comedian, entertained William Z. Foster with a dinner and at his home shortly before the Bridgeman convention to which Foster was a delegate. At a reception given by Chaplin for Foster the chief topic of discussion was the great importance of moving pictures with their educational and propagandist appeal for the cause of the labor movement and the Communist revolution. Several instances were cited of radical ideas being, or going to be, used in pictures and legitimate plays.

BOAST OF TEACHING LAWYER

On another occasion, at a dinner given by Mrs. Kate Crane Garty and Prince Hopkins on April 3, 1922, in honor of Upton Sinclair, one of the Communist guests boasted of having given a prominent law officer a good lesson regarding the real meaning of syndicalism. The idea of a radical arguing with an officer of the law regarding a movement aimed at the destruction of the Government which that official was at that time serving does not appear to the radicals as anything but natural. This Communist said that he had visited the representative of the Government in his office and discussed criminal syndicalism with him. The Communist asked to be shown one of those "terrible, cut-throat, murderous I. W. W.'s," whereupon one of the prisoners was brought from the jail to the officer's room and questioned. "We were much impressed, both of us," the Communist said in relating the incident, "by the intelligence and enthusiasm of the clean cut young radical."

PROPAGANDA FOR BANKERS

It was on this same occasion that the representative of a large Los Angeles bank, formerly with the British Intelligence Service at Helsingfors, told with some pride of his educational work and his lectures before the American Institute of Banking, in the course of which, he said, he was spreading much pro-Soviet propaganda. The interest of the Communists in the banking situation amazes many people, for, of course, the banks and big industrial concerns will be the first to be attacked, or expropriated, when the Communists believe the time has come for the big General Strike, which is to be the signal for the armed insurrection to bring about the overthrow of the Government of the United States. But, if one stops to think, it will be appreciated that the Communists desire to have some one ready to take over the affairs of the banks when the overturn comes, some one who knows finance, and that they are desirous of having spies in every important office in order to learn as much as possible of business, trade and financial secrets. And at all times they seek to make converts, whether in banks, in factories or in society. Low salaried bank clerks are usually approached by the Communists as possible converts.

GET CLOSE TO HIGH OFFICIALS

Last August Charles Recht, the New York lawyer who was on the staff of Ludwig C. A. K. Martens, the "Bolshevik Ambassador," who was ordered deported after an investigation by Congress, probably the highest ranking Soviet official in the

Soon

United States, consulted with Will Hays, then lately made head of the moving picture industry in this country, regarding the production in America of propaganda films calling for an expenditure of $8,000,000, an order for which Recht said he had then recently received from Moscow. These pictures were to be cleverly constructed, anti-religious, anti-capitalistic, showing the benefits of Communism and the need of destroying all capitalistic governments. after this conference Recht sailed for Europe, bearing with him a letter autographed by a cabinet officer which would serve to show the Moscow authorities how close he was to the American Government. He met Norma Talmadge, the film star, and her husband, Joseph Schenck, a producer, in Berlin and they proceeded to Moscow to arrange with the Communist authorities for the pictures and the organization of a Russian company to furnish more propaganda films.

The writer is not an alarmist. He does not believe the Communists can ever overthrow the Government of the United States even with Russia's Red Army of a million men. But that the Communists will attempt this very thing unless they are stopped now is as certain as that night will follow day. The people of the United States are now financing the soviet regime in Russia, to a large degree, chiefly through subscriptions to "drives" for funds for famine relief to be handled by Russians, in spite of the official warning that such funds go to support the Communists and the only safe way to aid the famine sufferers in Russia is through the American

Relief Administration, and in spite of the statement made by Litvinoff, one of the Communist leaders, that all danger of famine suffering was ended.

DANGER TO INDUSTRY AND PEOPLE

The attempt at armed insurrection may not come for five years, perhaps not for ten, but it will certainly be made in fifteen or twenty years, if the Communists are permitted to continue as they have been, with secret conspiracies and "open" organizations to function at the direction of the illegal body; and when that time comes the prostration of business, the paralysis of all industry with its attendant suffering, will be a catastrophe such as this country has never known. And the attempt will be accompanied by bloodshed compared with which the Civil War of the last century was a holiday, for the red-blooded American people will put down the revolutionary attack, necessarily by force of

arms.

