The Sisseton weekly standard. (Sisseton, Roberts County, S.D.) 1892-1929, 1921-06-10
Hughes Russ Policy
Hit by Sen. Reed
Soviet Government Best in Country's
History, He Says

1.-The best government Russia ever
/ had is the way Senator James Reed,
of Missouri, characterizes the Rus
sian soviet government. In the
course of an address to the senate,
which the general press thought well
to ignore. Reed directed all his
genius for scorn and ridicule at the
American policy of state which con-
tinues in practice the economic
blockade of Russia.
Reed denounces Secretaries
Hughes and Hoover for their spe-
cious claim that Russia has nothing
to trade with the foreign world. He
then refers to an American officer
who visited the interior OF Russia
and there 'ssaw bales and bales and
bales of the costliest Attic furs lying
there awaiting shipment, and that
there was a clamor for toolsItestru-
ments of industry and husbandry -
Let me tell you another awful
story Reed continued. s'This story
will stir your blood; it will make ev-
cry red corpuscle stand up ready to
fight; it will outrage you when you
hear about the treatment of Ameri-
can prisoners by the Russians.
U. S. Prisoners Well Treated
This friend of mine said Ameri-
can prisoners were quartered in the
homes of the Russian people: that
they had as good beds as anyone
else; that they got about Is per cent
more rations than the citizens-the
same amount as the soldiers of the
Russian army; that they we're per-
mitted to go about town, to the
theatres and moving picture shows
and all they had to do was report
at certain hour at night. This
treatment they received from the
brutal men who have been pictured
to us in such black words.
"Why should the arbitrary words
of secretary of state forbid us to
trade with these people? Why should
we not sell to these people plows
with which to turn over their soil.
Why should we not sell to them
threshing machines, reapers, binders,
goods and machinery for their mills?
"When in the past have We re-
fused to trade with a people whose
morals or religion or government
did not suit US? Why the first thing
the Pilgrim Fathers did after they
landed here and read chapter il,
the Bible and thanked God for por-
lection was to take out string o:
beads and try to swap it with an
Indian for 100000 acres of land
This Indian was barbarian. He
held his land in common. He did
not live at all according to our rules,
but we continued trading with him
I've have traded with the un.
speakable Turk. 1t did not make
any difference to us when we sod
him garment whether it was going
to adorn the shoulders of a victim
of the harem or whether it was to
be vestment Of one who knelt "a
Allah and turned his face toward
Mecca in prayer. We have manu-.
featured tools for idolators, and,
might add, wooden nutmegs for the
unwary. When did it come to pass
in this country that secretary Of
state, plus a secretary of commerce
could assume the power to cut Of
trade relations with 200, 900, OO(
people?
why, it is said. these Russian.
are bolsheviks. What about boil
shevism? Bolshevism is an idea
you cannot stop an idea with bullets
You cannot stop 1t with tariff wal!
You can give responsibility to 6
false idea by such methods. Yor
can make martyrs of its advocates
The only thing that stops an ides
is another idea. On the intellectual
battlefield the only arms are ideas.