Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/250

 224 America neither hopes to gain anything at the cost of the Russian people, nor has this nation anything to fear at home or abroad from the band of insane fanatics momentarily in control of that great country. We are concerned with Bolshevism as a world evil, which operates in varying degrees in many countries. But we regard it neither as an indomitable power which we are forced to recognize and conciliate, nor as a movement with which honorable governments can afford to cooperate—as the beneficiaries of its unparalleled crimes against the Russian people.

The danger that the pro-Soviet agitation may be revived is not past. Krassin has boldly stated that the British trade agreement was obtained not by any fundamental concessions of communism to capitalism but by propaganda, and he plans to station himself now in Canada, whence he says he hopes to return "via New York." Provided only he will come "as an individual" certain Senators say he will be welcome. But he can operate quite effectively from Canada.

What makes the Soviet campaign in America dangerous to some extent is the curious espousal of the Soviet cause by numerous so-called "liberals" and by the radical minority grouped in various camps.

Historians will look back upon this support of Sovietism with a smile, a sardonic grin at the pretenders of to-day.

Liberalism, when it is true to its mission, seeks the extension of democratic practice and the enlargement of the opportunities in democracy. It is the implacable foe of autocracy and of all dictatorial practices. The diseased state of mind that calls itself liberalism in