Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-15
OUR OWN BoLsHEvIKI
They Are Plentiful in Philadelphia and
They Flaunt No Warming whskers

many BolSheDtkt in Philadelphia. have
WdtChod but haven't seen any. They all
wcur heavy boards in the pictures. II there
arc Boishcriki IN Philadelphia isn't II an
outrage that SVme one doesn't teu nc Cor
crnmentp MARY C..
Philadelphia. Jnly ~.
THERE is a mistaken belief, Mary,
that the Bolsheviki are restricted to
Russia This is a delusion which we be-
seech you not to share. You may even
have a Bolshevik in your home. They
are growing plentiful among the rich
and the poor. We shall try to tell you
how to single them out One cannot tell
by the whiskers. Whiskers in Russia are
lark or an ndugence--a dissipation, if
you will, and no more. They mean
nothing If all the true Bolsheviki in
Philadelphia wore whiskers the BARRIERS,
harassed by hunger and heartbreak,
would jump from the docks in crowds.
The Bolshevki arc the unhappy re-
suit of happy theory. They think
when they think at all-that there is
too much law. too much work, and too
much fighting in the world. 1t may be
lldI lHtlt - IDD llluCil WI n. NSi Iu'li'f
there is too much fighting. This is not
q new idea. Many men have worried
about it. They believe it best to think
first and act afterward. Your Bolshe-
vik likes the reverse process. He acts
first and thinks afterward-if he re-
mains alive.
In all the world there are, perhaps,
about seven wise Bolsheviki. All the
others. who aren't wise. have gone be-
yond their control. To be Bolshevik
all one has to do is to renounce faith
in the existing social order, to break
away from it and to refuse cooperation
with other people in the processes or
ganized by society for law, order and
happiness.
Therefore. if you secretly strive TO
make big profits out of the country's
troubles you are Bolshevik even though
you ride in a limousine and belong to
the best clubs You have broken away
from the normal social order. If, on the
other hand, you bully the boss, do your
work carelessly or not at all in the sweet
assurance that you can quit at any min
ute with a regal gesture and get a good
Job next door you are a Bolshevik. You
are opposing the interests of society
which includes yourself. You are help
ing to chaos and confusion .ust like
the Boshevik in Russia,
Work must be done. Mary. however
little we may like it. Otherwise the
world is sure 10 go to the much-talked-of
and ever-waiting dogs. Any one who
has work to be done these days-a mo-
torcar to be mended or stove to be
fixed or ashes to be carried out or ships
to build or a shop to keep going
knows that there are a good many un-
conscious Bulsheviki mixed in with the
vast aggregate of intelligent and rea-
sonable workers. There are ever so
many men who have cut away from the
ordinary rules of fair play. They feel
exalted because they are badly needed.
They boss the boss. Each considers him
self a republic. Each is Bolshevik.
That won't do. 1t is the sort of thing
that doesn't get anybody anywhere.
Any one who goes forth to buy any
thing from a dairy lunch to a house and
loba knows. too, that the same sort of
Bolshevism is rampant among prosper
Gus folk. They, too, are considering
ciety afterward. None of these uncon-
scious Bolsheviki considers the social
order by which we live. 1t is amusing
to hear them denounce the Russians.
Because the Bolsheviki in Russia are,
after all, much nicer than those we have
at home.
The unalloyed and professed Rolshe-
vik has, at least, definite theory and
a stated purpose. He would go back at
one wild fight to a condition of life such
as that which prevailed in Eden. His
ideal world is place free of toll, where
one might sit all day in the shade of
tree and look at the sky and play with
the children and mediate and improve
ones mind and eat ones dinner when it
fell from overhead and wait for rain
when one grew thirsty. That, says your
true Bolshevik, is what life is for.
We will not even presume to deny
this, Mary. The system might be pos
sible if there were only few thousand
people in the world and no crowding.
But, fortunately, there are many hun
dreds of millions of people in the world.
And because of this no man or woman
can exist without the cooperation of the
others. Society, therefore, is organized
as a system of obligations. No one
can be entirely free without being en-
tirely selfish and entirely cruel. Find
a man who feels himself entirely free
and you find a Bolshevik.
II there were self planting potatoes
and self-cleaning streets; if the egg
would get up in the morning and boil
itself; if houses were built by magic or