The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1920-05-14
Shall Chaos or Reconstruction
in Europe Follow the Great
World War;
RUSsIA'S LONG, BLACK NIGHT
Little Wonder People Of That unhapp,
Land Are Blinded by Freedoms
Light After Four Centuries
Of Suffering.
Article XIV
BY FRANK coMERFoRo.

!
her. She writhed In despair. Time
moved slowly. The clock licked
agonies. The air was thick with
groans. Motherhood bore slaves. The
cradle was coffin. Feast days were
celebrated by massacres. Cars from
Ivan the Terrible, 1914, to Nicholas,
the last of the Romanoffs, executed
| In 1918, used the bodies and souls OF
| human. beings as manure to fertiliZe
the soil in which the rank weed of
emperors. truth labels them brutes,
torturers, murderers. They bore the
brand of Cain.
1t was lightless day. a hopeless
night, for Russia, which began with
the curses of Ivan and ended with the
execution of Nicholas. During this
night of three hundred and seventy
| five years they marched the treadmill.
| The world heard the endless tramp Of
feet In the dark, great bodies swayed
with WEAKNESS. Heavy shoulders
were bent forward. Strong legs
marked time on the treadmill steps.
They kept time TO the lash of the
whip. II laid bare their backs. the
backs of young and old, OF women and
children as well as men. Sweat formed
Into red froth rs il mingled with their
blood. They grew blind in the dun
geon darkness. They stumbled and
halted. only TO be called back to the
monOtony and drudgery of the tramp
by the lash and the hludgeon. Their
legs rose and feli--they marched. but
never forward II was left, right. left,
right; tramp. tramp and always on
the treadmill steps In the hopeless
dark. They mumbled prayers. hut God
couldn't hear. the curses Of their mas
II was so dark in the treadmili that
even God could not see. and so God
| forgot Russia. Forgotten. abandoned.
they bent their great weary hacks to-
ward the sod the grave offered rest
II was kind The only thing they
owned was their pains. They lived
communism Of suffering, socialism
or slavery.
The revolution OF 1917 battered
down the door OF the treadmill. Seized
with wild JOY, they mady rushed TO-
ward the light. When they got ont
In the open. saw the sky and sun.
they were hewildered. In the fury Of
a new delight they rushed on. II isn't
strange. II is pathetic. that eyes blind
ed by ages OF darkness biinked In the
light. II isn't surprising that they
tried to reach the center Of the sun.
Suffering In the light Is different from
suffering In the black tile Russians
knew.
When their eyes became accustomed
to the Hight they locked around them
10 see wh're they were-to learn whaf
had been happenir' In the strange.
beautiful world.
Tremendous Task Before Them.
They had task before them, the
building OF a free INNS house, II house
To the light. house without dark
corner. They knew little about free
dom. except that they wanted II with
oil their hearts. Their experience hal
been with slavery. They knew little
about the practical work 0f building
house In which freedon might live
pure and secure.
They saw civilization with the eyes
Of a surgeon. They gasped when they
saw that Its body wns covered with
malignant sore. II was an ngIy.S
fostering. running, growing sore. They
learned Its naine. 1t was written in
the loudest OF chronicies--lt was the
incurable. horrible leprosy Of the
world. IT. was cancer-POVERTY.
They were told TINT It was the canse
Of the nasty thing religion laheIed s n.
that poverty had transformed Christ
hinges struck In clay into bunch
backed souls tim; the sickening mat
Ter running from sores caused the red
tsotches on tie worlds body known
rs rptl-tight 1tStrtftS. TINT ntll9r eff