Evening star., 1935-01-20
IF COMMUNISM
CANE TO AMERICA

fors looked scrubbed and proud and SELF
respecting. People were not only well dressedy
they were smartly dressed. Restaurants and
cafes were gay and crowded. Excellent and
incredibly cheap goods could be bought in the
attractive shops.
Yet Finland was the vassal of Russia for
centuries and got the short end of everything.
But she escaped bolshevism. She was able to
profit from her citizens individual industry
and brains, and today, though intelligently So
cialized, Is still rum and magnificently run, by
the enlightened classes
The physical appearance Of the two countries
need only be observed to end all argument -
to which system is better.
Poland and Russia offer an even more force
full contrast. At the Polish border changed
from the wretched, dirty, foul-smeling traip
full Of disheveled people to a Polish train--to
cleanliness, speed comfort decency. feaa
was In q civilized country again.
And yet it was Polish territory, not Russian.
that suffered 50 frightfully from the war with
Germany. Poland was the Northern France Of
the eastern front. and became one vast sea
Of desolation. Her cities were burned, her fac
tories and mines obliterated, her fields blown
to- pieces, her farms destroyed, her cattl1
slaughtered No single state in Europe was %
thoroughly down and out a. Poland when tho
war ended.
During the same period OF destruction Russ
sia, physically, was hardly touched ~
~ But for II years, while the Communists m
Russia were shooting their trained and capable
ctttsens outlawing their merchants, exiting ana
tmprtsoning their farm owners dancing to the
tyranny Of peasants and laborers who were
paupertNng everybody in their fanatical hes
tility to capitalism, Poland has been enjoying
unparalleled prosperity Her factories are re-
built, her farms producing as never BEFORE her
finances are In perfect order her cultivated
and intelligent minority in power, her people
understanding and enjoying freedom. Their
one everlasting terror Is that the blight q
communism borne by the tremendous Red
army will fall upon them and debase them 70
the same state of poverty, imprisonment and
intellectual enslavemeht they observe across
Something must be violently wrong with the
Russian system. something that keeps 1t 20
backward. 50 poor when all about her less
favored countries are marching rapidly ahead
along the paths of freedom and prosperity.
(Ihat . number OF things are decidedly right
prisons. marriage and divorce, illegitimacy, un-
employment have been the first to admit.
as my previous articles about Russia viii show)
The Communists in America who hope TO
force US to swallow the Russian system hook,
line and sinker, may as well spend their breath
ON singing lessons. We have vast reforms to
make, social cancers to cure, but the dictator.
ship OF the proletariat, most obviously and
most certainly; Is not the proper medicine
either for us or for any other intelligent and
freedom loving nation.
But am not really in the least alarmed.
Not until see the Statue Of Liberty do . back
nip on her pedestal into New York Harbor %
expect to see the red nag, or even q pink
one. fying over the White House and the
CapltoL - A.:sti
fCopyright, 1866 :