UPTON SINCLAIR'S

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE: FOR A CLEAN PEACE AND THE INTERNATION

I have begun the publication of a fighting magazine for a Clean Peace and Social Reconstruction: a non-partisan, get-together organ of the coming Revolt.

The first number contains a peace program upon which all radicals may unite; also it contains a sketch of a "California louse-ranch." a bit of local color from this roof-garden of the world.

Also it contains the first instalment of a new hook, "The Profits of Religion : An Essay in Economic Interpretation." This is a study of Supernaturalism from a new point of view, as a Source of Income and a Shield to Privilege. It contains the facts, both ancient and modern, and it hews to the line.

I have put my best into the magazine, and I think I have a right to ask that every radical will send me at once a request for a free sample copy.

Tn addition, you may subscribe if you have that much faith in me. The price is ten cents per copy, one dollar a year, ten yearly subscriptions for five dollars.

UPTON SINCLAIR.

1511 Sunset Avenue, Pasadena, California.

What Every American Should Know-

The Facts

The facts about the war aims and peace terms of the warring nations are to be found in

Approaches to the

Great Settlement

By Professor EMILY G. BALCH
With an Introduction by NORMAN ANGELL

A concise account of official and non-official discussions relating to the settlement of
the war beginning with President Wilson's Peace Note of December 12,1916;
with a valuable bibliography.

Price $1.50 net; at All Book Stores
Published by

B. W. HUEBSCH, 225 Fifth Ave., New York City

An interpretation, at once scientific and eloquent, of poetry in life, and its relation to the poetry in literature.

ENJOYMENT Of POETRY

By MAX EASTMAN Editor of The Liberator

Formerly Associate in Philosophy
at Columbia University, Author of
"Child of the Amazons" and Other
Poems, etc.

$1.25 Postpaid

Offered by Charles Scribner's
Sons through The Liberator
Book Shop.

TIDE LIBERATOR   CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

EDITOR, Max Eastman
MANAGING EDITOR, Crystal Eastman
ASSOCIATE EDITOR, Floyd Deli

Published Monthly by the

Cornelia Barns Howard Brubaker Hugo Gellert Arturo Giovannitti Charles T. Hallinan Helen Keller

Ellen La Motte Robert Minor

John Reed Boardman Robinson Louis Untermeyer Charles W. Wood

LIBERATOR PUBLISHING CO-, INC.
34 Union Square East,
New York City

Copyright, iSiS, by the Liberator Publishing Co., Inc.
34 Union Square, New York.
Application for entry as second class matter at the post office
at New York City pending.

Art Young
Subscription Rates:

$1.50 a Year. Half Yearly, 75 cents. Foreign, $2.00.

Rates on Bundle Orders and to Newsdealers on Application.

In The Next Issue

Morris `Hillquit

Will write on the International Situation.

John Reed

Will continue his stories of the Bolsheviki and their Revolutionary Achievements, in which he took part.

Alexander Trachtenberg,

Editor of The American Labor Year Book,

Will begin a new department: A CALENDAR OF SOCIAL REVOLU-

TIONARY PROGRESS IN A.LL COUNTRIES.

James Weldon Johnson, A Negro poet,

Will write on What the Negro is Doing for His Own Freedom.

CAIN   Robert Minor

THE LIBERATOR

Vol. 1, No. 2   April, 1918

Editorials

WE received from Mrs. William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, a subscription to THE LIBERATOR with these words, "We are glad to see the old name revived in such a good cause."

Her message adds something that was needed to our courage, for it was with the diffidence of a deep admiration that we adopted the name of this magazine. Garrison's Liberator was the greatest paper in the history of the United States ; and it was great not only because it concentrated a prophetic sacred fire against the sin of chattel slavery, but because it sounded the music of the love of utter liberty for all. Garrison was r1ot very much Iike us, I think-not pagan, never idle-hearted, not determined, whatever he should achieve, to have humane pleasure while achieving it. He was a consecrated Christian spirit. To be imprisoned, and to be hounded, and wounded, and dragged through the streets of his city with a rope round his neck, a criminal agitator who dared to say that the Constitution of the United States was "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell," was not a special incident hut almost a general symbol of his life. Morning and evening and noon and night he burned his energy for freedom. When all the nation's middle-class idealists were condemning human slavery but saying, as they will eternally say, "We must go slow -it is not yet time," he said, "The time is now." To deplore an evil, yet lay the responsibility for its existence upon the dead and for its removal upon the unborn, was as intolerable to him as filth to fire. He was quenched for a while; he was imprisoned in Baltimore. He had "libelled" a firm that shipped slaves to New Orleans, denouncing their act as "domestic piracy," and promising to cover them with "thick infamy." The paper in which he expressed his opinion was destroyed. When he was liberated he marched into the heart of the high, capitalistic, slave-defending territory, New England, penniless but resourceful as brave, and with his own hands and eyes set up and published those first fighting issues of the paper that freed the slaves.

"I am in earnest-I will not equivocate-I will not excuse-I will not retreat a single inch-I will be heard." That was his address to the public. It was the first of January 1831. In thirty-five years the slaves were free, the Civil War was ended, and THE LIBERATOR suspended publication because its fiery course was burned through to the goal. There is no vivider story in the history of public print. There is no victor that excelled him. And yet he was greater than his victory, he was larger of heart and brain than any fanatic possessed by a single wish. The width and generosity of his thought, and his seeking love, are told    and told with clear poignancy for us in this day of nar-

rowed and egotistic emotion-in the motto that opened the pages of THE LIBERATOR,

"Our Country is the World-Our Countrymen are Mankind."

The Supreme Atrocity

`WILE our soldiers go over the sea to give their lives

WHILE

crusade against the atrocities of Prussianism in Europe, a propaganda creeps under the ground among the Huns of our southern and middle-western states in favor of torturing with white hot irons as a substitute for the lynching and burning of negroes. It bore fruit of action in Estill Springs, Tennessee, on February 12th, when a mob of one thousand people, incited by the oration of a woman, chained Jim Mcllherron to a tree, branded and mutilated his body until he confessed to a murder, and then burned him to death.

Two hundred and twenty-two negroes have been lynched or murdered by mobs in the United States in the past year. That is an average of more than one every two days. Only eleven of these have been murdered for alleged rape and attempted rape ; five for alleged murder. Twenty-eight have been lynched for crimes that in case of conviction by a jury would not entail the death penalty.

If these things happened in one city, it would, be a white man's terror, comparable to the worst days of the French Revolution, and exceeding the most extreme re-ports of Germany's invasion of Belgium. Such horrors, equalled only by the Turks' massacres in Armenia, are a part of the routine history of our country. It is necessary that we know this. It is necessary that we see this happen. The torturing at Estill Springs has not been investigated, but it followed an example set by the citizens of Dyersbtirg, Tennessee, in December, and upon that there is an authentic report.

"The Negro was seated on the ground and a buggy-'axle driven into the ground between his legs. His feet were chained together with logging chains, and he was tied with wire. A fire was built. Pokers and flat-irons were procured and heated in the fire. It was thirty minutes before they were red-hot.

"Reports of the torturing, which have been generally accepted and have not been contradicted, are that the Negro's clothes and skin were ripped from his body simultaneously with a knife. His self-appointed executors burned his eye-balls with red-hot irons. When he opened his mouth to cry for mercy a red-hot poker was rammed down his gullet. In the same way he was robbed of his sexual organs. Red hot irons-were placed on his feet, back, and body, until a hideous stench of burning human flesh filled the Sabbath air of Dyersburg.

"Thousands of people witnessed this scene. They had to be pushed back from the stake to which the Negro was

6   THE L[BERATOR

chained. Roof-tops, second-story windows, and porch-tops were filled with spectators. Children were lifted to shoulders, that they might behold the agony of the victim.

"A little distance away in the public square, the best citizens of the county supported the burning and torturing with their presence.

"Public opinion in Dyersburg and Dyer County seems to be divided into two groups. One group considers that the Negro got what he deserved. The other group feels that he should have had a `decent lynching'."*

We must see this happen, because no one else will see it. No one will allow himself to see it, save only those mobs that drink up the death and agony. Barely seventy years ago the sons and brothers that would be ours. marched away to give their blood as now for liberty and the rights of the oppressed; and is this the liberty they gave it for-to see these oppressed _hunted through the country like rats, and without court or jury or the shadow of any memory of law, chained' down and,tortured to confession and death? Is this their victory-that the voice of our national government in the capitol of Lincoln, while we are pouring out the ancient sacrifice again upon the fields of war, remains silent though the soul of everything we fight for, justice, liberty, legality, every defense or form of right established of man since savagery, is ravaged within a day's march of Washington?

What Kind of Peace?

PEACE has its evils no less than war. And those who have not merely suspended until the war's end a daily bath of Christian optimism, are poising their minds and their emotions now to see who the powers are that are moving toward peace, and what kind of peace they will bring. H. G. Wells, in an article in the New Republic of February 9-the best he has ever written-has a word on this subject:

"Our Tories." he says, "blundered into this great war, not seeing whither it would take them. In particular it is manifest now by a hundred signs that they dread the fall of monarchy in Germany and Austria. Far rather would they make the most abject surrender to the Kaiser than deal with a renascent republican Germany. The recent letter of Lord Lansdowne, urging a peace with German imperialism, was but a feeler from the pacifist side of this most un-English and unhappily most influential section of our public life. Lord Lansdowne's letter was the Ietter of a peer who fears revolution more than national dishonor."

Wells does not think, however, that this pacifist wing of the Tories is much to be feared. "It is the ,truculent wing," he says, "of this same anti-democratic movement that is far more active. While our sons suffer and die for their comforts and conceit, these people scheme to prevent any communication between the republican and socialist classes in Germany and the Allied population. At any cost this class of pampered and privileged traitors intend to have peace while the Kaiser is still on his throne. If not, they face a new world-in which their part will be small indeed. And with the utmost ingenuity they

°Report of the Nat'l Assn for Advancement of Colored People.

maintain .1 dangerous vagueness about the Allied peace terms, with the sole object of preventing a revolutionary movement in Germany. . . .

It is not of final importance whether the pacifist or military group of these men just now is predominant. If, as Wells says, the anti-democratic forces have had their kind of war, they will certainly try to have their kind of peace. It will be an imperial, nationalistic and capitalistic peace, a peace with wars already in its womb. It will matter little to the future of the world whether Germany plays a proud or humbled part in patching up such a peace. And the citizens of the world must beware of those men who seek it in all countries-in England as in Germany, the United States as England.

We must beware of the powers who will try to convert the "World's Peace" into a special little arrangement with English Tories for the benefit of American imperialism. A sufficient slogan for that purpose will be "The Rights of Small Nations in Central America, ,and The Internationalization of the Panama Canal."

English Admiration

TIIE English have an idea that we are entierly free from Tory imperialist forces. "In America," says Professor Gilbert Murray, "the problem .is much simpler than over here, because you have no imperialist party, no strong and ingrained habit of annexation to battle with; but we have, and most unfortunately we have it in power both in the War Cabinet and in the London press, to say nothing of that curious congress 'of selected Generals and' casual politicians which issues manifestoes from Versailles."

An epidemic of genuine admiration for us is the strangest thing that has struck England since 1914. Sick and suspicious of the amount of "moral idealism" required to cover up the complex European motivation of this war, her people have turned to us instinctively for a breath of pure air. They have idealized us. They look over to our shores somewhat as they did in the days of Sir Walter Raleigh for a new world. Lloyd George calls us "the greatest democray in existence." There are some incidents which might dampen their enthusiasm a little; it is ascertainable in a glance at the chief metropolitan newspapers, for instance, that the anti-democratic, imperial and nationalistic forces of America are in full control of the press.

They are not, however, in full control of the government. And therefore there is truth in the opinion. that America's war-policy represents a disinterested idealism for the world. The British government has been slowly coerced by the British Labor Party into a kind of blustering silence which implies half consent to an attempt at an internationalistic peace. But President Wilson has taken the lead even from the British Labor Party in this matter, and in his four-teen articles of January 9, and his message of February tt softening the specific articles and strengthening the world-principles, he has, in my opinion, laid down a challenge to British as well as American imperialists.

April.   1918   7

"This class of pampered and privileged traitors intends to have peace while the Kaiser is still on his throne . . . They maintain a dangerous vagueness about the Allied peace terms, with the sole object of preventing a revolutionary movement in Germany."-H. G. Wells.

A Working-Class Peace

IT is not only a World Peace that we want-not only a peace that shall be all-sided and permanent from the standpoint of nations. We want a working-class peace-a peace in the settlement of which labor in every country shall play so strong a part that that peace will mean freedom. This is the significance of the conference of radicals and socialists and labor leaders in New York on February 16th, at which James H. Maurer, was elected to carry a message of solidarity to similar bodies in Europe. It was a notice to Samuel Gompers that if official American Labor is content to follow his clucking and sit under his wings, unofficial American

labor is not. The program adopted was distinguished by an undiplomatic directness of utterance that gives hope of action, and by several concrete proposals not included in the President's program, nor that of the British Labor Party. We quote it here:

A CONSTRUCTIVE WORLD PROGRAM FOR
DEMOCRACY AND PEACE

1. Economic Freedom

Economic opportunities should be open to all and on equal terms.

a. All international waterways should be open at all times, under international guarantee.

8   THE LIBERATOAt

2. Free Trade should prevail.

3. The ownership and control of all resources, public utilities, financial agencies and other economic opportunities should be vested in the people and their use open to all nations upon equal terms.

4. No nation should be responsible, for the investments of its citizens in any other country,

5. No restriction should be placed upon voluntary migration.

2. Political Liberty

The right of self-determination should be guaranteed to all peoples including those in dependencies and colonies.

3. Civil Liberty

'Civil Liberty including freedom of conscience, of speech, of the press, of language, of assemblage and of petition should be absolute in time of peace or war.

4. Disarmament

1. All standing armies should be disbanded and all existing navies abolished.

2. Every form of military training and military service should be abandoned.

3. The production of all forms of munitions or instruments of war should be forbidden either in private factories or. public establishments.

