Show PR PROBLEMS FACING STRICKEN WORLO shall chaos or reconstruction in europe follow tho the great grea t world war LONG BLACK NIGHT little wonder people of thai unhappy land are blinded by free freedoms dome light after four centuries of suffering article XV dy by FRANK COMERFORD for nearly four hundred years yeara russia malted for morning it was mas a ter cr rable night brutal dreams tortured tier site she writhed in despair time moved slowly the clock bucked fi agonies gonles the air was thick with groans Alother motherhood hood bore slaves the cradle was a coffin feast days were celebrated by massacres 1 czars azars from ivan all the terrible 1544 ag H to nicholas tile the last of the Roma Roman executed in 1018 used the bodies and souls ot of human beings ns as manure to fertilize tile tho soil soft in which the ranis weed ot of imperialism grew history calls thena thein emperors truth labels them brutes torturers murderers they bore the brand of cain it was a day a hopeless night for russia which begun began with the curses of ivan and ended with the execution of nicho nicholas las during this night of three hundred and seventy five years they marched arched in the treadmill the world hoard heard the endless tramp of feet in the dark great bodies swayed swaged with weariness heavy shoulders were bent forward strong trong leps legs marled alme on tile the treadmill stops steps they kept time to the lash of the whip it laid baro bare their backs the lie backs of young and old of women and children ns as well as men sweat into red froth as it mingled with their blood they grew blind in the dungeon darkness they stumbled and halted only to be called back to the and drudgery of t lie tramp by me lash and the bludgeon their legs rose and fell they marched but never forward it was left right left right tramp tramp find always on the treadmill steps in the hopeless dark clark they mumbled prayers but god hear the curses of their masters drowned out their petition ings it was so dark in the treadmill that even god could not see and so god forgot russia Vor forgotten gotten abandoned they bent their great weary backs toward the tha sod the grave offered rest it was kind the only thing they owned was their pains they lived a communism of suffering buffering a socialism of slavery the of 1017 1917 battered down the dour door ot oc the treadmill seized with wild joy they madly rushed toward the light when they got out in the open sav tho the sky and sun they were bewildered in the fury of a new delight they rushed on lt it it Is pathetic that eyes blinded by ages of darkness blinked in tile the light it surprising that they tried tiled to reach the center of the sun suffering in the light Is different from suffering ering in the black the file russians knew when their eyes ees became accustomed to the lie light they looked around them to see where they hey were to lea leam ni what had been happening lit in tile the strange beautiful world tremendous task before them they had a task before them the building of a free titans house a house in tile light a house without a dark corner they knew little about freedom except that they wonted wanted it with oil nii their hearts their experience lial had been beef with slavery they knew little about tile the practical work of building a house in freedom might live pure unit anil secure they saw civilization with tile the eyes of a n surgeon they gasped when they saw that its body was covered with a malignant sore it was an ugly festering running growing sore they learned its name it was written n the loudest of chronicles it was tho the incurable horrible leprosy of tile tho world it was cancer POVERTY they were told that it was the cause of the nasty thing religion labeled sn sin that poverty hail bad transformed christ es truck in clay into hunchbacked souls that the sickening matter running from froin sores caused the red blotches blotcher blot ches on the wor worlds lils body known Ns Hs red light districts that other effects were ho file swollen blackish blue bolls lolls the tenements and slums alums they shuddered even the he darkness of the had not produced worse they learned about poverty they read its autobiography in it they read how it had robbed children of their childhood erased falth faith from froin the lie minds of men mobilized women in dreadful traffic they learned that much of the thing called crime was tys work that normality and morality are matters of education that to he be good requires knowledge of right and wrong they read that statesmen called poverty jiin Reform reformers ern culled called it a curse and become became unpopular because of their persistent attacks upon it it in the verdict of a thoughtless world those wilio fought poverty were wera called long haired men and short haired women people did not stop to remember tit that at these long hilred men and brinit halted omu bomi pvc cave of their time lime and strength I 1 to th the e poor those ai who ho were inal maligned IH tor for following in the footsteps of th 11 first lorer of the ioor acry aiosa tiosa wh cried out against the tenements demanding for human bellies beings tile the sun balue and air cattlemen catt leine i give theft stock these unpopular ones occa were the same who brought lee to lp L p milk cool in the hot summer for tile tho dill arn of the lie slut slums these were tile crusaders against child labor tile th protestants against compelling old lit women who bear bar the children of 11 ilia race to work so many hours each day that exhaustion marred and marked tho the physical phy ut nud and mental strength of children so it was that these redeemed freed children of russia learned of tho the cancer find and feared it AS much na its tile the tiling thing they had find escaped none able to check disease they beheld old schoot school politicians acting as doctors to sick civilization these doctors mi statesmen were agreed as to tile the carje baue of tho the disease and that the symptoms threatened loath death many blany prescriptions have been given the patient but none seem to elleck check the disease these prescriptions had lieen been various formulas ot of government the constitutional monarchy a democracy a republic the giving of these liese various treatments failed to effect a cure civilization continued to suffer at times pain became unendurable and the doctors gave local anesthetics these were the I 1 laws ai W N included under the general designation social welfare legislation they made the patient temporarily room moro easy thy they allayed pain that might otheir otherwise wise have produced convulsions revolution and then these russian people studying the new world into which they had bad so rec recently ertly come discovered that many of these political doctors were vere qu quacks licks they were ivere unreliable and dishonest they were more interested in their own fortunes fort unea than the fate of the lie patient they imposed upon the alie people who hired and trusted them acin their tinie time and thought was waa taken up in holding their jobs rather than in doing their work that the schools of political medicine called political purties parties responsible for these doctors were diploma mills graft rings that some of tho the people suspected these physicians of being interested in keeping the patient sick find and were not making ink sn an honest effort to cure it hall had even hein been rumored that there are people in the he world who make profit ollit of poverty that special privilege la is the powerful ot of our day turned to old theory plato had bad spoken ken about adoth PT way back in the fourth century before christ so had marx an untried remedy a theory its object was to cure poverty the russians seeing that the remedies in common uso had failed turned their thoughts to this old remedy which had never been tried at least it had not tailed failed tills this was in its favor it was an experiment peri perli ment nent to be sure but nothing ventured nothing gained many argued that it could not more completely fall titan than the at prevent in use and with the fall of imperialism there came into russia one who had been exiled for many years lie he had been a teacher anil and preacher of the untried remedy russia sav in him a savior tie ile came with a message lie ile s ald that communism would keep them free make them happy they listened they hey believed were as little childre so great was their faith to them a promise was a truth fulfilled fuini led the word n covenant and tile the promise was that pea peasants stints would have their own land that flint working men would he be their own bosses it was the word they laid had waited for the realization of the dreams they had dreamed in the lark tri treadmill admill the had come the now new day awaited them they rejoiced find and cried long live the new ll 11 no one questioned the of tile hie dream ewery one forgot the common comm controlling instinct of man selfishness maybe in tile he intense general individual selfishness could not ile be seen the titan was genlue the message communism copyright western newspaper New paper union |