The Washington herald., 1919-03-07

new commission to Brest with orders
to sign the treaty. 1t Is said they
didn't even look at he document and
were forced to sign at the point of
the bayonet- Lenine ordered the cap
ital removed to Moscow and directed
the all-Russian Soviet government to
convene there"
Col. Robins said the whole plan of
the German government was to OBJ
tain economic control of Russia to ex-
ploit the land. In regard to the pres
ence Of German agents and German
money in Russia, he said they had al
ways been there. Rasputin had been
bought by German influence. the
Czarina was friendly with the German
court and IL the Kerensky revolution
had not come when it did. Russia
would have surrendered to Germany,
anyway.
Huns Started Counter Revolt.
I When. the Kerensky revolt sue
ceeded, the German agents contin-
ued their work more industriously
than ever. he said. and helped to
bring about the victory of the Boil
sheviks. But the latter succeeded
far beyond Germany's ideas, he
said. and instead of the civil war
fare for which the German agents
had planned, the Soviet movement
swept all over Russia and began to
spread its propaganda among the
German and Austrian armies. This
prompted the Germans to finance
the anarchistic groups, or counter
revolutionaries. who began to fight
the Bolshevists.
Continuing his story of the rati-
tication of the Brest-Litovsk treaty
Col. Robins told how he worked in
dustriously to get England and the
United States to promise economic
cooperation to the Soviet govern
ment. If this had been done, he as
serted, the treaty never would have
been ratified. Every appeal to the
| two governments was ignored.
Col. Robins said:
Robins paused to ask this question
of Chairman Overman:
! why was 1t kindly. generous gov
ernment like ours, which was suppos-
ed to be seeking to help Russia and
{ to help striving peoples everywhere,
why was 1t such a government failed
to help Russia in such crisis?"
Sending of Root Error.
Not waiting for an answer he went
on to tell of the sending of Elihu
Root to Russia by the President. He
said this was a fatal mistake.
Mr. Root was a lawyer and a
statesman of very high ability, but he
had attacked in the United States at
! one time certain important person,
and you know that a series Of bril-
| liant editorials, perhaps the most bril-
liant in America, accompanied by
cartoons in which he was lampooned
as a Jackal appeared in these news
papers. The Russians knew all about
| this. Perhaps the German agents who
were seeking to undermine the Soviet
government made use of them: I do
: not know: but the attacks upon Mr..
Root were transmitted to the Russians
1 and caused them to ask, why is II
the President of the great United
| States sends to US a man Of such char
acter?'
He said the influence Of America
i was further weakened by the Rus
SLAMS who returned from the United
i States and circulated stories about
having to work long hours in the coal
mines in Pennsylvania. in the sweat
| shops, and of conditions in the tene-
ments. These Russians told their
countrymen, he said, that America
was "a paradise for capitalists. but a
| workingman's hell"
Trot-I--- --' - ---o-e slow 70
move against the anarchists. vi
said. bee heIDed in the
overthrow of the Car and they felt
, some gratitude toward them. When
the hea dOua rters nF the aparob{ ole