Bolshevik Problems

LENINE seems to be one of those reasoners in whom act follows conclusion with the same inevitability that conclusion follows premise. He believes that the class-struggle between laborers and the owners of machinery and land is absolute, and must issue in the expropriation of the owners, before the world can be free or democratic. This being true he concludes that the "liberal" compromisers, the moderates, the menshevik socialists, who desire at the moment of victory to obscure and di-lute the class-struggle for the sake of more trivial and immediate benefits, are the worst enemies of freedom and democracy. Therefore, in a quite Iogical and impersonal manner he arrests them, suspends their publications, and puts them in jail. He assumes that their hearts are right, and that when he has done what he has to do, they will be with him, so he assures them that "such measures are only temporary and when the acuteness of the situation is past all the persons arrested will be re-leased." At present, however, their lack of Marxian understanding makes the goodness of their hearts a danger to liberty, and they must go.

According to the press, he has in prison at the present time both Plekhanov, who is the father of Socialism in Russia, the original theoretician and editor-teacher from whom for forty years they have all been learning the basic principles upon which they act, and "Babushka" Breshkovskaya, the "grandmother of the revolution," and one of the few famous women of the world. I doubt if any other biography of these times will seem so picturesque and significant, to those who look back, as hers. All her life under the Czar she has been in jail for liberty,

or escaping for liberty, or agitating for liberty and going back again to jail. A woman, and a fighter-full of love and rebellion and great thoughts-she was for years a symbol to the American middle-class idealist of the whole revolutionary movement in Russia. Now she is in jail again-for liberty ! And the American idealist finds it difficult to readjust his thoughts, and his admirations, to the novelty of that. She is in jail because her dream of liberty is now the old dream-the political and not the industrial, the evangelical ideal and not the economic force that will make it real. At least so it seems to me. There is a risk in every temporary violation of personal liberty ; but in the cause of ultimate liberty for all, this risk must be taken.

If "Babushka" feels hopeless of any reorganization under Lenine, hopeless of peace and food and productive labor for her people, her days are dark indeed; but if she can find in this strong, unscrupulously idealistic leader-ship any hope of those things-then I can not believe she is heart-broken to see her revolution go so far in victory that she herself becomes a reactionary. For my part, i f only I could be sure that hunger, and terror, and intervention of foreigners, and the uncanny behavior of money, will not be victorious over the spirit of the "Re-public of Soviets," I would be able to smile a good deal at the poignant incident of her imprisonment.*

There is of course a more difficult question before Le-nine than this question of persons and moral principles. It is the old question that disturbs every picture of the social revolution painted on air by the city soap-boxerthe question, "Where does the farmer come into the class struggle ?" Russia is not at large an industrial but a peasant country; it was only under Stolypin in 1907 that the land of the peasant villages was taken out of common ownership and allowed to run the course of private property. Much of this land is not unjustly distributed, and some of the peasants themselves own the acres that they work. They are not hired men ; they are not "proletarians." They have no one to "expropriate" but themselves. Peasants of this character, who are neither proletarians nor capitalists, though not numerous, are symbolic, perhaps, of an average attitude of the farmer towards the class struggle. They are the problem for the Bolsheviki, in Russia, just as they are the problem for the Socialist in America.

Now the moderate, utopian, procrastinating kind of "socialism" preached by Babushka and Kerenski, and others of the right wing of the Socialist-Revolutionists, appealed to this average farmer. There was no class struggle in it. It was willing to "get along" with capitalism, provided plenty of dreams were permitted of the restoration of the land to communal ownership. The Bolshevik idea of immediate confiscation in the interest of wage-workers, appeals directly only to hired men and to the poorest peasants-those who, although they own their land, are so much in debt that they are in practical wage dependence upon their creditors. The others must

*since this was printed I have been told by Louise Bryant, who has just come from Russia with personal news of these events, that Babushka is not under arrest and has not been. My argument is so cogent, however, that I am sure she will be if she is not careful! At any rate the story of her arrest is only an exaggeration of repressive measures that have been taken against "Socialists," and the necessity of these I have not over-emphasized.

April,   1915   9

be won, if they are won at all, by argument and by appeal to their understanding and sympathy.

It is interesting to see how wisely Lenine argues with them. Showing that the common ownership of the Iand can not be separated, as the Procrastinators would have it, from the overthrow of capitalism, he says: "The confiscation of all private ownership in land means the confiscation of hundreds of millions of bank capital, with which these lands, for the most part, are mortgaged. Is such a measure conceivable unless the revolutionary plan, by the aid of revolutionary methods, shall break down the opposition of the capitalists? Besides, we are here touching the most centralized form of capital, which is bank capital, and which is bound by a million threads with all the important centers of the capitalist system of this great nation, which can be defeated only by the equally well-organized power of the proletariat of the cities,

"The social-democratic mass movement in Russia has been going on for twenty years (if we count from the great strikes of 1896). Throughout this interval, passing through the two great revolutions, there runs a veritable red thread of Russian political history, this great question: Shall the working class lead the peasantry for-ward to socialism, or shall the liberal bourgeoisie drag them back into a conciliation with capitalism?

"The revolutionary Social-Democratic Party (Bolsheviki) has all this time been fighting to remove the peas-ants from the influence of the cadets and has offered them, in place of the utopian middle class view of Socialism, only a revolutionary-proletarian path to Socialism.

"Only the proletariat, leading on the poorest peasants (the semi-proletariat, as they are called in our program) may terminate the war with a democratic peace, may heal its wounds, and may undertake the steps toward Socialism that have become absolutely unavoidable and non-postponable. That is the clear demand of our class policy at present."

Though so clear and positive of the next step, how-ever, Lenine is not without a sense df the fluidity of evolution. IIe is willing to let time help him. He is not an extreme dogmatist.

"The peasants want to retain their small holdings and to arrive at some place of equal distribution," he says. "So be it. No sensible socialist will quarrel with a pauper peasant on this ground. If the lands are confiscated, so long as the proletarians rule in the great centers and all political power is handed over to the proletariat, the rest will take care of itself, will be a natural outcome of the `power of example; practice itself will do the teaching here. .

"The passing of political power to the proletariat, that is the whole thing. Then all the essential, fundamental, real points in the program of the 242 instructions become realities. And life will point out with what modifications this realization is to proceed. We should worry! We are not doctrinaires.

"We do not pretend that Marx or the Marxians know every detail of the road which leads to Socialism. That would be folly. We know the direction of the road, we know what class forces will lead to it, but the concrete,

practical details will appear in the experience of the mil-lions when they tackle the job."

This article, which 1 quote from The New International for February, was written by Lenine last May. But it reveals his keen understanding of the forces he now re-lies on. That the proletariat can lead the poorer peasants, as he predicted, has been confirmed by the course of events. Tchernoff, a politician of the peasants, who was chairman of the Constituent Assembly dispersed by Le-nine, has since come over to the government. Martov, a leader of the Menshivik Internationals, has come over to the government. According to information we receive through sympathetic sources, the solidarity of the exploited classes in Russia today is as complete as could be hoped by the most academic Marxian. The moderates, the reformists, are merely voices in the air-"Like Spargo's new party" ! The plain folks, the undistinguished, the workers of Russia are united in the determination to establish a socialist-syndicalist society, a republic of free labor.

Even In England

A REVOLUTIONARY disposition in Great Britain is

as startling as an accomplished revolution on the continent. And though it has to dress itself in laboriously dispassionate language, and show no color of life or wine at any cost, still it is a great, slow, rending tank of a thing, and once it gets started a great many of the honorable British institutions will go tinder like milkweed. I can not feel social revolution when I read the report of the subcommittee of the British Labor Party on reconstruction, but I can recognize it. I want to quote one paragraph of this report (published in this country by the New Republic) reminding the reader that the Labor Party is generally admitted to hold the balance of power in England, and is confidently expected by many to form the next government.

"Unlike the Conservative and Liberal parties, the Labor party insists on democracy in industry as well as in government. It demands the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist, individual or joint-stock; and the setting free of all who work, whether by hand or by brain, for the service of the community, and of the community only. And the Labor party refuses absolutely to believe that the British people will permanently tolerate any reconstruction or perpetuation of the disorganization, waste and inefficiency involved in the abandonment of British industry to a jostling crowd of separate private employers, with their minds bent, not on the service of the community, but-by the very law of their being-only on the utmost possible profiteering. .

"What the Labor party looks to is a genuinely scientific re-organization of the nation's industry, no longer deflected by individual profiteering, on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production; the equitable sharing of the proceeds among all who participate in any capacity and only among these, and the adoption, in particular services and occupations, of those systems and methods of administration and control that may be found, in practice, best to promote the public interest."

It is safe' to predict that this British revolution will not only move with a ponderous, slow, worming motion that is not inspiring to the emotions, but also that it will

10   THE LIBERATOR

stagger a good deal, and carry a lot of old trees and rubbish along on its back. The signs of a limp are already apparent upon page 4 of this report, where in the midst of the most earth-sweeping sentences that ever rocked the lordly island, is contained an earnest declaration in favor of a national minimum wage of 30 shillings--seven dollars and fifty cents-a week!

Mediation Versus Agitation

THE President's Mediation Commission, which has smoothed down for the period of the war five labor disputes west of the Mississippi, makes a report upon the causes of "labor difficulties." The report is written with excellent clarity and literary art. It mentions the refusal of employers to deal with unions, the absence of regular "machinery" of mediation between employers and unions, a lack of mutual "understanding" between them, a feeling on the part of labor that wages ought to rise nearly as fast as the cost of living and that the eight-hour day is "an accepted national policy," autocratic acts of repression by employers, such as the Bisbee and Jerome deportations, the Everett incident, the Little hanging, and a resort by the employers to a charge of disloyalty when their employees are only demanding social' justice   as the principal causes of "labor difficulties."

Thus the indictment contained in this report is against the employers almost absolutely and without qualification. The labor union principle of collective bargaining, and the eight hour day as a universal standard, are emphatically recommended to the government both for war and peace.

I suppose that no more can be asked of a "mediation" commission, no more can be recommended to a middle-class government. I can not help wondering, though, how these men feel-Felix Frankfurter, William B. Wilson, John H. Walker, and the others   going through a territory that is rife with revolutionary understanding, a territory in which hundreds of agitators with as much brains and equilibrium as they have, could give them facts and figures of the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth which is dividing this country, and never even allude to it as a contributing cause of "industrial difficulties." When they recall those first paragraphs of the report of Frank Walsh's commission, which neglected to say any-thing at all about specific grievances, or about testimonies or the evidence of witnesses, and simply quoted out of the United States census the underlying facts of our capitalistic feudalism as the cause of labor's unrest, they must feel a little trivial, these commissioners of mediatIon.

They know well enough that "labor difficulties" are not c?'used by, nor cured by, the matters of their discussion. And I don't mind their keeping their knowledge in their pockets-for the purposes of the moment. But I do mind their alluding to those who-for larger purposes-choose to say what they know, as "fanatical" and "destructive" "extremists." Industrial unionism and the purpose of working-men to supplant capitalists in the control of industries and their profits, is not fanatical extremism. It is not destructive. It is the only plan in the world constructive enough to cure "labor difficulties,"

and conserve to human society the benefits of machine invention and the factory system.

Members or Not

LAST Summer, discussing some resignations from the socialist party, I said that I had enough faith in the pro-war and anti-war socialists to believe they would soon be working together along the main highway of industrial liberation. In certain cases I think my faith was ill-placed. Upper-class patriotism seems to act upon some minds a good deal as upper-class money acts., But In other cases loyalty to the underlying purpose of the class-struggle has not wavered.

Rose Pastor Stokes has gone so far as to apply for membership, or remembership, in the party.

"I left the party," she says, "because I considered dangerous the party's attitude toward America's participation in the war; but the crisis created by the St. Louis resolution is past, and the present immediate danger is an imperialistic peace which, I believe, only a unified and strengthened international Socialist movement can pre-vent."

Well, it was dangerous, as some of the members are quite well convinced. But we suspect it was heartening to the revolutionary minority in Germany, and did its part towards strengthening in all countries those who will insist upon internationalism whenever the time comes. The Socialist Party adopted "The Majority Re-port," denouncing and resisting the war, but it acted upon the "Minority Report," which accepted the war as a fact, and sought to win out of it all the progress possible. Perhaps this divorce of profession and practice, under the circumstances, was the best way to promote what we all desired-encouragement of the spirit of social revolution all over the world. At any rate the crisis begot by our reiteration of principles, is past, and as Rose Pastor sees truly, the problem of preventing imperialism in the peace terms is before us all. It is the only problem about which we can do anything just now. And if we are agreed in doing, we are agreed enough.

MAX EASTMAN.

TO WOODROW WILSON

MAN'

You are trusted of millions.

These grass-blades your smooth acres bear-

The dust-motes dancing in a slant of sun across, the silence of your book-walled-room-

The driven rain-drops of a torn, wild night-

Are not so many as the human souls that sleep

In trust of you,

Do you feel their white faith through the night?

RUTH R. PEARSON.

11

IN A SOUTHERN GARDEN
Pink Dogwood

BABY hands, wide spread, Reach for the golden April sun; Then brush my cheek and, touching me With groping tenderness they bring In sudden, breathless, yearning pain, The agony of spring.

To A Japonica Tree

TIIROW your red kisses to the laughing sun, Drop them upon the warm and sleeping earth, Strain to the wind with your unquenched desire-There is no fragrance in your hot-lipped fire; You give too eagerly, oh, wanton one !

Live Oak

LIFE is so still and simple when I lay My head against your bark and rest and feel Your mighty strength, too great for consciousness--Night is above you, and the milky way ;

Around your foot the drowsy violets nod;

I wonder-do men mean this when they say

"The love of God"?

BEULAH AMIDON.

MUSIC

MUSIC and the dancing of young women Is like the flow of water over rocks And along shallow places. The flow and bubbling of water And the swaying movement of trees.

Music and the dancing of young boys Is like the play and sparkle of light On a moving surface of water ; The playful sparkle of sunlight And the hopping movement of birds.

Music is a group of young women

Running before the wind A group of young women

Laughing and calling   as they run with the wind.

And their gestures   as they run,

Are like slender branches Bending   to the wind.

JOHN STORRS.

Paris.

ABOVE THE HILL

A FOREST of sharp skeletons flame-seared They stand above the hill, the ancient trees, A waste of broken trunks the shells have cleared Of swaying branch and leaf and woodland ease.

So still they are, the Spring shall turn aside, Summer shall never touch their blackened sleep. They know-they know earth's laughing heart has died, The ancient trees, whose roots have pierced so deep.

