The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-03-16
Fort-Whiteman
r epIie s to the
Lies of Mackenzie
(Contlnued from page 1.l


rule this same country. 1t must be
annoying for the students, sons
and daughters Of formerly wealthy
parents, who are being taken
from the universities of Rus
STA to make room for the sons and
daughters of bricklayers, printers,
day laborers. It is certainly madden
ing for the swarms of petty bour-
geois ''intellectuals," who cannot or
will not accept the new order, who
find no market for their trash, and
who cannot work. 1t is certain that
many of the former nobility and shop
keepers are in sad straits. Why not,
when they have only choice of rooms,
restaurants, food-when the workers
have first whack" at everything.
He Saw Liberated Labor.
I, too, was in Russia for many
months. l returned only a few short
weeks ago. I, too, had the advantage
Of extensive travel, of intimate con-
tact with proletarians and peasants,
with government heads and with fac
tory workers. saw, / think, more
than Mr.. Mackenzie, or perhaps, tell
more than Mr.. Mackenzie, paid agent
of the capitalists, could tell with
safety to his job
saw the workers of the country,
20 longer oppressed by the curse of
working day of ten, eleven and
twelve hours, enjoying for the first
time in their lives leisure to think, to
study, to live and to help in the Gre
alton of the new order. I saw peas
ants free Of the letters that few
years ago bound them as near serfs
to the wealthy land owners. saw in
Moscow a student body larger than
the student body of any city in the
world. saw Mohammedan women
throw of the veil, and l saw former
christian and Jewish women throw
off the old letters Of which the Mo-
hammedan veil is only the oriental
symbol. saw races of men-Jews,
Turks, Tartars, living in perfect
equality and perfect freedom, where
few years ago they knew only per-
secution, burning, lynching.
Wants Only One Side.
Mr.. Mackenzie, no doubt, saw these
things for himself. Or he may be
afflicted with the same temperament
as one of his chiefs, the news editor
of the paper for which he writes. This
editor, when approached some time
ago by a woman who said that she
could tell him a different story about
the "Reds" in America than the one
he was publishing in the Daily News,
answered coolly that he didn't care
10 hear about such things"
Perhaps Mr.. Mackenzie doesn't care
to hear about "such things" either
Mr.. Mackenzie, altho he has travel
ed far and wide in Russia, evidently
saw nothing of the daily life of the
workers and peasants-those for
whom the revolution did the most He
heard how the car had been muir
dered-and he dwelt long and low
ingly on the details of that execution,
hoping to stir the superficial emotion
alism of his hearers. He saw a cross
Of gold replaced by red flag. He
saw the forty times forty Greek or
thodox churches of the city of Mos
cow turned into forty times forty
clubs for the workers and recreation
rooms for the children, and he shud-
dered at the horrors and atrocities of
the Bolsheviks. Even the liberals in
the audience were surprised that Mr..
Mckenzie should take UP the defense
of the Russian church. Certainly there
was no country whose masses were
more priest-ridden. more borne down
by the burden of clerical taxation,
than were the masses of czarist Rus
STA.
Mackenzie Has Poor Crowd.
Mr.. Mackenzie cited to his audience
Meyerhold's famous drama, 1.-THE De-
struction Of Europe" in which a huge
tunnel is being built from Moscow to
New York, the workers all the while
singing the International. He told
them that this is no dream, that only
this year c. E. Ruthenberg, secretary
of the Workers Party, speaking at
mass meeting in Madison Square Gar
den, in New York City, in memory Of
Lenin and was cheered and applaud
ed by 10000 people.
ut might be mentioned right here
that Mr.. Mackenzie had no such aud
fence. In spite Of extensive advertis-
ing, Orchestra Hall was practically
empty Many Of these people broke
into wild applause, but only at the
mention Of Lenin Marx, Ainoviev and
the leaders of the Bolshevik republic.
That the car and his family suf-
fered, that few hundred of capital
lists and landowners are now dispos-
sessed, that the priesthood has fallen
all this we know. We know also
that under the old regime it was not
the hundreds, but the thousands and
the millions who suffered, and that
these millions are not suffering 10.