Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1922-04-24
Matchmaking PROPERTY

There are chemical elements which are nutu-
rcpellent. There are plants which cannot exist
in the same ncighborhood, as one inevitably des-
troys the other. There are animals 80 different in
and habit that they cannot I'VE in the same
neighborhood. So there are human institutions and
practices SO Numerically opposed to each other that
they cannot be %harmonized
The Russian representatives of Bolshevism at
Genoa ask that the other nations recognize their
right to nationalizc property. Such recognition,
they believe, will clear up a number OF co1nplica-
tons and facilitate the revival of their industries
and the resumption of full trade relations with the
rest of the world.
Naturalization of property, as the Russian
have ~practised it, and as they insist on
their right to practice it, is a denial Of one Of the
fundamentals of civilization, the right of the indi-
vidual to acquire and possess property. No gov
eminent can recognize such a principle or policy
without denial OF the principles on which it exists,
and upon which orderly human relations are based.
1t may be possible to conceive of a state whose
members would consent to turn all their property
into a common fund, such fund TO be administered
for the common good, all members contributing Of
their later effort to it, and all waving all right to
possess property independently thereafter Such a
state could make rules for the conduct Of it's own
members, and could require all others who did not
desire to participate in the communistic effort to
But those strangers must be privileged
to take with them all their property or its just
equivalent. A state SO organized, if the conception
can be entertained at oil, might be recognized by
other states as one proceeding in accordance with
the COMMON principles of justice. Although the
adjustment of its relations with other states oper-
ating under a different method would be an exceed
ingly difficult and complicated task. We may grant
the theoretical possibility of such a thing.
These conditions, however, do not prevail in
Russia. The Bolshevik group which overthrow
everything in Russia resembling orderly govern
ment, found a state of society which, however crude
in some of its forms, was established in recognition
OF certain fundamental human rights, one of which
is the possession of property. The new government
assumed the right to dispossess individuals of their
holdings, regardless of how these had been obtain
ed, and, without process Of law and without COM
pensation of any kind, to deprive millions Of people
of the property which they possessed and to make
such other disposition of it as it pleased.
Farms, stores, banks, stocks of merchandise
were seized. The title of the holders was not in
vestigated. Those unfortunates were merely told
to give up and get out. Often they were not per-
mitted to get out, but were held in a state Of bond
age. 1t is this sort of procedure that civilized ma
tons are invited to recognize and legalize.
How far other nations should go in attempting
to right the wrongs committed, by Russian Com
munism is adebatable question. But to recognize
as valid the title of the Soviet government to any
property acquired by such means would be a glar-
ing piece of immortality utterly incompatible with
the principles which civilization conceives-to be es-
%sential to it's existence.