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Show I; ROUNDING UP BOLSHEVISTS So a state instead of the national gov- eminent had to take the lead in round- ! ing up the Bolshevists who have been fomenting fo-menting deviltry in this country. It is ' not surprising- There is. precedent for it. m Some time ago, following a visit to Wash- M I ington of tho Presirdent's favorite can- M I didate for the United States, the federal H government with noteworthy efficiency B ! and success kept hands off a German who R was controlling under false! pretenses and H contrary to law a metropolitan newspap- B er; until the state government buttedin H and arrested the Hun; whereupon, with H i its hand thus forced, Washington simply H had to sit up and take notice, and do H i something. And now again it is the state H ; 'that takes the initiative against a gang j of alien conspirators to whose pernicious B ' machinations the attention of the Wash- B; ' ington government has been called again H; and again. : We shall not say that it does not matter " "who decs it so long as it is lone, because Sin fact it does matter. The offense is primarily against the nation, and the nation's na-tion's Government ought to be foremost in abating it. Also, we must regard it as of dubious propriety for state authorities to intervene in international affairs- In B the two cases which we have mentioned, H such intervention was desirable. But it H is quite obvious that the process might be ' H carried too far, so as to involve us in un- H pleasant embarassment. It would be dan- H gerous to establish too marked a preced- H cnt for state intevention - in diplomatic H affairs. H I The antecedents and the provocation of H last week's raid on Bolshevist headquar- H ters in New York are sufficiently notor- H ious to indicate ample warrant for that H action. So far as the international aspects H are concerned, of which the Washington H government should have taken notice, it H is to be observed that these men professed H to be official representatives and active H I agents of a government with which this H I country is in fact at war, whose soldiers H $ are from time to time killing ours and H I also getting killed by ours in battle- It H J is a government, moreover, which openly H 1 announces its hostility to our form of H I covernment and its purpose to destroy it H I if it can. m The monstrous impropriety of permit- H I ting Jthe agents of such a government to H I conduct a propaganda in the United B I States should be convincingly obvious. H j On the ground of morals, too, the thing H 1 has been offensive. These men were the H 1 agents and representatives of a govern- H ment which had notoriously betrayed its B I allies, broken its treaties and repudiated H I its pecuniary debt; a government which H j lias attemuted to practice the enforced H 1 "nationalization" of women as public pro- H I perty; a government which has admitted- Hlf ly practised murder and indiscriminate Hf f massacre as a means of establishing and Hff maintaining its power. To permit the Hff exponents of such practices to preach Bf their doctrines here and to lay plans for K making revolutionary attempts to intro- B duce those practices here, is not credit- H able to a moral and civilized nation- Bi What complicity these men had. if any Bf in the recent bomb outrages, or in con- H spiracies for future ' violence, or other H touble, remains to be disclosed. , It is sig- Bj nificant that they are referred to as ex- H emplars by those who are convicted of Hi such crimes, and that a New York alder- HBj man who impudently pretended that the Bj bomb explosions were nothing but a Hi "plant" or "frame up" was quick to de- BSBBJBHpM nounce the arest of the Bolshevists as ar outrage. There is reason to suspect -on the face of the case that the Bolshevist 'mission" in this country has been in close and influential touch with the Bolshevist "party of action" in various parts of the United States and in Canada. Testimony accumulates that the Bolshevist outbreak in Canada was incited and financed from Russia; and evidence is indisputable that it has from the first been the purpose of the Bolshevist leaders in Russia to conduct con-duct just such campaigns of disorder and violence in every country within their reach- We have long been accustomed to observing ob-serving "a certain condescention in foreigners" for-eigners" which moves them to regard Am erica as a "soft thing" where they Can concoct and carry out any deviltry they please. We have not in the least become acquiescent in it, and we hail with sincere gratification every effort, whether by the national or more frequently, by some state government to prove by vigorous and effective action that America is not Bolshevist. Harvey's Weekly, m ra ft |