Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/160

 134 of children by the Soviets. Yet it is precisely the rising generation that always suffers most from such moral and intellectual chaos and physical suffering as prevail for men, women and children in Russia today. Far from putting the children first, the Soviets have put them almost last. First comes the Red Army—used not only for defense but for aggression and to put down peasant attempts at self-government with sufficient bloodshed to terrorize the survivors. Then comes the propaganda, squandering millions of dollars from South America to China—and in every village of Russia. Next comes the Soviet bureaucracy—usually given food privileges on the plausible ground that they need them in the strenuous work of keeping their hold on the government. Besides these two classes the army of spies, food seizing detachments, etc., can obviously get and demand preferred treatment. After all these, no doubt, the children are given a preference over the remainder of the population. And our wretched sentimentalists call this "looking out for the children!"

The Communists always assert and never deny that they are deliberately sacrificing the entire population for the present—in the belief that they are thus introducing the form of future society that they prefer. They acknowledge they are largely responsible for the bureaucracy, disorganization, etc., that are among the chief causes of the suffering. Here is how this affects the children:

Frederick J. Libby, commissioner of the American Friends' Service Committee (Quakers), who recently returned from Reval, brought back information that many children are starving in Russia.