price readjustment movement, which has led
to a universal decline in the cost of living resulted.
The World through its financial columns began nearly a year ago to call
public attention to the usurious rates charged by some of the
profiteering banks of Wall Street, which, it declared, amounted to the
proportions of a public scandal. These charges were taken up by
Comptroller of the Currency Williams, and confirmed in every particular.
In denouncing these factors the Comptroller took occasion, in an
interview given the Washington Correspondent, to pay a high tribute to
the Financial Editor of The World;
Mr. Fontaine has not only rendered a public service but he has shown all
along a remarkable grasp of the situation.
Some notable articles pointing out the necessity for economy at the
hearthstone, if the country is to return to the thrift of pre-war days,
have appeared in The World’s financial columns and have been widely
copied by the press of this country. They have met not only with
widespread approval, but they have been real factors in promoting a
wholesome spirit of economy of the land.
_THE DRAMA_
No other city in the world contains so many theatres as New York, or is
the centre of so great activity in every branch of the stage’s art. The
entertaining articles on plays and acting by Louis V. De Foe, for more
than twenty years The World’s dramatic critic, are everywhere recognized
as a dependable guide to the theatregoer—this, because of his
fearlessness and fairness and the authority of his opinions and
impressions gained from more than a quarter of a century of constant
observation and study of the most popular and generously patronized of
all the arts.
_ART_
Art affairs are covered by reviews of important exhibitions in the
museums and galleries, news mention of other exhibitions, reports of
sales of major interest and summaries of art activities in other cities
where museums are maintained.
Special attention has been given for years to projects for the physical
beauty of cities and to the movement for industrial art education
whereby American craftsmanship may win and hold distinctive place in the
world’s esteem. This movement, to which the leading museums and many
manufacturers have committed themselves, looks beyond the art courses in
the public schools to the establishment of schools of design, aided if
not wholly supported by public funds, in which the talented young may be
assured training as thorough as is given in any of the schools of Europe
of that type, to the end that an industrial art worthily American may
become a real national asset.
_MUSIC_
The World’s music department is in charge of one of America’s most
competent critics, James Gibbons Huneker. His daily observations on
operatic and concert doings are eagerly looked for, not only because of
their immediate analytical value but also because of their informing
spirit. The critic’s comprehensive knowledge and wide experience enable
him to discuss music in its relation to all its sister arts.
Mr. Huneker’s opinions are authoritative because he is primarily a
musician. From the time he first stirred his readers as a raconteur, his
enthusiastic followers have kept step with him on his progress through
the whole seven arts.
His last book “Steeple Jack” has attracted attention.
_BOOKS AND LITERATURE_
“_What You Want to Know About Books You Want to Know About_”
Once a week, in The World, a page under the editorship of E. W. Osborn
is devoted to “Views and the News in the World of Books.” Here the
latest offerings of the publishers, in books of history, of essays, of
poetry, of general facts and of fiction, are treated in the simplest
fashion as matters of the current news. The department has no interests
to serve save those of its readers, to whom it aims to furnish exact
information, with a measure of entertainment as generous as the books
may afford and the editorial intent may achieve. The Book Page under its
present policy has been a feature of The World practically for the last
twenty years. Within that period it is believed to have established
something of credit for timeliness and for fairness of judgment. While
recognizing the diverse tastes and desires of a great body of readers—as
a newspaper book department must do—this page has no helping word for a
volume deemed in any way unworthy of any reader’s attention.
Robert C. Benchley’s column, “Books and Other Things” is concerned more
with books than with other things. But he writes so entertainingly about
a book that, if you do not read the book, you surely will read Benchley
again.
_SOCIETY_
The World publishes the latest news about the women and men who are
prominent in New York and in all social centres. It tells not only of
the entertainments the fashionable and wealthy give for their own
amusement, but of those they hold to aid the charities they maintain.
