Oxford eagle. (Oxford, Lafayette Co., Miss.) 1876-current, 1920-07-01
Shall Chaos or Reconstruction
in Europe Follow the Great
World War;
RUSSlA'S LONG, BLACK NIGHT
Little Wonder People Of That Unhappy
Land Are Blinded by Freedom's
Light After Four Centuries
OF Suffering.
Article XIV
BY FRANK coMERFoRD.

For nearly four hundred years Rus
STA waited for morning. 1t was q ter
rible night. Brutal dreams tortured
her. She writhed in despair. Time
moved slowly. The clock licked
agonies. The air was thick with
groans. Motherhood bore slaves. The
cradle was a coffin. Feast days were
celebrated by massacres. Cars from
Ivan the Terrible, 1874, 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
Imperialism grew. History calls them
emperors. truth labels them brutes.
torturers, murderers. They bore the
brand of Cain.
1t was a lightless day, 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. 1t laid bare their backs. the
backs of young and old, of women and
children as well as men. Sweat formed
into red froth as 1t 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 ]as.s and the bludgeon. Their
legs use and fell-they marched. but
rever forward. 1t was left, right. left,
right; tramp, tramp, and always on
the treadmill steps In the hopeless
dark. They mumbled prayers, but God
couldn't hear the curses Of their mas
tiers drowned out their petitionings.
1t was so dark in the treadmill that
even God could not see. and so God
forgot Russia. Forgotten, abandoned.
they bent their great, weary backs to-
ward the sod, the grave offered rest
it was kind. The only thing they
owned was their pains. They lived a
communism Of suffering, socialism
Of slavery.
The revolution Of 1917 battered
down the door of the treadmill. Seized
with wild joy, they madly rushed to-
ward the light. When they got out
in the open. saw the sky and sun.
they were bewildered. In the fury of
a new delight they rushed on. 1t isn't
strange, it is pathetic. that eyes blind.
ed by ages Of darkness blinked in the
light. 1t isn't surprising that they
tried to reach the center of the sun.
Suffering in the light is different from
suffering in the black the Russians
knew.
When their eyes became accustomed
to the light they looked around them
to see where they were-to learn what
had been happening in the strange,
beautiful world.
Tremendous Task Before Them.
They had task before them, the
building of a free mans house, house
In the light. house without dark
corner. They knew little about free
dom. except that they wanted it with
all their hearts. Their experience had
been with slavery. They knew little
about the practical work of building
a house in which freedom might live
pure and secure.
They saw civilization with the eyes
of a surgeon. They gasped when they
saw that its body was covered with
a malignant sore. It was an ugly,
fostering. running, growing sore. They
learned its name. 1t was written N
the loudest of chrOnicles-it was the
incurable, horrible leprOsy of the
world. 1t was cancer-POVERTY.
They were told that it was the cause
Of the nasty thing religion labeled sin,
that poverty had transformed Christ
images struck In clay into hunch-
backed souls, that the sickening mat
ter running from sores caused the red
blotches on the worlds body known
as red-light districts; that other eff
fects were the swollen blackish blue
boils, the tenements and slums. They
shuddered. Even the darkness of the
treadmilI had not produced worse.
They learned about poverty. They
read its autobiography. In it they
read how it had robbed children OF
their childhood, erased faith from the
minds of men, modified women in
dreadful traffic. They learned that
much of the thing called crime was
poverty's work, that nOrmality and
morality are matters Of education.
That to be good requires knowledge
of right and wrong. They read that
statesmen called poverty THE PROB
LEM. Reformers called 1t curse and
became unpopular because Of their
persistent attacks upon 1t. In the
verdict of thoughtless world those
who fought poverty were called long
haired men and short-haired women.
People did not stop to remember that
these long-haired men and short-haired
women gave Of their zine and strength