With all the facts known-and there are many more than have been here presented-the question naturally arises, Why doesn't the Government do something about it? The answer is simple; the laws of the United States protect the radical who aims at its destruction. An American citizen can go to Washington and walk down Pennsylvania Avenue with a bomb in each hand announcing his intention to overthrow the Government and destroy property. The only law he violates in thus doing is a police regulation against disturbance of the peace. If the squirrels don't get him and he is not arrested, he can, after having made his announcement, proceed to the capitol and blow up the

building; and the only charge upon which he can be arrested is one of destroying Government property. Americans may conspire to overthrow the United States Government to their hearts' content and, until they have committed an overt act, they can't be touched.

LAWS PROTECT ALIEN REDS

With foreigners it is different. Aliens may be deported, under certain conditions. But one of these conditions, under our laws, is that the country to which he is to be deported will receive him. A passport has to be issued for the deportee, and visaed by the representative of the country of which he is a citizen, before he can be compelled to leave our shores. England and France object to our dumping their radical citizens on their shores. Russia now refuses to receive her own, even when dyed-inthe-wool Communists; her experience with the shipload of radicals thrust upon her when the Buford transported that precious cargo of Reds overseas cured her of any desire for more. So, under the law we can deport Communists, but also under the law we can't.

It may be that the pendulum of civilization is swinging backward and we are entering upon another Dark Age. This has been suggested. However, as William E. Brigham, astute Washington correspondent, says, the situation has now reached a stage when American citizens must be either squarely for the American flag and all it represents, or against it. With

I

radicals in Congress the danger is great. To be sure, the Communists who back certain members of Congress would desperately oppose the election, as President, of France, of Borah, or Ladd, or Brookhart, or LaFollette, whose words and phrases they frequently quote in official documents. But their opposition, and they have said it, is based upon the fact that the working class might be satisfied with the election of any one of them and the Communists do not want anyone satisfied with our form of government. They will not be satisfied with reform in any degreeutter destruction by violence is their only aim.

NO REFORMS SATISFY REDS The Communists do not believe in the theory of reform. The so-called capitalist State, with all its institutions-Church, Home and Government -must go, they insist; and the only way in which it can be effectually done away with is as was done in Russia. Nothing is good. Nowhere in their literature can be found a single reference to any feature of the United States which is good. All must be destroyed, and as this can be accomplished, as they see it, only by armed revolt, war is declared. Upon the ruins, with new foundations, they propose to erect the perfect Communist State, such as they say is now functioning in Russia, and the Soviet Republic of America will be a province of Moscow where will center the Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the World.

Lieut. Col. Elvin H. Wagner, 18th Infantry

I

T would be wrong to

say that Army men and women, have, as a class, led an existence which has been kept separate and distinct from that of the local community in which they are stationed. It is equally wrong to say that the civil community has kept itself apart from the Army.

There has, however, been a failure on the part of both to really get together. Upon analysis there seem to be reasons for this. We of the Army are victims of the system under which we grew up, and, before the war, the "run of bank" civilian outside of a garrison city never had a chance to know their Army men.

In the old days the Army posts were not in or near the larger centers of civil population. The little garrison town that attached itself to the post was not a place of any social activity and the train, boat, street car or buckboard trip to the next larger town was too long a one to encourage visiting by

either group.

Individual officers and men had individual friendships in town and. a few of us had civilian friends who occasionally came to call. The troops sometimes gave a parade in the city, but it was very seldom that a civic body ever came to the post. Why? We of the Army didn't seem to know

how and the civil organization after years of closed garrison gates, sentries at entrances and large signs to read, acquired the impression that they were not wanted. Then, too, there was the difficulty or annoyance for an officer who wanted to go to town. Here we were, grown professional men and all the way up to the old man; you had to go and ask somebody's permission to go off the 2 x 4 area called the reservation-then hike over to headquarters and register out and sometimes lie about your destination and probable hour of return and then next week have the old man tell you you were going to town too much-"three evenings last week, Mr. Jones; three times you went to town. When I was a young officer we did not run to town all the time. Why, I haven't been off the post in three months. I have to work." Great Scott! That is just what is the matter with us now and was with old sour dough then. What he needed was some Georgia corn liquor, a large open area to start in, and a Rotary Club dinner to end his day. His outlook on life the next morning would have been different and he could have had them all for the mere asking.

The United States Army, including the military reservations, belong to the people of the United States, and are not a lot of gentlemen's estates belonging to post commanders, with the post quartermaster for a sort of head keeper.

We may take a page out of the