HORTENSE FLEXNER.

TO ARTHUR B. DAVIES

(Exhibition of paintings at Macbeth Galleries, Jan.-Feb., 1918.)

WHERE do such visions live that cone to thee And make thy clear eyes gleam with heavenly light? What golden messenger of mystery

For thee withdrew the curtain of our night? Who led thee forth beyond the stars, the sea, Behind the wind? Does Beauty sleep or wake? Is she a maiden loved most tenderly

By dawn and silence, tree and brooding lake? Is she a bird, a breath? 0, Wanderer

Along the unpathed meadows of the mind, In shining places thou hast come on her, Who bade thee lift the eye-lids of the blind. (n thy translucent imagery they trace The glory and the wonder of her face.

RUTH PICKERING.

THREE POEMS

Patience

0 MOTHERS of the world, poets of the world, IIow long will you go in travail with the world's children?

Bearing them in your bodies,

Giving them drink, giving them rest on your bosom; Chiding them into goodness,

Guiding them into wisdom and beauty ;

Knowing how they stray into folly,

Yet never wearying of hope, of love,-

How long,

Mothers of the world, poets of the world,

How long is your patience?

Miss Smith

MISS SMITH never heard

Of the Massacre of Ludlow.

But she has many books on "The Great War"-As if there were no more than one great war!

Sparrows

DO you remember that night, How we sat together on the stone wall in the rain and dark?

Huddled and cold and bedraggled like two sparrows-We had no mind for the wet, sheltering in each other's arms-

Last night I was feeling hate toward you

When suddenly I remembered us there in the dark on the wall,

Side by side, so little, in the dark...

HELEN HOYT.

12   THE LIBERATOR

China's Paintings

IN China, in her great days, every person deemed worthy of social recognition was a painter. To be unable to paint in that empire, was almost what it is to he illiterate among us. And the consequence of this universal and honorific rivalry in art, was a more refined perception and a greater maturity of taste and technique than has ever existed elsewhere. The great quiet paintings of the old Chinese masters may with good reason be said to be the greatest paintings in the world. And this is one of the things that our brassy western civilization will gradually wake up

to, when the league of nations has made the world round.

A friend who owns some of these pictures has offered to let us reproduce copies of them in THE LIBERATOR. And al-though their soft low harmonies of color will be lost, they will still retain their supreme excellence-a kind of perfect magnificence in the very position of objects, and a sublime rhythm with which the eye and mind move through and among them. These qualities-primary qualities as philosophy calls them-of shape and motion, seem to endure in their hold upon the love of men longer than others that are more personal and exciting.

The two paintings on these• pages are not by a very old, nor by a very famous Chinese painter. They are by one,

.April,   1918   13

Chin Yuan, who lived in the sixteenth century A. D. And I have chosen them to begin with, because they are so much like the paintings of some very modern artists of ours. They have the same bold undetailed presentation of a strong piece of the artist's experience. And yet they retain a great deal of the old impersonal grandeur, and may serve as a kind of bridge to carry us back to the earlier ones. To these earlier masters Chin Yuan would perhaps seem a little immature. And I suppose our western moderns, with their self-conscious breaking-away from literal and photographic representation of things, their new scorn of certain laws of perspective and anatomical structure which imply that they are only copying nature, would seem immature to

them too. As long ago as the fifth or sixth century they had got all through feeling self-conscious because they were free. They would never even think of copying nature, or obeying any "laws" that a camera, or a doll-factory, has to obey. Their ideal was to create a thing as original as nature and all her laws, in every picture. Their assumption of creative freedom was so serene that I imagine the law of gravitation would seem to them a crass impertinence. . .

I write with a vast uneducation about these matters, but I love some of the paintings so much that, even at the risk of offending the more eagle-eyed experts of art, I will make free to say from time to time what I think and feel about them.   M. E.

14   THE LIBERATOR

The Terrorist

Translated from the Russian by
Vladimir Lossieff

"DID you hear? Berezovitch is going to Russia!"

L   "Berezovitch ! What are you talking about? Well ! Well !"

And in five minutes all the colony, consisting of Russian Jews, mostly workers, who at six o'clock met at the dinner table of the Russian boarding house, were discussing the subject of Berezovitch leaving for Russia.

"Who is this Berezovitch?" I, a newcomer, asked of my neighbor at the board.

But he, raising his voice and addressing the whole company, remarked :

"Gentlemen ! Comrades ! Here is one who does not know Berezovitch ! I will tell you about Berezovitch. You see . . . But-here he is himself-what is the use of me talking about him?"

I turned my eyes to the door: a young man of about thirty entered the room. He was short, yet his figure was stooped; his suit was far from new; his face-it was not remarkable -not handsome, but forceful. To tell the truth, I was disappointed.

"This is Mr. Berezovitch !"-everyone tried to introduce him at once.

"Wait . . . My comrades . . . Only imaginary Berezovitch. I--I must admit at last that I am not Berezovitch !"

If, at that moment, a bomb would have come through the open window, it could not, I think, have had greater effect than those few words.

"What? What does it mean-`imaginary' Berezovitch?" my neighbor asked him.

"It means `imaginary.' Only here, in America, am I a tailor by the name of Berezovitch-but in Russia I was a Goldman, because that is my real name ; Berezovitch-it was only my name abroad. . . .

"Now I can tell you everything. I am not Berezovitch. I am not a deserter; I am-but please do not be afraid, I am-a terrorist. Not a `bomb-thrower,' or however you call them, but, perhaps I am a plain murderer ; yet-I think--I am not. Now I am going to Russia. I am going to free Russia to give myself up to the hands of Justice, because my conscience does not permit me to hide myself any longer. I am going with pleasure, now, to face trial. You know, now things are changed. . . .

"I was living in Odessa. And in the year 1905 at Odessa there was a pogrom. The leaders of the `vigilantes,' as such bands are called in this country, were members of the police force. They went with the `black hundreds' and when they found a Jew they beat him, killed him-shot him to death. I am not a poet. I cannot describe it very well-my business is to make clothes. But, to suffer-every man can suffer-and I have suffered much, I think enough for a thousand years.

Note.-Vladimir Lossleff is one of the 166 members of the I. W. W. indicted last September and now in the Cook County Jail, Chicago. He was born in Russia, and has been in America since 1912. He was Secretary of the Conference for the Return of Exiles, which was instrumental in securing the release of Leon Trotzky by the British government last year. He was editor of the I. W. W. Russian newspaper published in Chicago. He is 22 years old,

"I was not in the 'Protection Group'-the ones that organized to fight back. I am ashamed to recall it, but it is a fact; I did not go out with the others to resist. My mother wept and feared I might be killed; my father-his heart wasweak-said he was afraid he would die while I went to fight for others ; anyhow, I did not go, but not because I was a coward.

"Well, when they were busy breaking into our house we were in the garret. We kept still. I was peering out of a window and saw, with my own eyes, that the leader of the murder-band was the chief of police of our district-and he was in the front. His name was Biely and I knew him. This Biely shot about like a madman. . And then to our dismay the children-our neighbor's children-began to cry. . . . And he shot into the windows, the walls and in the air, just shot. . . . And the children were in the yard under a moving van. And Biely chased them out of their place. They ran. . . . They were so cute, s& nice-two little angels-you never saw better children. And what do you think? Did his hand tremble . . . ? No! He killed those two little ones as though they were not angels but rabbits,

"And I wished at that moment to kill Biely. But how? What could I do, unarmed, against them ; all drunk and--that is the main thing-with revolvers? But it is better not to think of what happened that day. It was hard, but I decided to keep still so as to have a chance to avenge later. Time passed. Many things happened that year. . . . But I did not forget him-the chief of police. Every night, be-fore sleep came, I reminded myself : 'Chief Biely is not punished yet. And you, you must do that!'

"So I was looking for him ; what do I mean 'looking?' I did not eat good, I did not sleep well, because I had a problem : to kill the murderer, but not to suffer for it. Why suffer ? Jewish blood was shed in plenty without mine. And, besides, I did not want to part with my life for only killing a dirty snake.

"And I followed him as a good detective might do. Finally I caught him on the sea wall at night. He walked and smoked, but I walked and wept. Well, in short, I shot him-in his head-I shot him and cried out: `This is to you for the pogrom, murderer ! By this God pays you with my hand.'

"I fled-it was very dark. I threw my revolver into the sea, took a boat and went home.

"The next morning the papers reported that Biely committed suicide, because it was found that he was short in the government money. Afterward they said that some unknown convict, against whom he had testified, killed him. Soon they did not write about him at all.

Berezovitch stopped. Evidently, even to remember the past was painful.

`"No one knew that I was connected, closely connected, with the case. Only once our neighbor--will you believe me, she cried out both eyes for her little angels and now she is absolutely blind-asked me : 'You know Biely is killed ! God has avenged my little ones. Maybe you know some-thing about it?' But I said `No,' and she believed.

"To my surprise, about a month later, the district attorney called me to his office. I did not like that. `What do I know about Biely?' 'Did he have any sins?' 'What do I know?' Good! Well, I told him all that I knew of Biely for it was on my heart. I told him about the children and other things; well, everything but the night upon the sea-wall.

April,   1918   I5

"'I will arrest you,' said he. He was polite and used 'you.'

"`What for? Why?'

" `You know too much.'

" `What do you mean-I know much? Everybody knows that ! You ask my neighbors. You ask the shoemaker who lives in the basement. It wasn't me who saw everything-.everybody saw it!'

"Well, the district attorney thought it over a while, then he shook my hand and said, `All right. You sign a paper that you will not go away. Sign here, please.'

"I signed-and thought `will not go away! It means that I must go away.' And-as further thinking of staying there only wasted time, I left Russia on the second day. What else shall I tell-I came here, not as Goldman but as Berezovitch, whom no one knows or has any interest in.

"But now, when there is freedom and justice-real justice-when workmen and not the legal wolves of the cruel rich sit in judgment; I have decided to go to the commissioner of justice-yes, to him, and say, `I have killed-try me with all the authority of the law!'

"And now, comrades, you know all-I have no need to hide myself. . . ."

By that time tears came from his eyes. They fell in big drops on his plate. He had forgotten the food set before him.

The three Swedish girls that waited on us at the boarding house looked at him tenderly. They did not understand much Russian, but from the phrases they could pick out they thought Berezovitch an unequalled hero.

"You are a good man and we all love you." With those words my neighbor went up to "imaginary Berezovitch" and kissed him. This was the signal for an ovation.

"Berezovitch ! Goldman ! You are the man ! You are. . . ."

"Comrades," thus began the man who first gave us the news of Berezovitch's expected departure, "Comrades, I re-peat, we are here only forty-but it could be two hundred. Tell me; who first gave you place and welcome when you came abroad? Berezovitch! Tell me; who helped you with money and words of cheer when you were in need? He it was, Berezovitch! Did he not give his bed to anyone who had no money for rent?"

Cries of "Yes! Yes !" came from many.

"Who fixed your clothes, and so well they looked as new? Berezovitch ! Who sent his last pennies to the war-prisoners in Germany? Berezovitch! He was for us all-an adviser, a `good uncle' and a fine comrade. We cannot be at his trial, but we must help him. We cannot judge him; but nevertheless it is our duty to give him a diploma, a recommendation. And that of the best kind. Let us write one-everyone will sign it-and he will go on trial with it. Let them know who Berezovitch is. Let the commissioner know!"

Someone brought paper. Soon one was writing. . . .

"The bearer of this," someone dictated, "tailor Berezovitch, but in reality Goldman from Odessa"-and added, "while being abroad, which, we, the undersigned . .

Berezovitch sat in silence. . . . In his eyes there was hope.

Tulsa, November 9th

[Enrzoa's NOTE:-In this story of persecution and outrage at Tulsa, Oklahoma, told in the sworn statement of one of the victims, there is direct and detailed evidence of one of the most menacing by-products of the war. Here in Tulsa, as in Bisbee and Butte and Cincinnati, patriotic fervor was used by employers with the connivance or open co-operation of local officials, as a mask for utterly lawless attacks upon workingmen who attempted to organize for better conditions. This false resort to loyalty on the part of certain war profiteers is emphasized in the recent Report of the President's Mediation Commission. These cowardly masked upper-class mobs, calling themselves "Knights of Liberty" and mumbling hypocritical words about "the women and children of Belgium," will not succeed in terrorizing the labor movement of America, nor will they tend to make it more patriotic.]

ON November 9, 1917, seventeen men, taken from the custody of the city police of Tulsa, Oklahoma, were whipped, tarred and feathered, and driven out of the city with a warning never to return.

In a letter dated December 21, a resident* of Tulsa, writes:

"I think it is only fair to say that the bottom cause of this trouble locally was that a few men, presumably belonging to the I. W. W. came into the oil fields something like a year ago and were meeting with considerable success in getting

oil-field workers-especially pipe-line and tank builders-to fight for better wages and shorter hours.

"Not long after the outrage was committed in Butte, Mont., on the crippled I. W. W. leader (Frank Little), the home of J. Edgar Pew in this city was partly destroyed by some kind of explosion and Mr. and Mrs. Pew narrowly escaped being killed. The news agencies at once published it as a dastardly act of the I. W. W.'s.t Mr. Pew is the vice-president and active manager of the Carter Oil Co., which by the way, is owned and controlled by Standard Oil and is one•of its largest producing subsidiary companies. A few weeks after the Pew home incident, an explosion followed by a fire partially destroyed an oil refinery that is located at Norfolk, Okla. This property was under the Carter Oil Co. management. Two men lost their lives in this accident. The news agencies without exception (so far as I know) exploited this as an-other I. W. W. outrage."

From this point we take up the story in a sworn statement made by the secretary of the Tulsa local.

*Names of informants are withheld for reasons of safety. The names are in possession of the National Civil Liberties Bureau, 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, which has the case in hand.

t several men are now reported in the press to be under arrest in Oklahoma for dynamiting the home of Mr. Pew and the oil refinery, none of whom have any connection whatever with the I. W. W.

16   THE LIBERATOR

"On the night of November 5, 191.7, while sitting in the hall at No. 6 W. Brady Street, Tulsa, Okla. (the room leased and occupied by the Industrial Workers of the World, and used as a union meeting room), at about 8:45 P. M., five men entered the hall., to whom I at first paid no attention, as I was busy putting a monthly stamp in a member's union card book. After I had finished with the member, I walked back to where these five men had congregated at the baggage-room at the back of the hall, and spoke to them, asking if there was anything I could do for them.

