South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1919-04-16

other stores were wrecked and
looted
All the afternoon lOoting was
omen and public. Nice old ladies in
black sha7vls stopped IN front OF
looted stores. picked up armsfu, OF
goods-drysoods. shoes or food. and
went toddhng home with their bun
dies as on market day The sol
.d.crs stood by laughing and the pc
lice interfered only 70 keep the traf-
fic cleared. No arrests followed.
No one suffered. nothing happened
20 make toe pOpplace feel that riot
ing and footing are an expensive
amusement There was indeed talk
OF a constitutional convention; some
one suggeIed another cabinet But
nothing happened. A socialist dep
Uty who conferred with the king on
;hc good Of the country was de-
nOunced as traitor Dy his fellow
members OF the assembly
In the meantime the regiOnalist
deputies denounced the corrupt po-
lice OF Barcelona for the Iiots. the
lWOAAAlN anu NAAt AAA4 nrAl al -
declaring that the Madrid govern
ment allows the anarchists 70 shoot
and loot the employers and business
men who are at the head Of the au-
Economist or home rule movement.
AMI so the miX-Up goes. There are
ordinations and reCriminations. but
10 one thinks of a serious plan u
dcmoc-atize the country and 10
make over industrial conditions so
that there NAV lie q more eQuita bl .
distribution of the national wealth.
Z actiopal politics, regional politics.
race hatreds. personal clans and
cliques-and with it all starving and
unemployment and a slow creeping
paralysis Of anarchy enveloping the
country.
Churches Lose Influence.
The church used 20 be a cement
to hold Span together; but the
church no longer holds The state
is a sham; the conservatives demand
closer union of the two dead
forms: the republicans and social
lists clamor Cor a wider separation.
And one city after another goes in
and ont Of martial law. while the
King and the young bloOds and the
palace machine blithely wait for the
bull-fights to distract the people. Il
is as if the republican steam roller
crowd were TO put dependence upon
the rational leasue games Of Octo-
Der TO defeat the league of nations.
Now into this chaos is entering
the thing called "bOlshevism." Ger
man propagandists are not respon
sible fer il. They were 10 months
ago. before the armistice. They
were distinctly trying to Plant
bolshevism in all neutral countries
and especially wherever bolsheVism
would spread over the line and fire
France. But now there is no money
in Spain for German propaganda of
any kind. Yet the thing called
bolshevism is growing in Spain,
growing much faster than it grows
in France. Indeed it is growing in
Holland, which is another story,
much faster than it is growing in
France. And so long as the thing
is spreading in Europe perhaps one
may take a chance at defining it, 1t
is anarchy organized, 1t is a psy-
geological rather than q material
manifestation.
And when one speaks of bolshev-
ism one should not limit it 70 the
terror in Russia. The terror in
Russia, and the government in Cen
trail Russia are only the Slavic
forms of it. The thing that may
happen in Spain would be another
form; just as the English outbreak,
if it should come. would be differ
ent from either SPANS folly or Rus
sia's madness.
6olshevism Reflex of War.
BOlshevism is the reflex of war.
A well-housed, Well-fed, contented
man can 20 out and kill another
man and rifle his pockets for the
good of a great cause and still SHIFT
back into the morals OF organized
society quickly and surely. And the
man who has TO do il for a good
cause, and then comes home and
finds that the cause has let his fam
lily starVe and thrown him out of a
JOb--the man VINO, moreover, has
been living close TO the bread-line
for a generation or so. perhaps for
endless generations, in ignorance
and malnUtritiOn and economic serf-
dom. without self respect-finds his
moral barriers down. They were
Jared in war for nothing in particu-
lar that he can see: he realized that
re did not suffer then when ne
killed man and picked his pockets.
so he goes at it again. And when
lac goes at it again he does SC for
something particular that he can
see, namely. food and warmth and
clothing for himself and those he
loves.
BOlshevism is tn psychology Of
war applied TO personal enGs and IL
private life. And curously enough
II is not confined TO soldiers nor 10