Weddings, the first appearance of debutantes, theatre parties, all the
diversions of those who are worthy of mention, are described precisely
and picturesquely in the columns of this newspaper. So are receptions to
official personages—in a word, all the functions where culture and good
taste are displayed.
_WOMEN IN NATIONAL REFORMS_
The World, since the inception of the woman’s movement, has chronicled
the advance of women in organization from the small individual club
working for development along conventional lines to the great federated
bodies who throw the influence of educated and enlightened womanhood on
the side of national reforms. The germ of practically all philanthropic
endeavor has either sprung from or been promoted by organized women, and
the columns of The World bear ample testimony to the detailed care with
which these ambitions have been aided by publicity.
_AVIATION_
As a forward-looking newspaper The World was prompt to see the
possibilities of aviation. The earliest experiments of the Wright
brothers at Killdevil Hill were reported by a staff correspondent, and
The World’s interest in the science of flying has been unflaggingly
demonstrated ever since. Glenn Curtiss’s historic flight from Albany to
New York, the longest accomplished up to that time, was stimulated and
rewarded by $10,000, the gift of The World.
When the war broke out in 1914 The World was promoting in all possible
ways the cause of civilian aviation, notably by lending its columns and
aid generously to the projected transatlantic flight for which Mr.
Curtiss was building a machine. Since the armistice it has continued to
display its faith in the future of flying. The Pulitzer Trophy, one of
the handsomest ever designed for a flying event, attracted to Mitchel
Field, Mineola, this year an unprecedentedly large field of fast
aviators. As a consequence of this meet American interest in the speed
possibilities of the airplane will undoubtedly be greatly enhanced.
_THE BUREAU OF ACCURACY AND FAIR PLAY_
A Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play has been maintained by The World
since July 7, 1913. Its objects, as stated by Ralph Pulitzer in the
order creating it, are:
“To promote accuracy and fair play, to correct carelessness and to
stamp out fakes and fakers.”
In establishing the Bureau and sending official notice of the
organization to its correspondents, inviting their co-operation, The
World not only insured better and more conscientious service in its own
columns, but it spread the gospel of accuracy and fair play in
journalism throughout the newspaper world. Every notice sent out by the
Bureau to correspondents was prefaced by the following declaration:
“The World aims to be accurate. It aims to be fair and just to every
person who reads it and to every person whose name it prints.
“Accuracy and fair play are inseparable in journalism. Inaccuracy
often means injury to innocent persons. A newspaper’s influence is
measured by the number of people who read it AND BELIEVE IN IT.
“The words ‘accuracy and fair play’ sum up the law of libel. If what
is published is true and fair the writer need not worry about the
libel law, civil or criminal.”
On the reverse side of the notice sent to correspondents, in order that
all might be impressed with the very decided views on accuracy and
fairness entertained by Ralph Pulitzer, and by his father before him,
were printed extracts from their public utterances on the subject.
All complaints involving the question of accuracy or fair play received
in any department of The World are turned over to the bureau. These
complaints include libel actions, letters from attorneys and others, and
complaints made in person at The World office. The bureau makes careful
inquiry and determines whether or not these complaints are well founded,
and, if they are, who is responsible for the matter complained of.
Having determined that a complaint is well founded, the necessary
correction is prepared and turned over for publication to the managing
editor of whichever edition of The World published the particular matter
complained of.
A card-index record is kept showing who are responsible for inaccuracies
and unfair publications, and this record indicates who are habitually
inaccurate or unfair. Deliberate faking, which, happily, is extremely
rare, is invariably punishable by dismissal. Carelessness or unfairness
may be punished by reprimand, suspension or dismissal. Chronic
carelessness results in dismissal.
* * * * *
Such is The New York World. Such is its manner of obeying the precepts
of its founder—of doing its duty to itself—and of fulfilling its
obligation to the multitude of readers who maintain it so generously,
and who have raised it to the supremacy it enjoys.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
2. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOW MUCH BOLSHEVISM IS THERE IN AMERICA? ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
