The Cordova daily times., 1922-12-06
MOSCOW STARTS WAR AGAINST
 CHAPTERS

MOSCOW. Dec. 6.--Tha srafters
 in Moscow are scared. Fourteen
 were arrested the other day, and re-
 gently the number was 211. Among them were eighty porters, sixty po- lice, besides weighers. servants and ten htgher.ups. conductors, assist ant station masters, controllers and inspectors. Passengers, after giv- ing information, were at once re- leased.
 Dzerinsky is the head of the Com mission for fighting the graft in transport. This name alone inspires fear, as Dzerinsky was the head of the former Extraordinary Com mission, the dreaded Cheka, which was charged with crushing opposi- tion from the beginning of the Soviet regime.
 Wholesale Graft The graft in transport has as- stunned such proportion that 1t is impossible to ignore it. You may be travelling ''tiplushka"-that is, with several persons in freight car, with all your baggage under your eye where you can watch 1t, but unless you pay graft your car will be side-tracked for day, for two days, for week or maybe a month. And when you have paid 1t in few days your car will be side tracked again. You may be going, with group of friends, in spe- cial (freight) car to Petrograd and back for your vacation, but you will never reach Petrograd unless you take along some butter or some sugar or some flour for the train men.
 I saw an American on the Moscow Express recover his berth by means of club, but this is most un-Rus- sian. The Russion method is to submit, or pay larger graft
 Graft in the placing of baggage has been a gold mine. Every ounce of baggage in Russia is charged for, and only 150 pounds is al- lowed on one ticket. According to the letter of the law, hand-baggage is very limited. With the great impulse to trade now taking place in Russia the temptation to graft in baggage is tremendous.
 Graft in transport is only frac- tion of the graft in Russia. There are housing contracts, the holding up of material and payments-all fruitful sources of graft. And there Is an enormous amount of just plain, ordinary stealing.
 Graft Is "oId Game"
 Graft is no new thing in Russia. The old regime was well described as tyranny, tempered by bribery" Zfnovieff recently said that much of the graft was without bad mo- tives. Literally much of 1t was to feed the children: for, as Tomsky, the labor leader, said in addressing his men: "The conditions of food and supply have been so miserable that were statistics to be relied upon, all you workers should have died two years ago. But" he added, "you are still alive" And many of them have openly said they lived only by what they could make lon the side.' But conditions are much better now. Hence the drive on graft.
 The grafters are scared. There is no friendly haven to which to flee, and if there were the conditions of transport are such that unless you are travelling under government auspices 1t takes a week, two weeks, often month to get ticket to say nothing of passport.
 The mobilization against graft is certainly on. Some say that month in jail, with only half pound of bread day, will cure the worst. Others speak of long prison terms. Firing squads are frequently men tioned. Conditions have assumed proportions of national peril. For eign wars and civil wars, cholera, typhus and famine-Russia has sur vived them all. Thoughtful men are asking: Can she outliye graft? FRENCH FARMER SHOOTS