The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1920-06-09
HOOVER ADMITS
JOURNAL STORY
Former Food Administrator
PrOphesied What Duckworth
Discovered In Russia.
is TYRANNY
It's Entire Philosophy Has Been
Bankrupted By an Unusual
Lowering of Production.
BY H. p. BURTON


New York, June S.-Herbert Hoover,
in an exclusive interview with me to-
day, discussed the important cable
dispatch from Staff Correspondent j.
Herbert Duckworth who is just out of
Russia, describing conditions under
the Soviet rule.
Duckworth's dispatch, which was
printed in the Sunday Journal told
how Boishevism was SLOWLY decay
ing" how people were starving and
how transportation had been wrecked.
This bears out Hoover's prediction Of
several months ago.
Hoover said:
'In a public statement on September
16 last year, on my arrival after 10
months service in Europe during the
armistice. said:
Two convictions are dominant in
my mind. The first7comes from con-
tact with stupendous social ferment
and revolution in which Europe is at
tempting to find solution for all it's
social ills by practical experiments in
Socialism. My conviction Is that this
whole philosophy is bankrupting itself
from starting quarter-extraordin
lowering of productivity of Industrial
commodities to a point that until the
recent realization of this bankruptcy.
was below the necessity of continued
existence of their millions of people.
my second conviction is older.
but has been greatly hardened; that
is, greater appreciation Of the enor-
nous distance that we of America
have grown away from Europe in the
century and a half of our national ex-
istence, in our outlook on life, our re-
lations toward our neighbors. our So
cial and political ideals. The supreme
importance of this Americanism does
not permit us to allow the use of this
community for experiment in social
diseases
Il had recently been in contact
many agents with the position
in Bolshevik Russia. There. was a
great country which. before the war.
had population, with the exception
of a small minority, who were COM
paratively well fed, warmly clothed
and warmly housed. They were sub
ject TO the worst political tyranny,
were deliberately stepped in ignorance
and superstition, yet their productivity
was sufficient to enable them TO pro-
vide the primary comforts and to ex-
port more foodstuffs than the United
States.
Socialism was brought in over night
at the hands of a small minority Of
and criminals, and the
tyranny of this minority, more terrible
than the old. has now had over two
years in which to effect the conversion
Of the competitive system into the |
elysium of communism.
To-day three-fourths of the rail-
ways and rolling stock are out of oper-
alton. The whole population is with
put the normal comforts of life; the
cities are plunged into the most griey-
ous famine of centuries.
People are dying at the rate of
hundreds of thousands monthly from
diseases resulting from under-feeding. 4
and the capital city has diminished !
rom a population of nearly 100000 to
ess than 100000.
mot only have the so-called upper
classes been brought 10 execution but :
workman and farmer have been filed !
before the firing squad in appalling i
numbers, because they refused to pro-
luce without returns. The function i
IF the town and city to provide man
Ifactured goods and other comforts
n return for the produce of the land
lad entirely disappeared and nothing
vas offered to the farmers but mex
iaustible paper currency which they
:ould not exchange for their normal
I'm a desperate desire 20 secure
production from factories, and the op-
ration and betterment of the railways
he Bolshevik government has militar-
zed labor into regiments and com
,anies, imposed compulsory over long