One who appeared to be the leader, answered `No, we're just looking the place over.' Two of them went into the baggage-room flashing an electric flash-light around the room. The other three walked toward the front end of the hall. I stayed at the baggage-room door, and one of the men came out and followed the other three up to the front end of the hall. The one who stayed in the baggage-room asked me if I was `afraid he would steal something.' I told him we were paying rent for the hall, and I did not think anyone had a right to search this place without a warrant. He replied that he did not give a damn if we were paying rent for four places, they would search them whenever they felt like it. Presently he came out and walked toward the front end of the hall, and I followed a few steps behind him.

"In the meantime the other men, who proved to be officers, appeared to be asking some of our members questions. Shortly after, the patrol-wagon came and all the members in the hall-lo men-were ordered into the wagon, I turned out the light in the back end of the hall, closed the desk, put the key in the door and told the `officer' to turn out the one light. We stepped out, and I locked the door, and at the request of the `leader of the officers,' handed him the keys. He told me to get in the wagon, I being the r rth man taken from the hall, and we were taken to the police station.

"November 6th, after staying that night in jail, I put up $roo.oo cash bond so that I could attend to the outside business, and the trial was set for 5 o'clock P. M., November 6th. Our lawyer, Chas. Richardson, asked for a continuance and it was granted. Trial on a charge of vagrancy was set for November 7th at 5 P. M. by Police Court Judge Evans. After some argument by both sides the cases were continued until the next night, November 8th, and the case against Gunnard Johnson, one of our men, was called. After four and a half hours' session the case was again adjourned until November 9th at 5 P. M.. when we agreed to let the decision in Johnson's case stand for all of us. . . .

"Johnson said he had come into town Saturday, November 3d, to get his money from the Sinclair Oil & Gas Co. and could not get it until Monday, the 5th, and was shipping out Tuesday, the 6th. and that he had $7.08 when arrested. He was reprimanded by the judge for not having a Liberty Bond, and as near as anyone could judge from the closing remarks of Judge Evans, he was found guilty and fined $Ioo for not having a Liberty Bond.

"Our lawyer made a motion to appeal the case and the bonds were then fixed at $zoo each. I was immediately arrested, as were also five spectators in the open court-room,. for being I. W. W.'s. One arrested was not a member of ours, but a property-owner and citizen. I was searched and $30.87 taken from me, as also was the receipt for the $Ioo bond, and we then were all placed back in the cells.

"In about forty minutes, as near as we could judge, about I] P. M., the turnkey came and called `Get ready to go out

you I. W. W. men.' We dressed as rapidly as possible, were taken out of the cells, and the officer gave us back our possessions, Ingersoll watches, pocketknives and money, with the exception of $3 in silver of mine which they kept, giving me back $27.87. I handed the receipt for the $roo bond I had put up to the desk sergeant, and he told me he did not know anything. about it, and handed the receipt back to me, which I put in my trousers pocket with the 87 cents. Twenty-seven dollars in bills was in my coat pocket. We were immediately ordered into automobiles waiting in the alley. Then we proceeded one block north to 1st Street, west one-half block to Boulder Street, north across the Frisco tracks and stopped.

"Then the masked mob came up and ordered everybody to throw up their hands. Just here I wish to state I never thought any man could reach so high as those policemen did. We were then bound, some with hands in front, some with hands behind, and others bound with arms hanging down their sides, the rope being wrapped around the body. Then the police were ordered to `beat it,' which they did, running, and we started for the place of execution.

"When we arrived there, a company of gowned and masked gunmen were there to meet us standing at `present arms.' We were ordered out of the autos, told to get in line in front of these gunmen and another bunch of men with automatics and pistols, lined up between us. Our hands were still held' up, and those who were bound, in front. Then a masked man walked down the line and slashed the ropes that bound us, and we were ordered to strip to the waist, which we did, threw our clothes in front of us, in individual piles-coats, vests, hats, shirts and undershirts. The boys not having had time to distribute their possessions that were given back to them at the police stations, everything was in the coats, everything we owned in the world.

"Then the whipping began. A double piece of new rope, Ys or / hemp, being used. A man, `the chief' of detectives, stopped the whipping of each man when he thought the victim had enough. After each one was whipped another man applied the tar with a large brush, from the head to the seat. Then a brute smeared feathers over and rubbed them in.

"After they had satisfied themselves that our bodies were well abused, our clothing was thrown into a pile, gasoline poured on it and a match applied. By the light of our earthly possessions, we were ordered to leave Tulsa, and leave running and never come back. The night was dark, the road very rough, and as I was one of the last two that was whipped, tarred and feathered, and in the rear when ordered to run, I decided to be shot rather than stumble over the rough road. After going forty or fifty feet I stopped and went into the weeds. I told the man with me to get in the weeds also, as the shots were coming very close over us, and ordered him to lie down flat. We expected to be killed, but after r5o or zoo shots were fired they got in their autos.

"After the last one had left, we went through a barbed-wire fence, across a field, called to the boys, collected them, counted up, and had all the 16 safe, though sore and nasty with tar. After wandering around the hills for some time-ages it seemed to me-we struck the railroad track. One man, Jack Sneed, remembered then that he knew a farmer in that vicinity, and he and J. F. Ryan volunteered to find the house. I built a fire to keep us from freezing.

"We stood around the fire expecting to be shot,' as we did not know but what some tool of the commercial club had followed us. After a long time Sneed returned and called

April,   1918   17

to us, and we went with him to a cabin and found an I. W. W, friend in the shack and 5 gallons of coal oil or kerosene, with which we cleaned the filthy stuff off of each other, and our troubles were over, as friends sent clothing and money to us that day, it being about 3 or 3:30 A. M. when we reached the cabin.

"The men abused, whipped and tarred were : Tom Mc-Caffery, John Myers, John Boyle, Charles Walsh, W. H. Walton, L. R. Mitchell, Jos. French, J. R. Hill, Gunnard Johnson, Robt. McDonald, John Fitzsimmons, Jos. Fischer, Gordon Dimikson, J. F. Ryan, E. M. Boyd, Jack Sneed (not an I. W. W.).

"This is a copy of my sworn statement and every word is truth."

In answer to special inquiry the writer added to his statement as follows:

"It was very evident that the police force knew what was going to happen when they took us from jail, as there were extra gowns and masks provided which were put on by the Chief of Police and one detective named Blaine, and the number of blows we received were regulated by the Chief of Police himself, who was easily recognizable by six of us at least."

The above account is substantiated at every point by a former employee of The Federal Industrial Relations Commission, who at the request of the National Civil Liberties Bureau made a special investigation of the whole affair. His report names directly nine leaders of the mob, including five members of the police force.

The part played by the press in this orgy of "Patriotism" is illustrated by the following excerpts from an editorial which appeared in the Tulsa Daily World on the afternoon of the 9th:

"GET OUT THE HEMP

"Any man who attempts to stop the supply for one-hundredth part of a second is a traitor and ought to be shot! . .

"The oil country can take care of its own troubles. It does not need the I. W. W. . . .

"In the meantime, if the I.W.W. or its twin brother, the Oil Workers' Union, gets busy in your neighborhood, kindly take occasion to decrease the supply of hemp. A knowledge of how to tie a knot that will stick might come in handy in a few days. It is no time to daily with the enemies of the country. The unrestricted production of petroleum is as necessary to the winning of the war as the unrestricted production of gunpowder. We are either going to whip Germany or Germany is going to whip us. The first step in the whipping of Germany is to strangle the I. W. W: s. Kill them, just as you would kill any other kind of a snake. Don't scotch 'em; kill 'em. And kill 'em dead. It is no time to waste money on trials and continuances and things like that. All that is necessary is the evidence and a firing squad. Probably the carpenters' union will contribute the timber for the coffins."

Our Cover Design

IS a drawing by Frank Waits, of Miss Anita Loos, the film-playwright. Its use does not imply that Miss Loos endorses our opinions, but only that we endorse her picture !

An Young

RIDGEVILLE, N. IL-George Turnip, a leading citizen of this town, was given a birthday dinner today in honor of his sixty-third birthday. Mr. Turnip, who is a bachelor, made a strong speech in favor of military training for every male citizen over nineteen and under sixty-three years of age.

Impregnable

AUSTRIA proposed the following towns as a north-western frontier for Ukrainia : Wydozowskyesee, Prushany, Kamietslitowsk, Wysekelitowsk, Meshiretschei, Radzyn, Pugaszce, Krasnostau, and Sroezeberzszyn. These natural fortifications ought to ensure the Ukrainians against any attempt of foreigners to interfere in their affairs.

A FIDDLE IS A STRANGE THING

A FIDDLE is a strange thing

To walk with under sky-

0 the fiddle knows what it wants to sing But never do I.

And when I take it in my hands

It starts to sing-but why?

Perhaps the fiddle understands.

But never do I.

ANNETTE WYNNE.

18

RED RUSSIA

Kerensky

I.

October 23, 1917.

"I AM a doomed man," said Alexander Kerensky from the

tribune of the Council of the Russian Republic on October 13th, "and it doesn't matter what happens to me . . . ."

Doomed indeed. Tuberculosis of the kidneys, of the lungs, and they say tumor of the stomach. Extremely emotional, strung to an almost hysterical pitch, the awful task of riding the Russian whirlwind is wearing him down visibly.

"Comrades !" he said at the Democratic Assembly, "If I speak to you like this, it is because the cross I. carry, and which forces me to be far from you, is so terribly heavy !"

At the time of this writing, October 23, Kerensky is alone, as perhaps never leader has been alone in all history. In the midst of the class-struggle, which deepens and grows bitterer day by day, his place becomes more and more precarious. Things are moving swiftly to a crisis, to the "lutte finale" between bourgeoisie and proletariat-which Kerensky tried with all his strength to avoid-and the "Moderates" disappear from the stormy scene. Kerensky alone remains, stubborn and solitary, holding his way . . . .

The revolutionary democracy says that he has "sold out" to the bourgeoisie and the foreign imperialists. The bourgeoisie and the reactionary foreign influences   with the British Embassy at their head-accuse him of having "sold out" to the Germans. Upon him is concentrated the hatred of both sides, as upon a symbol of Russia torn in half. Kerensky will fall, and his fall will be the signal for civil war.

The familiar villifications are heaped upon him; he is everything from "traitor" to "corruptor of children." A common tale, reprinted weekly in the newspapers, is that of his separation from his wife, and approaching marriage with a well-known variety actress-or even that the actress is living in the Winter Palace. One of the former Ministers, whose apartment was next to Kerensky's, says that he was kept awake all night by the Premier singing operatic arias-and adds that Kerensky sleeps in the gold and blue bed of the Tsar Alexander III, which is a very wide bed . . . . People repeat that Kerensky is surrounding himself with imperial pomp, and I have been told how, while speaking at the Moscow Conference, he kept two. officers standing at salute until they fainted-a myth which has been exploded by every eye-witness. But the most widely-spread accusation is that "he is just trying to make a name for himself in history." And if that is Kerensky's fell design, he has succeeded.

In all the multitudes of revolutionary leaders there is not one with Kerensky's personal magnetism, his dramatic faculty of firing men. I first saw him at the Democratic Assembly, where he marched into the middle of the great Alexandrinsky Theater, in the midst of an immense hostile crowd firmly convinced that he was implicated in the Kornilov affair, and swept them off their feet by his passionate speech. At the opening of the Council of the Russian Republic I again heard him, and twice more, raising himself and his audience

to heights of emotion, collapsing utterly afterward, and the last time weeping violently in his seat. A tall, broad-shouldered figure as he stood there, in his utterly plain brown uniform, rather flabby around the middle, with flashing eyes, bristling hair, abrupt gestures, and swift, resonant speech. What did he say? Nothing very concrete, except once when he bitterly denounced the Bolsheviki for provoking blood-shed. Otherwise vague defenses of himself, generalities about the necessity for disorder in the country to cease, about defending the revolution, about free Russia . . . . A man of moods, nervous, domineering, independent, of fearful capacity for work under frightful physical handicaps, absolutely honest but with no real fixity of purpose-as the leader of the Russian Revolution should have. And sick.

We had many appointments to see him at his office in the Winter Palace. Always at the last moment he would suddenly be taken ill, or busy-with meetings of the Government, the War Council, deputations from the front, from the Caucausus, Siberia, visits of the Allied Ambassadors, or a delegation like one we saw-reactionary priests objecting to the separation of Church and State . . . .

Finally one day we penetrated as far as the private billiard-room of the Emperor, an immense chamber paneled in rose-wood inlaid with brass, where in a corner beside the Gargantuan rose-wood billiard table, below the shrouded portraits of the Tsars, was the plain desk at which he worked. The military Commissar for the Russian troops in France and Salonika was striding up and down, biting his nails. It appeared that the Minister-President was closeted with the British Ambassador, hours late for all appointments . . .

Then, just as we were about to give up, the door opened and a smiling little spic-and-span naval adjutant beckoned. We entered a great mahogany room, lined with heavy Gothic book-cases, in the center of which a stairway mounted to a balcony above. This was the Tsar's private library and. reception-room. I had time to notice the works of jack London, in English, on a shelf, when Kerensky came toward us. As he shook hands he looked into each face searchingly for a second, and then led the way swiftly across to a big table with chairs all around.

On his high forehead the short hair bristled straight up like a brush, grey-discolored. His whole face was greyish in color, puffed out unhealthily, with deep pouches under the eyes. He looked at one shrewdly, humorously, squinting as if the light hurt. The long fingers of his hands twisted nervously tight around each other once or twice, and then he laid them on the table, and they were quiet. His whole attitude was quizzically friendly, as if receiving reporters was an amusing relaxation. When he picked up a paper with questions on it, I noticed that he put it within an inch of his eyes, as if he were terribly near-sighted.

"What do you consider your job here?" I asked him. He laughed as if it tickled him.

"Just to free Russia," he answered drily, and smiled as if it were a good joke.

"What do you think will be the solution of the present struggle between the extreme radicals and the extreme reactionaries ?"

19

B y JOHN REED

"That I won't answer," he shot back swiftly. "What's the next?"

"What have you to say to the democratic masses of the United States?"

