The Seward Gateway

Adieu, Mr. Martens.

There will be no mourning at the bar of justice over the prospective departure from our shores of Ludwig K. A. C. Martens, unrecognized envoy of Soviet Russia to this free Republic.

The deportation order is not aimed at Mr. Martens personally. It is the flat rebuke to the system of which he is the accredited agent. It says very plainly: "We have no manner of use here in America for the regime of terrorism, starvation and atheism, which is the practical outworking of the Bolshevist program. We do not want among us those who are doing all they can to embroil capital and labor, to promote strikes and dissension, to encourage sabotage, to teach men at work that their employer is their enemy. We feel that our social and industrial salvation will not come by a rule of blood and iron. We prefer to work out our destiny without the aid of those who have afflicted Russia with an intolerable torment and are at odds with civilized conscience, stateized government and every canon of common decency accepted as a rule of life among normal mankind."

The long-drawn controversy that has resulted in this eviction is parallel to the processes elsewhere that have disclosed to all but the most bigoted apologists the undesirable citizenship of Bolshevism. Litvinoff struggled for a foothold at Copenhagen, arriving to establish there a center for the leverage of the world in favor of Lenin. He is now banished to Norway. The Danes were tired and sick of him. Krassin has held on in London, for some English merchants still are tempted by the prospect of gold, flax and platinum which they fondly hope the Bolshevists will be able to deliver. The Bolshevists are doing their utmost to persuade the world that it is Capitalism which has established a cordon round about them, impenetrable to those who would come to the rescue of Russia with food and other supplies. But the reason the Red Cross is not in the country now and the reason international business is not resumed is the predatory high-handedness of the powers at the Kremlin and the Smolny Institute.

What promises can they make that deserve to be trusted?

What pledges have they kept? Honor is valued as little as human life where Bolshevism flourishes. We dare not intrust anything we prize to those buccaneers in view of what they have done already to a community that has made the mistake of giving them an anchorage.

Ex.