Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1919-02-19
PuG|L|ST FROM u. S.
HELPS RULE RUSS
American Anarchists Caused
Chaos in Russia.
Caused
JEWISH AGITAT0RS ARE BUSY
Clergyman Who Spent Many Years IN
Petrograd Tells Senate Commit
tee of Conditions Following
the Cars Downfall.

the anarchist movement III hu9@i''
was attributed to aid from the lower
East side of New York by Rev. u. A:
Simons, former head of the Methodlst
Episcopal church in Russia, tesnfylng
at the senate judiciary subcommittee
inquiry into Iawless agitation IN Inc
United States.
The witness also said the predomlE
mating influence on anarchist propd-
ganda here was the Yiddish element
of the East side He explained that
he was not in sympathy with anti
Semitic movements, and that in stat
ing his views he meant to cast no re-
Election upon Jewish people in gen
eral.
Referring to anarchism, Doctor ST.
mons said:
81 have a firm conviction that this
agitation is Yiddish and that one OF
its bases is in the lower East side OF
New York. / don't think the an
archistic movement in Russia would
have been a success except for the sup
port it got in New York on the East
side.'
Agitators Are Jews.
Immediately after the Kerensky rev.
olution early in 1917, Doctor Simons
said, sentiment in Russia was pro-ally,
but within a few months, when the
anarchistic movement developed, a
strong pro-German current developed,
with more than half the agitatOrs
Jews, including many from New York.
The witness said a woman, mem
Der of his church and a teacher in
Smolney institute, Petrograd, head
quarters of the anarchists before they
overthrow Kerensky, frequently saw
German officers at a council table with
anarchist leaders. He added that the
woman reported seeing German docu-
ments bearing German stamps on the
table and hearing German spoken more
frequently than Russian. Doctor ST.
mons suggested this language might
have been Yiddish instead of German.
AS evidence of German influence in
Russia, Doctor Simons declared that
before Russia entered the war he
heard that hundreds of thousands of
rubles had been placed by Germans in
the hands of labor leaders in Petro-
grad to cause a strike in industrial
plants and thereby cripple Russia af-
ter war opened. This strike was put
down by the old regime.
Report Is Investigated.
Doctor Simons said he now was hav-
ing investigated a report coming to
him on apparently good authority that
the governing committee of the north
ern commune in Petrograd in Deem
Der, 1918, contained only 16 true Rus
SLAMS, 265 persons from New York and
one American negro calling himself
Professor Gordon.
Discussing anarchist propaganda
in the United States, Doctor Simons
said he frequently visited the Rand
school of social science in New York
to buy it's literature, which he de-
scribed as ''some of the most seditlous
stuff I have ever found" He added
that 10 out of 20 persons at this
school were Jews.
Doctor Simons left Russia last Oc-
tober, and now is associated with the
Washington Square Methodist Episco-
pal church, New York. He said he be-
ieved in and loved Russia "but not
this anarchist thing"
After Doctor Simons had described
at length personal experiences involv-
ing threats of death and terrorism in
Petrograd, Senator Wolcott of Della
ware said:
''Then I gather from what you say
that the whole regime is maintained
by a small minority through the use
of terror"
"That is absolutely correct" replied
the witness.
Later he added that he believed 90
per cent of Russian peasants were an
tf-anarchistic and that he had heard
men who should know say that three
fourths of the workmen hoped an
archy soon would be overthrown,