"Well . . ." he rubbed his chin and grinned. "What am I going to say to that ?" His attitude said, do you think I'm God Almighty? "Let them understand the Russian democ-' racy," he went on, "and help it to fight reaction-everywhere in the world. Let them understand the soul of Russia, the real spirit of the Russian people. That's all I have to say to them."

I then asked, "What lesson do you draw from the Russian Revolution for the revolutionary democratic elements of the world ?"

"Ah-hah." He turned that over in his mind and gave me a sharp look. "Do you think the Revolution in Russia is over, then? It would be very short-sighted for me to draw Inv lesson from the Revolution." He jerked his head in emphasis, and spoke vehemently. "Let the masses of the Russian people in action teach their own lesson. Draw the lesson yourself, comrade-you can see it before your eyes !"

He stopped and then began abruptly:

"This is not a political revolution. It is not like the French revolution. It is an economic revolution, and there will be necessary in Russia a profound revaluation of classes. And it is also a complicated process for the many different nationalities of Russia. Remember that the French revolu= tion took five years, and that France was inhabited by one people, and that France is only the size of three of our provincial districts. No, the Russian revolution is not over-it is just beginning!"

I made way for the Associated Press correspondent, who had the usual Associated Press prejudices against common peasants, soldiers and workingmen who insisted upon calling one tavaristch-comrade.

"Mr. Kerensky," said the Associated Press man, "in England and France people are disappointed with the Revolution-"

"Yes, I know," interrupted Kerensky, quizzically. "Abroad it is fashionable to be disappointed with the Revolution !"

"I mean," went on the Associated Press man, a little disconcerted, "people are disappointed in Russia's part in the war."

I remember it was the day after the news reached Petro-grad of the great defeat of the Italians on the Carso;'for Kerensky immediately shot back, with a grin, "The young man had better go to Italy !"

The Associated Press man tried again. "What is your ex-planation of why the Russians have stopped fighting?"

"That is a foolish question to ask," Kerensky was annoyed. "Russia started the war first, and for a long time she bore the whole brunt of it. Her losses have been inconceivably greater than any other nation. Russia has now the right to demand of the Allies that they bring to bear a greater force of arms." He stopped and stared for a moment at his interlocutor. "You are asking why the Russians have stopped fighting, and the Russians are asking where is the British fleet-with the German battleships in the Gulf of Riga?" Again he ceased suddenly, and as suddenly burst out again. "The Russian

Revolution hasn't failed and the Revolutionary Army hasn't failed. It is not the Revolution which caused disorganization in the army-that disorganization was accomplished years ago, by the old regime. Why aren't the Russians fighting? I will tell you. Because the masses of the people are economically tired-and because they are disillusioned with the Allies !"

The Associated Press man tried a new tack. "Do you think it would be advantageous to bring American troops to Russia ?"

"Good," remarked the Premier off-hand, "but impossible. Transportation . . ."

"What can America do which would help Russia the most?" Without hesitation Kerensky answered, "Send us boots, shoes, machinery-and money."

Abruptly he stood up, shook hands, and before we were out the room he went quickly across to a desk piled high with papers, and began to write . . .

H.

November 25, 1917.

It is just a month since I wrote the first part of this article. Kerensky saw the truth : but he could not gauge the excitation of spirit, the deep trouble of the slow-moving Russian masses. He thought the radical democratic program could be worked out slowly, by means of Constituent Assemblies and such-like, after the victorious end of the War which would have made "the world safe for democracy." The idea of Social-ism, or a Proletarian State, subsisting in the imperfect capitalist world of today, was to him inconceivable.

The Bolshevik peace cry had swelled into a chorus which drowned every other sound. It was at this time that a prominent American visiting Russia said to me, "There is only one real party in Russia-the peace party."

But Kerensky defied the Bolsheviki, and commenced the struggle which ended when he fled, alone and in disguise from the battlefield where he had been defeated.

By that act he lost whatever popularity he had retained among the revolutionary masses . . . He hardly realized this, for after a silence he addressed to Russia an open letter in which he said:

"Be citizens, don't finish with your own hands the country and the revolution for which you have struggled these eight months! Leave the fools and traitors ! Return to the people, return to the service of the country and the revolution!

"It is I, Kerensky, who say this .

"Pull yourselves together!"

In that hysterical communication may be discerned all the traits of Kerensky's character-the incomprehension of the movement, sympathy for the people, absolute and utter disbelief in _ the reynlutionarv me~p nervous bitterness, wounded pride . . . He could not then have grasped-and cannot now-the fact that the masses of poor people he loved and gave his life to help have turned away from him. At the moment he counts actually less in Russia than Bryan does at home.

20   THE LIBERATOR

A Visit to. the Russian

Army THE bearer of this, Johan Reed, known to the

Cultural-Publicity office of the Political Department of the Ministry of War as a member of the American Socialist Party, is authorized to proceed to the active army to gather information for the North American Press    

"Observation: To the Commissar belongs the right to recall agitators and propagandists."

Surely never stranger passport carried correspondent to the front, opened all doors, made the commandant of the Baltic station set aside a separate first-class compartment for the "American Mission," as he called us. An Orthodox priest, hound on volunteer priestly duty to the trenches, humbly begged the honor of travelling in our company. He was a big, healthy man, with a wide, simple Russian face, a gentle smile, an enormous reddish heard, and an insatiable desire for conversation.

"Eta Vienna! It's true !" he said, with the suspicion of a sigh. "The revolution has weakened the hold of the church on the masses of the people. Some say that we served the old regime-that we `blessed the gallows' of the revolutionary martyrs. But I remember in I905, when thirteen sappers were executed for mutiny, no priest would administer the last rites. How could we speak consoling words to a man about to be murdered?

"Some have lost all faith, but the great masses are still very religious-even though extreme revolutionaries. On the caps of the reserves used to be a cross and the- words, `Za verau, tsaria, i otechestvo'-For faith, tsar, and father-land.' Well, they scratched out the 'faith' along with the rest. . . ." He shook his head. "In the old text of the church prayers God was referred to as `Tsar of Heaven,' and the Virgin as `Tsarina.' We've had to leave that out--the people would't have God insulted, they say. . . ."

We went on to speak of his work in the armies, and his face grew infinitely tender.

"During regimental prayer the priest prays for peace to all nations. Whereupon the soldiers cry out, 'Add "without annexations or indemnities!" ' Then we pray for all those who are travelling, for the sick and the suffering; and the soldiers cry, `Pray also for the deserters!' Simple-minded children ! They think that God must grant anything if it is included in a regular prayer by a regularly ordained priest. Woe to the priest who refuses to pray the soldiers' prayer!" He mused for a moment.

"But the soldiers are not pious when they are not in danger. It is only before an attack that they come crowding to me to confess themselves, often weeping, who beg me to pray the good God for their souls. We Russians have a proverb-'The Russian man won't cross himself until it thunders.' "

We talked of the great Church Congress at Moscow, the first since Peter the Great, with its convocation of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Athens, Alexandria and Jerusalem, the Metropolitans of the Russian cities, the Arch-bishops from Japan, Persia, Roumania, Turkestan, all in a ferment of democratic revolt; and of the innumerable Russian sects-Doukhobors, Molochani Baptists, Diendicki or

a

"Holers," who must have a hole in the roof of their tabernacle for the Holy Ghost to descend through. Williams, my American companion, told of a Volga peasant, who attributed the ills of Russia to the sinful practise of crossing oneself with three fingers-he being an Old Believer, and using only two. . . . And the priest explained to us how the rites of the Orthodox Church were designed to symbolize different stages in the life and passion of Christ, and how no woman, even a girl-child being baptized, was permitted at the altar.

At every station the train made a long halt to allow the passengers time for many glasses of tea and a great gulping of food, in the cheerful, steamy clatter of crowded waiting rooms. In between times utter strangers, officers and civilians, drifted in, and our converse was of curious matters.

The evening papers announced that Martov and the Mensheviki-Internationalists had formally broken with the Tseretelli-Lieber-Dan group, because of their "hesitating policy of compromise."

"Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz, and Tcheidze are the Girondins of our time," said one young captain who spoke French. "And they will share the fate of the Gironde. I am with them," he added.

The priest lived in Tashkent, in the Trans-Caspia, where he had a wife and five children. He told about the singular institution of the Thieves' Bureau, where persons who had been robbed could go and recover their property by paying its value, less zo per cent. discount for cash. A thin little school-teacher described the Thieves' Convention held in Rostov-on-Don this summer with delegates from all over Russia, which despatched a formal protest to the Government against the rapacity and venality of the police. And a fat polkavnik spoke of the Convention of German and Austrian Prisoners of War, in Moscow, which demanded the eight-hour workday-and got it !

Rumor had it that the armies at the front would leave the trenches and go home for the feast of Pakrov, the first of October-then only four days off. Each one was concerned about this immense threat of dissolution. . . . The priest had been present at two meetings of regimental Soviets, where bitter. resolutions had been passed. Some one had the official newspaper of the Eighth Army soldiers' committees, with an obscure account of military riots at Gomel. The Lettish troops were also stirred up. What if the millions of Russian soldiers were simply to stop fighting and start for the cities, for the capital, for their villages? The old polkavnik muttered, "We are lost. Russia is defeated. And besides, life is so uncomfortable now that it is not worth living. Why not finish everything?" With whom the French-speaking officer, revolutionists by theory, debated hotly but courteously. The priest told a very simple Rabelaisian story about a soldier who seduced a peasant girl by promising that her child would be a general. .   .

It grew late, the lights were dim and intermittent, and there was no heat in the car. The priest shivered. "WelI," he said finally, his teeth chattering, "it is too cold to stay awake !" And with that he lay down just as he was, with-out any covering but his long skirts, and immediately fell to snoring. . . .

Very early in the morning we awoke, stiff and numb. The sun sparkled through the frosty windows. A small boy came through with tea-chocolate candy in place of sugar. The train was poking down across rich Estland, through white

April,   1918   21

birch forests glorious with yellow autumn foliage like bright flame; sometimes clumps of sombre pines, with the birch leaves breaking- through as if the whole woods were on fire; long, gently-rolling waves of opulent farm-land, yellow wheat stubble, emerald green grass still, and the pale blue-green of miles of cabbages; and immense farm-houses set in the midst of barns, the whole covered with one great thatched roof, on which thick moss was growing. On the slow rises of country, huge gray-stone windmills, weathered and mossy, whirled their agitated sails. Along the track marched a new road-bed, with the ties in place at many points, and piles of rails.

Before the revolution no effort had been made to construct this badly-needed track-since March, however, the Russians had completed twenty-six versts of it; but the Germans, in the one month since the fall of Riga, had built more than thirty miles.

Soldiers began to thicken, at all stations, in barns and farm-houses far seen; gigantic bearded men in dun coats, boots, peaked caps or shaggy shapkis, almost always with a touch of red somewhere about them. Patrols of Cossacks rode along the roads deep in black mud. Military trains, all box-cars with masses of men on top and inside, clanked past with broken echoes of mass-singing. The Red Cross flag made its appearance. At Valk an excited sub-officer said we must go up into the town and get passes before proceeding further. The conductor announced that the train would leave in three minutes.

You will be arrested ! You will be arrested!" cried the sub-officer, shaking his finger at me. But we sat still, and no one ever again spoke of passes.

At Venden, beyond which no trains go, we disembarked in a swirling mob of soldiers going home. A sentry at the door was tired of examining passes and just motioned us wearily through. No one seemed to know where the Staff head-quarters was; finally an officer, after some thought, said he thought the Staff had retired to Valk. "But you don't want the Staff," he added, "the Iskosol is in charge of things here." And he pointed to the town's chief building, formerly the Convention of Justices of the Peace, where sat the "Iskosol," or Central Executive Committee of the Soldiers' Deputies.

In a large bare room on the second floor, amid the clack of busy stenographers and the come-and-go of couriers, depu tations, functioned the nerve-center of the Twelfth Army, the spontaneous democratic organization created by the soldiers at the outbreak of the Revolution. A handsome young lieu-tenant, with Jewish features, stood behind a table, running his hand through his gray-streaked hair worriedly, while a torrent of agitated complaint beat upon him. Four delegations from the regiments in the trenches, mostly soldiers, with a couple of officers mixed in, were appealing to the Iskosol all at once; one regiment was almost without boots-the Iskosol had promised six hundred pairs and had only de-livered sixty; a very ragged private spokesman for another committee, complained that the artillery had been given their winter fur coats, but the cavalry was still in summer uniform. . . . One sub-officer, a mere boy, kept shouting angrily that the Iskosol buzzed around a good deal, but nothing seemed to be accomplished. . . .

"Da, (la!" responded the officer vaguely, "Yes, yes. S ckass, s class. I will write immediately to the Commissariat. . . ."

On a little table were piled heaps of pamphlets and news-papers, among which I noticed Elisee Reclus' "Anarchy and

the Church." A soldier sat in a broken chair nearby, reading aloud the Isvestia-official organ of the Petrograd Executive Committee of the A11-Russian Soviets-about the formation of the new government ; and as he declaimed the names of the Cadet ministers, the listeners gave vent to laughter and ironical "hoorah's." Near the window stood Voitinsky, assistant Commissar of the Twelfth Army, with his semi-military coat buttoned up to his chin-a little man whose blue eyes snapped behind thick glasses, with bristling red hair and beard; he who was a famous exile in Siberia, and the author of "Snsertsiiki," a book more terrible than "Seven Who Were Hanged. . . ."

These Comissars are civilians, suggested by the revolutionary Commissars of the French revolutionary government in 1793; chief representatives of the Provisional Government at the front, appointed by the Government with the approval of the Soviets.

In precise, short sentences Voitinsky explained that military operations were not his province, unless he was consulted; but he had just that day come to Venden at the request of a general to decide a question of tactics.

"My job," he said, "is to build a military machine which will retake Riga. But conditions here are desperate. The army lacks everything-food, clothes, boots, munitions. The roads are awful, and it has been raining steadily for two weeks. The horses of the transport are underfed and worn out, and it is all they can do to haul enough bread to keep us from starving. But the most serious lack at the front, more serious than the lack of food and clothes, is the lack of boots, pamphlets and newspapers. You see, since the revolution the army has absorbed tons of literature, propaganda, and has a gnawing hunger; and now all that is cut off. We not only permit, but encourage the importation of all kinds of literature in the army-it is necessary in order to keep up the spirits of the troops. Since the Kornilov affair, and especially since the Democratic Congress, the soldiers have been very uneasy. Yes, many have simply laid down their arms and gone home. The Russian army is sick of war. . . ."

