Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1916-1918, 1918-02-15

enZ0n q WOOllLuAI, <A0NCA SAS'HAAo
Chicago; 225 Fifth Ave-, New York
City: sos Victor Bldg. Kansas CITY,
Mo.
TWIN ENEMIES
The government of the united
States is facing two enemies. From
without, Germany menaces our people,
our institutions and our hopes Tor the
future. Within the heterogeneous So
ciety which constitutes the most cos
mopolitan citizenship to be found In
any country is the second OF America 8
twin enemies-socialism.
When we consider all that socialism
has done affecting the world war thus
far and charge it with responsibility
for the blows it has dealt the cause OF
those nations which are fighting the
Prussian autocracy, there Is left not
the slightest shadow of doubt that So
cialism is the strongest force which
Germany has been able to count on
its side since the war began.
In referring to socialism we group
under that comprehensive title all the
various isms, grades, phases and
aliases under whose standards soclal'
ism is to be found in America and IN
Europe. In less than year Russia
has passed from the absolute autoc'
racy of the Romanoff dynasty to the
absolute anarchy of Len1ne and
Trotzky, marking its progress-lf such
q word may be employed In describing
such a course-by trying and discard.
ing the bourgeoisie government OF
Prince Lvoff and Professor Miliukon
and the menshevik government OF AL
exander Kerensky.
Socialists in America acclaimed
Prince Lvoff when the revolution set
him in the premier's chair for a brief
stay. They welcomed his surrender
of the post to the more radical ker'
ensky, and to the latter they gave such
unstinted praise that it was echoed by
a big portion of the press OF this
country. Kerensky was likened to
Washington in hundreds of American
editorial panegyrics.
Then Kerensky fell. Lenine and
rrotzsky took charge and anarchy
was let loose Now socialism in Amer
lea. represented by several Of its high
priests meeting in Chicago last week,
has endorsed Trotzskyism, adopted
resolutions approving the present
government" in Russia and demand
ing of President Wilson that America
ioin hands with Trotzsky in his peace
negotiations with the central empires.
Briefly. American socialism has set
the seal of its entire approval on the
iawless, infidel career on which boil
shevism is launched in Russia.
In America there are men and wom-
en- who call themselves socialists who
cannot bring themselves to look on
Trotzskyism as right. But they are
not socialists. They have been taken
In BY the misguided eloquence OF some
eocialistic writer or orator; they have
subscribed to socialism in Ignorance
and blindness; they are idealists-
but they are not socialists. And If
America should fall under the sway OF
socialism, which God forbid, the mere
idealists and their feeble protests
against utter anarchy would be
drowned in the surge of lawlessness
and destruction which the maximal-
ists would inflict-
For socialism is fundamentally in.
temperate. Moderate socialists
serve only as the counterfeit of ap
parent respectability between the an
archy of the extremists and the or
ganixed society against which anarchy
plots continuously. Some of the mod
crate socialists do not realize this
some of them do. In either case they
are dangerous to society and menace
to government.
The world cannot be safe until Prus
sianism is wiped out. America cannot
be safe until socialism is known
throughout the land as the tool Of an
archy and until 1t is shorn Of the
strength which it obtains through the
tolerance and blindness Of those who
do not subscribe to its doctrines.
Prussianism and socialism are
Americas twin enemies.
Socialism, growing in the fertile soil
Of ignorant and oppressed Russia UNI
der the Romanoffs, found itself en-
throned when the last of the czars
was toppled off his dais. While the
leaders we're trying fruitlessly to
establish government and measure ur
to the responsibilities which their sud
den success as revolutionaries had
nut upon them, the socialists In the
Russian army were spreading their
sophistries from regiment to regiment
like pestilence.
Even before the Romanoff dynasty
fell the army was honeycombed with
socialism. When the Germans deci
mated Russian divisions during the
fierce fighting of the early months OF
the war, recruits were taken from
civil life, revolutionary socialists and
anarchists who found no difficulty in
sowing the seeds of revolt among the
soldiers who had survived the disas
trous campaign Of 1915.
Thus, in 1917, when Russia blew up
the army was more than ready to blow
mn, too. The strength it should have
opposed to the Germans and Austrians
was expended in anxiety to defy the
authority Of its officers. Prince Lvofl
and Kerensky, the moderate socialists
approved the anarchistic code Of rules