Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-01-15
kE\lON AND BORAH ON
BOLSHENISM IN AMERICA
Delusions That Haunt Washington and the
Truth About a Matter That Congress
Doesn't Seem TO Understand

Doesn't seem TO Understand
MUCH that is wild and much that is
AVA silly is being said and written of
! Bolshcvsm. Nowhere has ignorance of
the true origin and significance of the
Russian tumult been more evident than
| in Congress. Yet the country was alto
gethcr unprepared for the spectacle pre-
sentcd by Senator Borah and Senator
Kenyon when they broke into print
yesterday TO babble trcmulous warnings
Of "the menace of Bolshevism in
America"
DO the Senators read? Do they know
nothing of the life of Europe that would
enable them to sense their own absurdity
and the tragedy of the Russians? Are
Mr.. Kenyon and Mr.. Borah victims of
the superstition that falls sooner or later
upon every man who refuses to recog-
nze obvious truths? Or are we to have
an AllSenators' Soviet for the Promul-
cation of New Campaign Issues?
Time will tell. Meanwhile, it must be
admitted that nothing so far uttered in
the United States could serve more
effectually to becloud the real truth
about Bolshevism or to give vain hope to
scattered propagandists of the cult in
America than the Borah-Kenyon state
ment Of yesterday.
Even while Mr.. Borah and Mr.. Ken
yoa were speaking, the hard driven Ger
mans in Berlin and the people of the
Argentine Republic were proving again
what every rational-minded man should
know-that wherever civilization has
once been decently established. wherever
people are able to read wherever great
injustice has not prevailed TO help de-
mented radicals to leadership, there can
be no Bolshevism.
For Bolshevism is not science. 1t
is not even theory of government. It
is ignorance and fear and misery and
hunger and idleness. 1t is not menace.
1t is one of the saddcst things in human
history because it is the inevitable result
of centuries of misrule which at last
shook the faith and the courage in emo
tional peoples.
The cult of Bolshevism always stops
at the limits Of the famine area. That
fact alone is more eloquent than any
commentary that one might make in
relation to the general question of east
ern Europe. And even within the famine
area left by the war, the tide of Boil
shevism is receding. Lenine himself
has recently been trying to enlist the
sympathy of the more conservative ee-
ments in Russia since he found that he
could not get along without them. Boil
shevism reached its high point in Ger
many and there the wave of fanaticism
crested and broke against the defensive
wall of German critical intelligence.
There was no time in all the recent
disturbances when the new conservative
government at Berlin, harasscd as il has
been, could not have swept Liebknecht
and his Bolshevsts out of existence in
ten hours. But the German conserva-
tves, with 4 wiser conception of the
situation than is usual in this part of
the world, maintained forbearance to the
last and in sheer pity refused to turn
machine guns on the rioters. In Russia
Boshevism is an emotion. In Germany
it was 4 disorderly riot of the worst
elements in the various cities led by half
demcnted men.
Everywhere the habit of ordered
thought j, like wall against the
Trotsky cult. Hopelessness and Hit
cracy, the delu,lons that beset men who
are half starved, and fear of world
tha, seems to be made up of cruel enc
mies-thcse are the essentials of active
BoIshevi,m. and 1t is strange IN these
days Of responsibility that Senators and
congressman should have failed to real.
lie what !, so pitifulIy true,