Voitinsky had had no sleep for thirty-six hours. Yet he fairly radiated quick energy as he saluted and ran down the steps to his mud-covered automobile-bound on a forty-mile ride through the deep mud, in the shadow of the coming rain-storm, to judge a dispute between officers and soldiers. .

Growling and grumbling the regimental delegations went their way, and the Jewish subaltern, whose name was Tumarkin, led us into another room and passed around cigarettes,. while he recounted the history of the IskosoI.

It was the first revolutionary organization of soldiers in. active service.

You see," said Tumarkin, "the row in Petrograd took us-, by surprise. Of course we knew that sooner or later . . . but it came all of a sudden, as such things do. There were a crowd of us revolutionists in the army-I myself was a political exile in France when the war broke out.

"Well, in the revolution of 1905 there was established a Soviet of Workmen in Petrograd, and we tried to make one in the army, at various places. But the masses of the soldiers were ignorant of Socialist ideas, and indifferent---so we failed then. Afterward we realized our mistake, and began to work on the army; but in February, 1917, when. things broke loose in Peter, we were scared. We thought they might send us to suppress the revolution. So we hastily-

22   THE LIBERATOR

met, about a dozen of us, and started to win over the army. . . .

"News from Petrograd was rare and contradictory. Our own staff officers were hostile. We didn't know if the revolution was winning or not. . . . For a week we hurried from place to place, holding soldiers' meetings, explaining, arguing; and at every meeting we made the men pass a resolution swearing that they would face death for the revolution. '

"On March 9, just eleven days after the outbreak in the capital, we got together a Soviet of the army in Riga-one delegate from each company, battery and squadron-three thousand in all. They elected an Executive Committee of sixty men, which began to establish communications with other revolutionary military organizations. Most of the time we didn't know even if there were any other bodies like ours, but simply telegraphed to `Revolutionary Soldiers, Fourth Army'-like that. And for signature we made a code-word of the first three syllables of our organization's name---`Is-ko-sol." All the other Executive Committees call themselves `Armikom.''

"Three days after organizing we began to publish our paper, Russki Front. What a job it was, to educate, to organize! The officers didn't understand the revolution-they had been trained to a caste apart; hut there was no killing of officers in this army. Only expulsions. . . . Before we left Riga the Russki Front had a circulation of 25,000 among the soldiers, and 5,000 in the city; to support it we proclaimed a Contribution Day for the Soldiers' Press, and raised 58,000 roubles. . . . "

The Iskosol is only one typical manifestation of the immense fertility of representative organization, a thousand times duplicated, which pervades Russian military and civil life now. It is primarily the organ by which the soldiers of the Twelfth Army take part in the furious new political life of the country; but in the chaos left by the break-down of the old regime, it has been forced to assume extraordinary functions. For example : The Iskosol fulfills the duties of commissariat department ; it attempts to reconcile differences between officers and men; conducts primary and secondary schools among all bodies of troops in repose or reserve; and in certain cases, like the retreat from Riga, where the commanding staff was utterly demoralized, takes actual command of the troops. Its members are scattered throughout the army, sent from place to place during engagements, encouraging, inspiring, leading. . . .

Beneath it is an intricate system of committees-in each company, regiment, brigade, division, corps-half political, half military, and all elected by the soldiers, with representatives in each higher committee-the whole finally culminating in the Little Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies, one delegate from each regiment, which meets about once a month-and the Big Soviet, five from each regiment, whose sessions are less frequent, and whose Executive Committee, elected every three months, forms the Iskosol. The Iskosol has three delegates in the Central Committee of the All-Russian Soviets at Petrograd, and one man attached to the Army Staff.

But that is not all. The passion for democratic expression and the swiftness of revolutionary events has given birth to other organizations. Three months ago, when the Iskosol was elected, there was very little bolshevik sentiment in the Twelfth Army; but since the Kornilov affair the

masses of soldiers are largely Bolshevik. Now the Iskosol has no bolshevik members, and the Iskosol is predominantly abaronetz-in favor of continuing the war to victory. So forty-three regiments have formed a new central body of bolshevik delegates, called the Left Bloc, which also has representatives in Petrograd.

And then there are the Letts. There are nine Lettish regiments in the army, the most desperate fighters-since they are fighting for their own homes, and the great majority of these are revolutionary social democrats. Although 'represented in the Iskosol, they have their own central body also, the "Iskolostreel," or Central Committee of the Lettish "Streelniki"-Sharp-shooters. Over the Iskolostreel is still a higher body, the "Iskolat"-Central Committee of the Lettish Soviet of Soldiers, Workers, and Landless Farm-workers. As all over Russia this district or province Soviet is fed by innumerable small Soviets in every village, town and city, and has its delegates in the All-Russian Central body at Petrograd. The landless farm-laborers, however, who are a real agricultural proletariat, in Estland replace the peasants of the other Russian provinces; and the Russian Soviet of the district is composed only of soldiers, as there are neither Russian workmen nor Russian peasants in Livonia.

There is still another organization, called the Nationalist Bloc, composed of Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Finns and various others of the fifty-seven peoples of Russia whose purpose is to agitate for separation of various degrees. . . .

And it is a characteristic of this extraordinary complex, multiple system of elective organizations, working feverishly and often at cross-purposes, that it throws off among its other forms of expression a prodigious amount of literature. The Iskosol publishes Russki Front, the Soviet another paper called Bulletin of the Soldiers' Delegates; from the Left Bloc comes Golos XII Armia; the Nationalist Bloc has its own organ; the Iskolostreel runs the daily Latwfu Strehlneeks; and before the fall of Riga there were besides three papers of as many Social Democrat factions, one of the Socialist Revolutionists, and a fifth of the Populist party-besides all the regular pre-revolutionary journals of Riga; and most of these have again sprung up in the little Lettish towns among the gun positions. Added to all these are the Petrograd papers, especially Gorky's Novaia Zhizn and the Bolshevik Solda-t and Rabotchi Root, and all the others whose endless names escape me, which are poured into the army zone by the hundreds of millions.

And all this terrible eagerness for self-government and for self-expression is working as much in all the Russian armies, everywhere along a thousand miles of front, among twelve million men suddenly free from tyranny. . . .

Tumarkin was telling us how the Iskosol sent its own delegates to Baku for oil, to the Volga to buy or commandeer wheat, up into Archangelsk Government for timber, and how it ordered guns and ammunition from the big munitions works in Petrograd. Just then the door opened and a frowzled head peeked in, followed by a dirty, bearded face. "I am lost!" groaned Tumarkin. Immediately the room seemed full of sullen-looking soldiers; spokesmen of delegations began.

"I represent," said he of the face, "the cooks of the 26th Division. We haven't any more wood-the soldiers want us to tear down the farmhouses to make fires for cooking their meals   

The next soldier elbowed his way to the front, spurs clink-

April,   1918   23

ing. The horses of the cavalry were dying of hunger. No hay. . . . Tears welled up in his eyes; he had seen his own horse fall down in the road. . . .

"Here!" cried the unhappy Tumarkin, holding out a paper to us. "This is a proclamation we printed in the Soldiers' Press the day Riga fell. The shells were bursting around the office while we set type. Volunteers pasted it up on the walls and posts all over the city-" And he was swallowed up.

The proclamation was in German.

"The Executive Committee of the Russian Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies of the Twelfth Army to the German Soldiers.

"German Soldiers!

"The Russian soldiers of the Twelfth Army draw your attention to the fact that you are carrying on a war for autocracy against revolution, freedom and justice. The victory of Wilhelm will be death to democracy and free-dom. We withdraw from Riga, but we know that the forces of the revolution will ultimately prove themselves more powerful than the force of cannons. We know that in the long run your conscience will overcome every-thing, and that the German soldiers, with the Russian revolutionary army, will march to the victory of free-dom. You are at present stronger than we are, but yours is only the victory of the brute force. The moral force is on our side. History will tell that the German proletarians went against their revolutionary brothers, and they forgot the international working-class solidarity. This crime you can expiate only by one means. You must understand your own and at the same time the universal interests, and strain all your immense power against imperialism, and go hand in hand with us-toward life and freedom 1"

Outside it was raining, and the mud of the streets had been tracked on the sidewalks by thousands of boots until it was difficult to walk. The city was darkened against hostile aeroplanes; only chinks of light gleamed from shutters, and blinds glowed dull red. The narrow street made unexpected turns. In the dark we hurtled incessant passing soldiers, spangled with cigarette-lights. Close by passed a series of great trucks, some army-transport, rushing down in the black gloom with a noise like thunder, and a fan-like spray of ooze. Right before me someone scratched a match, and I saw a

soldier pasting a white paper on a wall. Our guide, one of the Iskosol, gave an exclamation and ran up, flashing an electric torch. We read:

"Comrade soldiers !

"The Venden Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies has arranged for Thursday, September z8, at 4 o'clock in the park, a MEETING. Tavaristch Peters, of the Central Committee of the Lettish Social Democratic party, will speak on:

"'The Democratic Congress and the Crisis of Power."

The Iskosol man was sputtering. "That meeting is for-bidden," he cried. "The commandant has forbidden it!" The other man spat. "The commandant is a damn bourgeois," he remarked. "This Peters is bolshevik," argued our friend. "Meetings are not allowed in the zone of war. That is the rule. The Iskosol has forbidden this meeting." But the soldier only grinned maliciously. "The Iskosol too is bourgeois," he answered, and turned away. "We want to hear about this democratic Congress."

At the little hotel the proprietor, half hostile, half greedy-frightened, said that there were no rooms.

"How about that room?" asked our friend, pointing.

"That is the commandant's room," he replied, gruffly.

"The Iskosol takes it," said the other. We got it.

It was an old Lettish peasant woman who brought us tea, and peered at us out of her bleary eyes, rubbing her hand and babbling German. "You are foreigners," she said, "glory to God. These Russians are dirty folk, and they do not pay." She leaned down and hoarsely whispered: "Oh, if the Germans would only hurry. We respectable folk all want the Germans to come here!"

And through the shut wooden blinds, as we settled down to sleep, we could hear the far-off thud-booming of the German cannon hammering on the thin, ill-clad, underfed-Russian lines, torn by doubts, fears, distrust, dying and rotting out there in the rain because they were told that the Revolution would be saved thereby. . . .

[NOTE.-The second part of this article, which will appear next month, carries on the story of this eager and spontaneous self-government, showing it at work in the rank-and-file of the army. We see those "thin, ill-clad, underfed Russian lines," striving to understand their situation, and trying, in the face of many impossibilities, to save the Revolution.]

WHEN WAR CAME

IF we had gone once more beyond the hills

Where the west wind blew softly and the birds Twittered their tiny passions, and the sun Mellowed our rapture beyond thoughts of words; If we had walked again along the trail, White in the moonlight, its caressing sands Soft for our feet; if we had caught the frail Bright bloom of poppies in our beating hands, And dared life's call with eager, joyous breath,

We might have smiled more bravely back at death.

ROSE HENDERSON.

CRUCIFIED

I WAS the crucified, I was the one who died, I it was hung on a tree And suffered agony.

Into my flesh thorns were driven, Veins and temples, swollen, riven, I it was who died,

I was the crucified.

I was the crucifier,

Mad with lust and blood-desire, Hung my soul upon a tree,

Gave it gall in agony.

ANNETTE WYNNE.

24

THE LIBERATOR, April, 1918 Vol. T., No. 2.

GOOD

NIGHT!

26

A Diadem of Snow

A Play in One Act by Elmer L. Reizenatein

CAST OF CHARACTERS

NICHOLAS ROMANOFF

MRS. ROMANOFF ALIOSHA

THE ENVOY

MRS. OSIIINSKY

The scene is laid in Tobolsk, Siberia. The time is the present.

A room furnished in execrable taste. To be sure, the table, the several chairs, the sideboard and so forth all belong to the genus furniture (just as Mr. LaFollette and Mr. Elihu Root both belong to the Republican Party) but there the kin-ship ends. It is apparent that we are confronted with the handiwork of the Russian representative of some American easy-payment home-furnishing company. The only object in the room which does not merit instant annihilation is a much-battered samovar, which seems to be seeking in its memories of better days, a refuge from its present associates. On the walls are several framed placards, bearing in multi-colored Russian characters the legends : "Home, Sweet Home !" "Try, Try Again," "Life is Real, Life is Earnest," and other sentiments of like import. But the most conspicuous object on the walls is a wretchedly executed crayon enlargement of a man's photograph. It is hideously framed in gilt and profusely draped with black crepe. The face, from the snaky hair to the long, straggly beard, is itnbelievably vicious. The more erudite among the audience immediately recognize the beloved features of the late lamented Grigory Rasputin, but to the million it is just a bad picture of an ugly man.

There are windows in the rear wall, a door in the left wall and two doors in the right wall. It is evening in late November and dusk has already fallen. On the table is a large kerosene lamp, already lighted. The table is set for three.

A moment after the rise of the curtain, someone knocks sharply on the door at the left. Obtaining no response, the person knocks again. There is another brief pause, then the door opens and an untidy woman, wearing an apron over a wrapper, enters.

THE WOMAN (calling to someone outside). Come right in, grand-daddy ! I guess she's in the kitchen gettin' supper ready. She always leaves everything till the last minute.

(A man enters. He is, apparently, in the last stages of decrepitude. He has a flowing white beard, flowing white hair and enormous smoked spectacles. He wears a huge overcoat and leans heavily on a stout cane.)

THE MAN (In a feeble voice). A thousand thanks.

THE WOMAN. Sit down ! I'll call her for you. You don't seem to have any too much voice of your own.

THE MAN. You are very good.

THE WOMAN (calling). Mrs. Romanoff ! Oh! Mrs. Romanoff !

A SHRILL VOICE (from the right). Vell?

THE WOMAN (in sing-song tones). This is Mrs. Oshinsky ! There's an old man here to see you !

Copyright, 1917, by the Author.

THE VOICE (irritably). Vell, all right! He should vait! (The speaker has a marked German accent.)

MRS. OSHINSKY. She says you should wait.

THE MAN. Thank you.

