Bisbee daily review., 1918-06-14
The Case of FinLdnd

But few people have any idea of the req state of affairs in Finland today or of the events leading up to them. We read of the White Guards and the Red Guards and oi !. how Finland bowed without resistance tc the German yoke. Now comes Santer Nuorteva, representative in the U. 5. of the first Peoples Republic established in Fin land after the Russian revolution, and writes most interesting and instructive ar tcle for The Workingman, Finnish paper published in Wisconsin, in which he sets forth the average Finn side of the story. C. Carlson, of Bisbee, who takes this paper, called the Review attention to the article
 In the first place this Finnish narrator declares that the workingmen movement had gained great headway in Finland, even before the great war. They had organized and forced universal suffrage and gov erning body in which the people should have a part The feud in Finland as far back as ten years ago was bitter between the nobility and the middle classes. Ger many influence at that time was manifest in Finland. The nobility were trained in the German army and had Berlin leanings. Well, when the revolution came the people secured complete control of the govern ment and the wealth of Finland and organ ized the Peoples Republic above referred to and sent this Santeri Nuorteva to this country as its accredited representative. Then the reaction resulted in the Bolshevik uprising against the revolutionists in Rus sia, and with this same movement came the GaL ] { army officers of Finland against the peo- ples government. This opposition, accord ing to the narrator, had no appreciable ef- feet at first It organized the White Guard and harrassed the country side, fleeing be- fore armed force
 Then the Germans took hand. They sent forty thousand men of the Prussian war machine to Finland and, joining with the White Guard, beat the Peoples Repub lie armies in battle and siezed the govern ment of Finland
 The deposed government then organ ized the Red Guard and played about such a part as the White Guard had played be- fore the Prussian grenadiers came with their heavy artillery to enslave>a another na- ton.
 The narrator declares that all of the au- tocracy of Finland preferred German rule under an imperial government to democ- racy under their own people. He declares that the workers and middle classes gener- ally do not accept the German rule passiv- ely, but as matter of necessity. Our gov ernment has been temporarily defeated, he says, by the Finnish aristocracy in con- junction with the German army. But the fight is not ended. The great majority of the Finnish people await the first oppor- tunity to drive out the German invaders, and the day of reckoning will come soon.
 Of course all this may be merely one side of the question, but it gives a clear and ap- parently dispassionate, and certainly an able Finnish view point of conditions in this distracted land at this time. It may well apply for all Russia. Certainly the peoples of this once great and old empire do not bow Tn complete resignation to the German yoke. Discomfort, revolt and re- bellion surely seethes in every portion of this torn and ravished land, ready to break into flame at the least encouragement, or under proper leadership.
 But if Germany Is allowed to remain in control long enough she may be depended upon to bend mad break and destroy all national and race resistance to her sway A match might start flame now, but in little while a torchlight procession could not burn a cabin without suffering massa- ere at the hands of German troops.
 Germany holds these Russian provinces, and, in fact all her conquests, much as Ma poleon held Spain and Portugal and the