Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-04-01
CONTINUED TOMORROW
Lenine Is Destroying
Russia's Middle Class
Cultured Athens and Proud
Rome Thus Wrought Their
OWn DotUnfdU

In Russia the hand has rebelled
against the brain, and for fifteen months
which is but moment, after all, In
the life of so multitudinous a people
the extirpation of the middle classes has
proceeded without hndrance in the two
capital cities, writes E. B. Osborn, in
the illustrated London News. The
stark, relentless spirit Of Lenine, using
as its instruments the bitter "intel-
lectuals' of the ancient ghettos released
TO take vengeance on the society that in
| termed them there, is pressing the first
great MARKHAM experiment to its logical
conclusion Lenine, like Robespierre, is a
man of incorruptible honesty who has a
fanatics faith in his social philosophy I;
in days to come the two will be remem-
bered together as crowning examples
Of the evildoer who's. immortality justifies
itself by nonmoral logic.
The lives of such men show that an
idea, If 1t be not controlled by a knowl-
edge of human needs may become for
while the deadliest danger to humanity.
One admires such men as Milton's Satan
is admired-there is, it must be ad-
mitted, touch of the heroic in the ruth
lessness with which they unite all the
nots' in the Ten Commandments in the
hope Of realizing what seems to them a
sure ideal of social betterment. Lenine
1t is clear, will stick at nothing to achieve
his ends He will, il he can destroy
trade in order that the trader may be
eliminated; and we can see already that
he intends the destruction of Petrograd,
Peter the Greats window looking into
the West" which was, and again will be,
the capital Of Russias intercourse with
the western world
meanwhile, even in this ancient home
of reasoned liberty, the plague of Lenine-
ism is visibly at work And wherever IL
IS working the alien Jew can be dimly
discerned in control; it is so in London
and on the Clyde, and probably also in
Beifast. When the strikers come to
their senses again, and see they have
been the dupes of alien revolutionaries
they will turn and rend the wire-pullers
from the East End of Europe. Then
no doubt, it will be possible to exclude
undesirable aliens from our country
the vast majority of British workers
knowing how they behaved during the
oii Idiuc, WOulu welcome SuCn a social
reform. The made-in- Britain Bolshe.
visits are very small fraction of the
community. But there are great many
half.Bo!shevists who are inclined to
think, that the elimination of the mid
dle classes by legislative means, IL pos.
sible. would bring about for themselves
social millennium. Is it possible tc
explain to them that their theory is
tory?
| Twice at least in the history of tho
world great communities have been re.
duced to impotence by penaliZing the
brain-power of commerce. The economic
collapse of Athens and her reduction tc
rns,ostanis the status of kept city. q sort Of
suit of throwing the support Of the mob
entirely on the shoulders of the business
classes. The decay of the Roman En-.
pire was even more manifestly the out.
come of a similar policy.
= In the third and fourth centuries the
middle classes, or curiales, were saddled
with the whole weight of an ever-in.
creasing taxation. The curial had less
freedom than nilch-cow If he
city; after five years absence his
property was confiscated He was not
allowed to dispose of his property. ;Ir
some laws he was denied the asylum oi
and fugitive slaves He often fled to q
hermitage, or hid himself among miners
and lime-burners This fiscal tyrann.
destroyed the energy and enterpris,
of the Roman business communities. ant
the whole polity became at last too veal
to keep out the barbarian. The sam,
thing will happen to us IL the middl,
classes be enslaved or put out, of actor
and then the only remedy would be t
remove their economic chains or Great,
necessity that the Trotskys of our ag,
hope to find a personal profit.