MRS. OSHINSKY (eyeing him curiously). If you've come to collect on the furniture, I might as well tell you, you won't get a kopeck. All the money her old man brings in-and Gawd knows it ain't much!-goes into prayers for him! (She points a finger of scorn at poor Rasputin. The man involuntarily raises his head.) And she a married woman ! If it was me, my Petroushka would give me a crack over the head, that's what he would give me. But her man! (She snorts with contempt.) He lets her walk all over him. (Her curiosity gaining the ascendency again.) Did you say you was from the baker's? (Sharply, as he does not reply), Say, you ain't deef, too, are you?

(One of the doors at the right opens and Mrs. Romanoff enters. She wears an all-encompassing gingham bungalow apron. Her hair is in disorder and she wipes her red face with the back of her hand.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (sharply to the man). Veil, vot do you want?

MRS. OSHINSKY. He's hard of hearin.' He knocked at my door by mistake. I told him that if he was after money, he might save himself climbin' the stairs, but he-

MRS. ROMANOFF (sweetly). Dots very kind of you, Mrs. Oshinsky. I'm not surprised clot you took him for a bill collector. I guess dot's all vat efer knocks at your door.

MRS. OSHINSKY. Well, at least, they never find me on my knees, sayin' prayers for a rotten-

MRS. ROMANOFF (white with rage). Get out of my house! MRS. OSHINSKY. Who wants to stay in your house? It ain't no place for a decent woman !

(She makes a long nose at the unofending Rasputin and goes out. Mrs. Romanoff, inarticulate with rage, stamps her foot violently.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (recovering speech). Veil, who are you and vat do you want? (Before the man can reply). I've got no money for charidy ! Go to the semstvo. They give money away like vater. Everybody with a pain in his little finger can get five rubles-ten rubles-fifty rubles. A fine country-

THE MAN (in a whisper). Are we alone?

MRS. ROMANOFF (in astonishment) Are you drunk or vat? THE MAN (mysteriously) Sh! (He tip-toes to the windows and pulls down the shades.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (shrilly). Are you crazy?

(The man, without a word, removes his overcoat and sheds his wig, his whiskers and his goggles, revealing the dapper figure and amiable features so dear to every American.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (in utter bewilderment). Von Bernstorff ! BERNSTORFF (kissing her hand). Your royal highness! MRS. ROMANOFF. Aber, es ist nicht moglich. How come

you here to Tobolsk?

BERNSTORFF. I have come from Berlin, expressly to see your majesty.

April,   1918   27

MRS. ROMANOFF (with a sigh). Ah, Berlin! Berlin! Ven shall I see you again! (She wipes her eyes.)

BERNSTORFF. I am overjoyed to find your majesty in good health. I was profoundly-

MRS. ROMANOFF (coming out of her reverie). But, Bernstorff ! It is not safe for you to be here !

BERNSTORFF (ze&ith a smile). My disguise has allayed all suspicion.

MRS. ROMANOFF (nervousl),!). But if you should be found here-

BFRNSTORFF. I am prepared for every emergency. (He draws a book from his right-,hand coat pocket). A book by Liebknecht! (He draws a book from his left-hand coat pocket.) A book by Maximilian Harden! (With a wink.) I am a Social-Democrat seeking refuge in free Russia. Ah, your majesty, a member of the Imperial Diplomatic Corps is equal to anything.

MRS. ROMANOFF (still worried). It is a great danger-

BERNSTORFF. Danger ! What is danger to me! To me who have come out of America alive! But do not alarm yourself, your majesty. I have traveled unmolested from the German frontier. No one has detained me, not one has questioned me. If there were any spies following me-

MRS. ROMANOFF. There are no more spies in Russia.

BERNSTORFF (in utter amazement). No more spies ! Have they gone mad, your Russians? Do they think, then, that freedom means that one can do whatever one likes?

MRS. ROMANOFF. Yes! Think of it, Bernstorff, to do what-ever one likes! Even I-an empress !- they force me to do whatever I like! It is a terrible responsibility-a terrible responsibility. You, who have only to obey, cannot realize it! Ach ! It makes my head to schwim!

BERNSTORFF. Ah, your majesty, I cannot find words to express my grief at seeing you like this-in these hideous surroundings.

MRS. ROMANOFF (bristling). Hideous? Why are they hideous?

BERNSTORFF (taken aback). But, surely-

MRS. ROMANOFF (huffily). You do not like our furnishings? Vell, that is a matter of taste. They please us-Nicholas and I.

BERNSTORFF. A thousand pardons. I was-

MRS. ROMANOFF. You think because this room is not furnished in the manner of the Imperial Palace in Berlin, that we must be miserable here? Vell, you are wrong ! All my life I have lived in great, gloomy rooms-in my father's palace in Hesse, in that terrible Winter Palace in Petrograd, in Moscow, in Tsarskoe-Selo. Always other people have chosen the bed I slept in, the table I ate from, the carpet I walked on-everything! My very tooth-brush even ! Always other people ! Here, at least, we have chosen things to please our-selves. Perhaps to you they are not beautiful, but to us they make a home! (Laying her hand solemnly on Bernstorff's ann..) The first home, Bernstorff, that we have ever had!

BERNSTORFF (utterly amazed). But--but surely, your majesty, you are not happy here! Only a moment ago, I heard you subjected to unbelievable insults by a common woman ! If I had dared-

MRS. ROMANOFF (interrupting). Ah! You mean Mrs. Oshinsky! A harmless, lazy busy-body. In the Winter Pal-ace, Bernstorff, there were five hundred busy-bodies-only they were not harmless, Here, I can tell my friend from my

enemy. I know who- (A great spluttering is heard from the room at the right.) Gott in Himmel! Meine linsen suppe!

(She rushes out of the room. Bernstorff, sits with knitted brows, his growing bewilderment plainly shown on his face.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (re-entering). Ruined! My beautiful lentil soup is ruined! That comes of sitting here and schnattering !

BERNSTORFF (explosively). It is not possible that these-these menial domestic duties-cooking-and-and- are per-formed by your majesty !

MRS. ROMANOFF (looking at him in surprise). Who should do it then? The girls are all in Petrograd, studying-what do you call it?-type-setting and dressmaking and---God knows what !

BERNSTORFF (ahnost inarticulate). But your servants ! , Where are your servants? Is it possible that this rabble that calls itself a government does not supply you with the means to retain servants?

MRS. ROMANOFF (smiling). Do you think Nicholas would permit me to keep a servant?

BERNSTORFF (utterly incredulous). You mean his majesty-! (He stops on the very verge of apoplexy.)

MRS. ROMANOFF. Among freemen, he says, there are no servants.

BERNSTORFF. I do not understand! In America, they talk much about democracy, but this- !

MRS. ROMANOFF. I do not understand either. I do not understand the Russian people. I have lived many years among them, but I do not understand them. (Solemnly) They are not like the Germans, Bernstorff.

BERNSTORFF. No! (shaking his head) God pity them !

MRS. ROMANOFF. I do not understand Nicholas, either. With him, too, I have lived many years, but I do not under-stand him. Do you know, Bernstorff, he is beginning to read! At his age, he is beginning to read books-not holy 'books, mark you-but- (Her voice drops to a whisper.) Tolstoi-and Kropotkin-and Maxim Gorki ! (A neighboring clock strikes six.) Six o'clock! He will be home soon. (Sloe begins removing her apron.)   .

BERNSTORFF. All this that you have told me- (He notices suddenly that she is clad in deep mourning and becomes greatly alarmed.) You are in mourning ! Has there been a bereavement? The Czarevitch-! (He stops in dismay.)

MRS. ROMANOFF. No, no! My Aliosha is well, Gott sei dank!

BERNSTORFF (greatly relieved). Not one of the royal princesses, I hope.

MRS. ROMANOFF. NO, it is for my Rasputin! For Grigory! (She points to the picture.) My poor Grigory!

BERNSTORFF. Ah yes! A very clever man !

MRS. ROMANOFF (weeping silently). A saint, Bernstorff, a saint!

BERNSTORFF. Undoubtedly! If he were still alive-

MRS. ROMANOFF. No, No! He is happy, up there among the angels ! He is freed from a world too base to understand him. (Shy weeps copiously.)

BERNSTORFF. From a strictly religious viewpoint, no doubt, there are as your majesty suggests compensations for his untimely end. But, nevertheless, it is to be regretted that at this juncture his political genius-

MRS. ROMANOFF (sadly reproachful). Ach, Bernstorff,

28   THE LIBERATOR

Bernstorff, how can you talk of politics and of that holy man in one breath ! It is desecration !

BERNSTORFF.I must respectfully disagree with your majesty. My Imperial Master has invested welt-politik with the sacredness of religion. The operations of the Imperial German Government are political manifestations of the Will of God. And it is a sacred political mission that brings me here.

MRS. ROMANOFF (mildly surprised). You come to Siberia -to Toboisk-on political business?

BERNSTORFF (nodding gravely). On political business of the most vital concern to your majesty.

MRS. ROMANOFF (shaking her head). No, no! I have no interest in politics. I never understood them and I never shall. I have time only for my cooking and my prayers.

BERNSTORFF. When your majesty hears the nature of my errand-

MRS. ROMANOFF. It does not matter ! For Grigory's sake, I tried to understand all that buzz-buzz-buzz at the Winter Palace-but now Grigory is among the holy saints and I-(She breaks off, wiping her eyes.)

BERNSTORFF (with great deliberation). Your majesty, I have come to restore Emperor Nicholas II. to his throne !

MRS. ROMANOFF (With a startled cry). Ach Gott! Vat are you saying !

BERNSTORFF (nodding solemnly). Yes!

MRS. ROMANOFF. But-but it is not possible !

BERNSTORFF (drawing himself up, proudly). To the Imperial German Government, all things are possible !

MRS. ROMANOFF. But how-? (She stops in bewilderment.)

BERNSTORFF (smiling). Your majesty need not concern herself with the modus operandi. The best brains in the German Foreign Office-that is to say the best brains in the world-have applied themselves to the organization of the machinery which will accomplish the restoration. All that it is necessary for your majesty to do is to place implicit ,trust in me. Could anything be easier?

MRS. ROMANOFF (half to herself). To go back there-back to Petrograd-back to the Winter Palace-back to- (She covers her eyes and shudders.)

BERNSTORFF. Your majesty-

MRS. ROMANOFF (not heeding him). I thought I was free! I thought-I thought- (She looks up suddenly at Rasputin's picture.) Yes, Grigory! Yes, my saint! It is the will of God! I will do it !

BERNSTORFF (with a cry of relief). Ah ! I knew your majesty-!

MRS. ROMANOFF (as before). I will do it! For Aliosha's sake ! For my Aliosha. It is his birth-right ! He was born to rule, Grigory said. And he shall rule! IIe shall rule!

(She falls into an ecstatic silence, her hands clasped, her eyes. raised. Suddenly the tramping of heavy boots and the sound of a man whistling "Poor Butterfly" out of key, is heard at the left.)

BERNSTOFF (in alarm). Is someone coming?

MRS. ROMANOFF (restored to herself). Ach Gott! Der Nicholas! I had forgotten all about him. He must not find you here, Bernstorff ! I must prepare him ! Go quickly to the kitchen there.

BERNSTORFF. You will point out to him-

MRS. ROMANOFF. Yes, yes! Quick, he is coming! Do not come until I call you !

(Bernstorff goes hastily into the kitchen, taking with him

the appurtenances of his disguise, but leaving behind the two books. Mrs. Romanoff busies herself at the table. The door at the left opens and Nicholas Romanoff, erstwhile Czar of All the Russias, enters. He wears a fur cap, a heavy over-coat with a fur collar, thick gloves and high rubber boots. He carries a large wooden snow-shovel. His cheeks are bright with health and his shoulders are broad and straight.)

ROMANOFF (kissing his wife). Well, old lady! Another day's work done! (He removes his gloves.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (nervously). You are late.

ROMANOFF. Do not scold me for that. I stopped at Petkoff's shop.

MRS. ROMANOFF. Why did you do that? We have already too much food in the house.

ROMANOFF. But wait until you see what I have bought ! (He fishes in his coat pocket and produces a paper package.) Some young onions ! (He fishes in the other pocket.) And a pickled herring! Tcha ! the juice has run! That Petkoff is not liberal with his paper ! (He licks his finger.) Ah ! Excellent ! This will go nicely with your lentil soup, little mother. (He removes his cap and overcoat, talking all the while. He wears a long workingman's blouse.) If I were to describe to you my appetite, you would not believe me. Hard work ! That is the best sauce ! Do you know what I said to Gobloff, the foreman? "Gobloff," I said, "every shovelful of snow in the cart is a spoonful of lentil soup in my belly."

MRS. ROMANOFF {sharply). There will be no lentil soup in your belly to-night !

ROMANOFF. (his face falling). What do you say? No lentil soup?

MRS. ROMANOFF. The soup is spoiled.

ROMANOFF (swallowing a lump). Spoiled ! (With a great effort he recovers his cheerfulness.) Well, well! That can happen, too ! (Patting her shoulder.) Come, come, little mother, the world cannot stop because our lentil soup is spoiled ! (Very solemnly.) It is God's punishment for my greediness!

(He seats himself and begins removing his boots. Mrs. Romanoff watches him nervously, not knowing how to divulge the disturbing news.)

ROMANOFF (looking up). Where is Aliosha?

MRS. ROMANOFF (relieved by the interruption). He is on the street, playing with the boys. (She goes to the window, worried.) He should not be out after dark. (She peers anxiously out of the window.)

RoNANOFF. He is a good boy. No harm will come to him.

(In his stocking feet, he goes toward the kitchen door. As he nears the door, Mrs. Romanoff turns and sees him. She utters an exclamation of alarm.)

MRS. ROMANOFF. Nicky ! Vere are you going?

ROMANOFF (apologetically). I was going for my slippers. I thought I should find them, in their accustomed place, by the kitchen stove.

MRS. ROMANOFF. Yes, yes! They are there ! But I shall get them for you.

ROMANOFF. No, no! I must fetch my own slippers. (He makes a movement toward the door.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (sharply). Are you verrickt? To walk in your stocking feet around! Do you want to get a splinter? You stay right here ! (She goes hastily into the kitchen.)

ROMANOFF. You think of everything, little mother ! (He walks toward the table, picks up one of the empty soup plates and shakes his head sorrowfully.) Spoiled ! Well, well !

April,   1918   29

(He puts down the plate with a sigh. Mrs. Romanoff enters with the slippers.)

