Flirtations with Communism

...Are our industrialists prepared to pay the price for the sake of present extension of their business in Russia ? Meanwhile, in spite of the meagre results of the Fish Committee's investigation, it remains true that Communism does in fact constitute one of the major problems of our times...

...Elihu Root as to the formation of a special secret police to deal with Communism has been received, and it is likely that a problem which really requires realistic investigation will be dismissed from public attention as a joke that has ceased to be amusing...

...It is seriously unfortunate that the problem of Communism should be connected in the public mind with such futile and childish pranks as this "secret" expedition to the summer camps of the American disciples of Lenin...

...Then the ground would be cut from under the advancing armies of Communism...

...Oneal declares that American Communism is now at the lowest point in its history, both from the point of view of membership and influence...

...Because of the secrecy of the preparations, no arrangements have been made by the Communists for their reception...

...Chesterton's story, it may be recalled, an agent of the special branch of the British police force which has been appointed to deal with anarchistic activities, secures a place on the inner council of the international Terrorists only to discover that all the other members are police agents like himself...

...Inasmuch however, as the Times and the other papers reporting this great stroke of strategy must probably reach the Communist camps many hours in advance of the federal investigators, it is doubtless to be expected that the "preparations" which the Communists made for the reception of the committeemen did not suffer for lack of due time for their preparation...

...James Oneal, a Socialist leader, who has closely investigated Communist activities, in a letter to Chairman Fish...

...Wood attempted to prove his case by stating that the word "please" is barred from use in the camps as belonging to counter-revolutionary terminology, "while politeness in general is regarded as bourgeois prejudice...

...They hold their secret meetings on a balcony overlooking a public square, acting on the theory that the best form of concealment of their deadly aims is to make them as ostentatious as possible, because in that case the public will think their plans for the destruction of society to be merely practical jokes...

...John J. O'Leary, the labor editor of the New York World, testified to the efforts of the Communists to foment strikes in various industries, but at the same time declared that their efforts had failed in such a way as to discredit the Communists among the workers themselves...

...The Commonweal is not in a position to report what kind of a reception the Communists gave the investigators, however, as this paper is reluctantly obliged to go to press before the thrilling details can be read...

...The investigation of the Amtorg, no matter what it might prove as to the particular point involved, might direct attention to the paradoxical situation created by those great American industries which for the sake of immediate profits are willing and indeed anxious to trade with Soviet Russia, and, in so doing, are aiding the Soviet system to establish itself firmly—not realizing, apparently, that the ultimate success of the Soviet system in Russia would inevitably destroy profit-making industries in other parts of the world...

...According to the New York Times, which can hardly be suspected of jesting in connection with a news article, whatever its editors may say on the editorial page, "the exact hour of the arrival of the committee at the camps" was to be kept secret, as was also "the route by which the investigators are to travel, as they plan to appear at the camps unheralded...

...It would appear that the curiosity about the camps was aroused by Mr...

...Those conditions which provide ammunition for the assault on our social system by the Communists can and should be cured by true cooperation among the leaders of society...

...Something of this Chestertonian spirit of paradox seems to have entered into the plans of the Fish Committee, when they decided to suspend their sessions until they had carried out a visitation of several Communist summer camps in New York state...

...It was said, however, that the event would be just a friendly visit, although there was some speculation as to the attitude the Communists may take when the federal visitors arrive...

...In Mr...

...If such a standard as this is to be applied to the measurement of the progress of Communism among our youth— and not merely our youth—it is likely that the number of Communists in our midst must be reckoned by millions instead of the few thousands so far identified with the movement...

...FLIRTATIONS WITH COMMUNISM EADERS of G. K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday—described by the author himself as "a nightmare"—may well be reminded of the farcical episodes of that fantastic tale by some of the recent developments in connection with the Congressional Committee which is investigating Communist activities in the United States...

...Similar testimony was given by Mr...

...It is probable that the most useful work which the Congressional Committee could do would be to bring out the truth concerning the Amtorg Trading Corporation, the Soviet commercial agency in the United States, which has been directly accused by former Commissioner of Police Whalen, and also by the former Soviet diplomat, George Bessedobsky, in a statement given to the United Press in Paris, of having for its real business the financing and directing of subversive Communist activities in this country...

...But it cannot be solved merely by abuse of Communism, or by the methods of the secret police...

...The testimony given by the public school authorities in New York shows that the much heralded invasion of the schools by Communist propaganda, while potentially a menace, has by no means attained alarming proportions as yet...

...Charles J. Wood, commissioner of conciliation of the Department of Labor, who testified that he found the camps to be "places where boys and girls are taught Bolshevist ideas to harden them for the revolutionary battles to come...

...A few more such developments, added to the general disfavor with which the suggestion of Mr...