Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/245

Rh them, with a small plot of ground in the rear where a man in the springtime may dig his hands into the soil and say gratefully to God, 'Mine, mine!' I, too, am a Russ. I thought in the beginning that you would take this country as an example, a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Wrongs? Yes. But day by day these wrongs are being righted. No lesson in this for Trotzky, a beer-hall orator like yourself. Ten million men drafted to carry arms. Did they revolt? Shoulder to shoulder the selected millions marched to the great ships, shoulder to shoulder they pressed toward the Rhine. No lesson in that!

"Capitalism, seeking to save its loans, you rant! Capitalism of blood and money that asked only for simple justice to mankind. The ideal of a great people—a mixture of all bloods, even German! No lessons in these tremendous happenings! And you babble about your damned proletariat who represents the dregs of Russia. What is he? The inefficient, whining that the other man has the luck, so kill him! Russia, the kindly ox, fallen among wolves! You cannot tear down the keystone of civilization—which took seven thousand years to construct—insert it upside down, and expect the arch to stand. You have your chance to prove your theories. Prove them in Petrograd and Moscow, and you will not have to go forth with the torch. And what is this torch but the hidden fear that you may be