MRs. ROMANOFF. Isere are the slippers !

ROMANOFF. YOU are a saint, little mother ! (He puts on the slippers with a sigh of satisfaction.) Ah ! That's fine ! As warm as toast ! The snow is very cold ! But it is a good cold-a dry cold! It is not like the cold of the dungeons in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. I must read to you Kropotkin's description-

MRS. ROMANOFF. Nicky, I have something to tell you-ROMANOFF. Now now! An empty stomach is a bad list-

ener. Wait until my belt is tight. Then you can tell me what

Mrs. Oshinsky said to you and what you replied to her-MRS. ROMANOFF. It has nothing to do with Mrs. Oshinsky. ROMANOFF. Well, well, whatever it is, it will not spoil.

Where is Aliosha? We must hasten ! To-night we are all

going to the Trotzky Theatre. If we do not arrive early,

all the seats will be taken.

MRS. ROMANOFF (firmly). We cannot go to-night !

ROMANOFF (protesting). But we must! They are showing Charlie Chaplin in "Laughing Gas." It is the last night ! Everyone is talking about it ! Kanowsky, the cart-driver, swears that the laughed until the tears ran. He is not lying. You can see the streaks on his face. And Gobloff ! Do you know what GobIoff told me? (Impressively.) Ile went last night with his family and his wife's mother-Marya Petrovna-actually burst a blood-vessel laughing! (Solemnly.) They had to send for a doctor !

MRS. ROMANOFF. Nicky, it is no time for foolishness ! It is no time for eating ! There is something-something-

ROMANOFF (impressed by her solemnity). What is it, little mother? Have you had a vision?

MRS. ROMANOFF (nervously). Yes ! A vision !

ROMANOFF (excitedly). A saint has appeared to you? A holy saint?

MRs. ROMANOFF (shaking her head). No, not a saint, exactly. Listen, Nicky-

ROMANOFF. Not a saint? An angel, then?

MRs. ROMANOFF (impatiently). No, not an angel ! (Sharply.) Be still and listen-

(A scuffling and a confusion of voices is heard outside the entrance-door.

MRs. ROMANOFF (alarmed). Aliosha !

(She hurries to the door and opens it. Mrs. Oshinsky enters dragging Aliosha by the collar. The boy's face is streaked with dirt and tears, his clothes are in disorder and his stockings are full of holes.)

ALIOSI-IA (pleadingly). Mama ! Mama!

MRS. Osz3INSKY (shaking him) I'll mama you, you little devil !

MRS. ROMANOFF (furiously). Take your hands off him! Take your hands off !

MRS. OSHINSKY. Not until he gets what's coming to him ! (She raises her hand to strike the boy, but he slips out of her grasp and takes refuge behind his mother.)

MRS. ROMANOFF. How dare you raise a hand to my boy, you verdamnte-

MRS. OSHINSKY. Your boy's a loafer, that's what he is-a little good-for-nothing bum!

MRS. ROMANOFF. Another word and I'll scratch your face! ROMANOFF (soothingly). Tcha, tcha ! Little mother! MRS. ROMANOFF. Hold your tongue !

MRs. OSHINSKY (with a sarcastic laugh). Gawd! The

way she bosses you! .You ain't a man-you're a worm !

MRs. ROMANOFF. Do you know to whom you are talking? To your emperor-to your ruler! (To Romanoff, who is about to interrupt.) Keep your mouth shut !

MRS. OsuINSIcY (with a snort of contempt). Ruler! He's a hell of a ruler, he is! He can't even rule his own wife.

ROMANOFF (before his wife can reply). There is but one Ruler.

(He points his finger upward. The women are visibly subdued.)

ROMANOFF (quietly). What has he done, my Aliosha? MRS. OSHINSKY. What's he done? He's given my Vanka a bloody nose, that's what he's done !

ROMANOFF. That was wrong, Aliosha !

ALIOSHA (protesting). But, papa-

MRS. OSIIINSKY. There's not a better boy in the Tobolsk than my Vanka. He's a blessed little lamb-

MRS. ROMANOFF. Your Vanka is a little sneak, that's what he is ! He deserves six bloody noses !

MRS. OsxiNSxY (belligerently). If you call my Vanka a sneak, I'll-

ROMANOFF. No, no! Aliosha was wrong. To strike a fellow creature is to strike God's image. Come, Aliosha, tell Mrs. Oshinsky that you have sinned ; ask her forgiveness. (Aliosha does not answer.) You see! He is dumb with remorse!

MRS. OSHINSKY. Remorse, me eye ! He's as stubborn as a pig. It's no wonder, though, considerin' the Dutch blood that's in him.

MRS. ROMANOFF (fuming). Donnerwetter ! Das ist aber ein bischen zu viel !

ROMANOFF (hastily interfering). No more harsh words! We all live together in sorrow and sin. What does it profit, then, that we judge one another? The great Judge sees all and understands all. (Putting his hand on Mrs. Oshinsky's arm.) Go then, Olga Ivanovna. Aliosha has learned his lesson. Let there be peace between us. Go and may God bless you!

(Mrs. Oshinsky looks at him, is about to reply, stops and looks at him again. Romanoff retains his cabin, untroubled demeanor.)

MRS. OSHINSxv (explosively). Aw! You give me a pain!

(She goes out quickly, slamming the door behind her.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (bursting out). Of course! Make a fool of me! Take her part against me! Your own wife you stand there and make a fool of !

ROMANOFF. Little mother-

MRS. ROMANOFF. Ach ! Schon wieder little mother ! Iminer little mother, little mother ! You care much how they insult me-

ROMANOFF (spreading his hands). But, little mother-

MRS. ROMANOFF. Never mind ! I heard enough ! (Turning to Aliosha.) Why do you fight in the streets like a peas-ant ? Is that how you were brought up?

ALIOSHA. But, mama, the boys-

MRS. ROMAN OFF. De boys 1 De boys ! Fifty times already I told you, you shouldn't play with those boys. But you don't listen.

ALIOSUA (tearfully). But, mama, its no fun playing alone. In the Winter Palace, I never had anybody to play with and I used to be so lonesome. And now, when there are boys to play with, you won't let me. (He bursts out crying.)

MRS. ROMANOFF (melting). Ach ! Mein armes Kind.

30   THE LIBERATOR

(She takes him in her arms.) You shall play with anybody you like. (Sharply.) Look at your face! Were you playing in a pig-pen? Und your stockings ! There was not a hole in them this morning! Do you think I got nothing to do but darn?

ALiosIA. I couldn't help it, mama!

MRs. ROMANOFF. Couldn't help it! Vy do you fight?

ROMANOFF (gravely). Fighting is wrong, Aliosha. Come here to papa. (Aliosha goes to him and sits on his knee.) Why did you fight with Vanka?

ALIOSHA. I'll tell you all about it, papa. We were playing revolution-

ROMANOFF. Revolution?

ALIOSi-lA. Yes. We always play revolution. Jaakov is always Kerensky because he's the biggest and he can lick any of us.

ROMANOFF. But Kerensky is not big.

ALIOSHA. I know. But everybody wants to be Kerensky and if we didn't let Jaakov he'd lick us.

MRS. ROMANOFF (indignantly). The bully!

ALIosuA. And I always have to be you, papa.

MRS. ROMANOFF (brightening). You see! Even the boys recognize the born ruler!

ROMANOFF (with more understanding). And how do you play your game?

ALIOSHA. First they make me adjucate.

ROMANOFF (quietly). Abdicate, Aliosha.

ALIOSHA (doubtfully). The boys all say adjucate. ROMANOFF. And then?

ALIOSHA. Then if I have any money, they take it away from me.

MRS. ROMANOFF (angrily). They steal your money?

ALIOsHA. It's not stealing. (Importantly.) It's confiscating the crown property. Then they lock me in the cellar-we make believe the cellar is Tsarskoe-Selo-and they give me bread and water.

MRS. ROMANOFF. It is impossible ! They dare not do such things !

ROMANOFF (stroking the boy's head). And it is always you they lock in the cellar?

ALIOSHA. Yes. They never let me play anything but Czar. I told them it isn't fair. I told them it's not my fault that you're niy papa, but they-

ROMANOFF (covering his face with his hands). My poor Aliosha !

MRS. ROMANOFF (sharply). Dumkopf ! You have made your papa cry!

ALIOSHA (bewildered). But, papa, I didn't mean to ! (Pleading.) Papa, papa, forgive me! (He bursts into tears.)

ROMANOFF (soothing him). No, no! It is nothing! It is nothing, Aliosha! And now-and now tell me why you fought with Vanka.

ALiosHA. Because when I was in the cellar to-day, waiting for them to let me out, Vanka came in-he had run away from the others-and he said if I gave him three kopecks, he'd start a counter-revolution. So I punched him in the nose-the little sneak !

MRS. ROMANOFF (greatly troubled). Ach Gott !

ROMANOFF (kissing the boy's forehead, his eyes glistening with tears of joy). Ah! Aliosha! AIiosha! (Bravely.) But fighting is wrong. Do you know what our great Tolstoi says, Aliosha? He says-

MRS. ROMANOFF (irritably). Is this a time to talk Tolstoi?

ROMANOFF (submissively). Mama is right! After supper

we will talk. Go now, Aliosha, and-and wash your face. ALIOSHA. Yes, papa. (He goes toward the kitchen.)

MRS. ROMANOFF. Not in the kitchen ! Go in the bedroom !

And don't come till I call you !

ALIOSHA. Yes, mama. (He goes out at the upper door.) ROMANOFF (shaking his head, tenderly). Little Aliosha! (He looks after him, dreamily.)

MRS. ROMANOFF. Sit down, Nicky, and pay attention to what I have to say.

ROMANOFF (meekly). Yes, little mother. (He seats him-self on the chair on which Bernstorff has left his books.)

ROMANOFF (rising, in surprise). Hello! Books! (He picks them up. Mrs. Romanoff utters an exclamation.)

ROMANOFF (examining the titles in amazement). Liebknecht! Harden! (Gazing at his wife, incredulously.) Little mother, have you-?

MRS. ROMANOFF (in despair). Ach, it is no use! He should speak for himself. (She goes to the door of the kitchen.) Come in, please !

(Romanoff looks at her in amazement. Bernstorff enters.) ROMANOFF (in bewilderment). Von Bernstorff! Johann! BERNSTORFF (making profound obeisance). Your majesty! ROMANOFF. No, no ! Johann! I am Nicholas Romanoff, a

Russian citizen.

BERNSTORFF (protesting). I cannot permit your majesty-ROMANOFF. Not majesty! Romanoff, Johann! Or Nicholas!

BERNSTORFF. I would not presume-

ROMANOFF. Presume ! It is not presumption to call a man by his name ! It is-it is courtesy. But sit down.

(They seat themselves. There is an embarrassed silence.) ROMANOFF (suddenly). Is this the vision of which you spoke, little mother?

MRS. ROMANOFF (shortly). Yes.

BERNSTORFF (in astonishment). I beg your pardon!

ROMANOFF. It is nothing. Well, Johann, I am glad to see you again. It is many years since we met. We did not think then, that our next meeting would be in Siberia-like this !

BERNSTORFF (with just the right inflection). Alas! We did not!

ROMANOFF. No. We seemed secure in our high places then -you and I. We did not dream that we would be shorn of our power-

BERNSTORFF (expostulating). But-!

ROMANOFF. But there is one above-one who knows all. One who watches and waits. (Changing his tone.) But, I am glad, Johann, that you have turned to me in your hour of exile-

BERNSTORFF. This is- (Turning to Mrs. Romanoff.) Has not your majesty explained-?

MRS. ROMANOFF. I have explained nothing.

ROMANOFF (smiling). It does not need an explanation. I am not a child. I understand everything. These books-they are yours, are they not?

BERNSTORFF. YeS, but-

ROMANOFF (with a self-satisfied smile). Aha! Just as I thought. The books betray your secret, Johann. (Holding up the books.) Liebknecht, Harden !-You have caught the fever! And they have exiled you! Well, what else could you expect?

BERNSTORFF (with a show of irritation). Your majesty has entirely misapprehended the situation-if you will pardon

April,   1918   31

me for presuming to say so. These books are merely-merely what our enemies are so fond of calling camouflage.

ROMANOFF. Camouflage? What is camouflage?

BERNSTORFF. It is the science of making a thing appear to be something which it is not.

RoMAWOFF (enlightened). Ah! You mean diplomacy!

BERNSTORFF. No, your majesty. Diplomacy is not a science; it is a fine art, the chief principle of which is that while a straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, no true artist ever draws a straight line. But these are abstractions in which, as a practical man, I take but little interest. What concerns me now is to impress upon your majesty that far from being an object of imperial disfavor, I come here an honored emissary of my emperor, en-trusted with a diplomatic mission of the utmost importance.

ROMANOFF (amazed). You come to Siberia on a diplomatic mission !

BERNSTORFF (nodding.) Yes, your majesty. A mission of extreme delicacy which I cannot help believing has been placed in my hands in recognition of my amazing success in America. My imperial master-

ROMANOFF (interrupting, interested). Tell me, how is Willy?

BERNSTORFF (solemnly.) The All-Highest is enjoying his usual imperial ill-health.

ROMANOFF (nodding sympathetically). I know. It's in the blood. (Confidentially.) Too much intermarriage, Johann. It's not good. Gobloff-(explanatorily)-he's the foreman of my gang-Gobloff was telling me only yesterday about a cousin of his who married her uncle-

BERNSTORFF. Sire!

MRS. ROMANOFF. Ach, Nicky! How you talk!

ROMANOFF (looking from one to the other). What have I said?

BERNSTORFF. Your majesty must forgive me, but I cannot remain passive while my emperor is likened to a-a member of the laboring classes.

ROMANOFF. Come, come Johann! Don't be too hard on Willy. We musn't find fault with him because he is not a workman. It is the fault of his education. (He goes on placidly, ignoring Bernstorff's apoplectic attempt to interrupt.) Look at me ! You know what I was five years ago-a year ago for that matter. I had no appetite, I could not sleep, I had a cough. And now! Ask the little mother how I eat ! And when I get into my bed at night, not even a bomb could wake me up. As for my health-(He rises, walks to Bern-storm and doubles his arm.) Feel that !

BERNSTORFF (stiffly). I would not presume!

ROMANOFF. Nonsense. It is only a man's soul that is sacred. Feel!