To the Editor of the "Norrs-Caisa Dairy News."
Str,—Some days ago you published in your paper a series of leaders on the subject of Soviet Russia and its devious methods of propaganda. We read these articles with unusual interest. We saw in them serious steps of counter propaganda in this settlement: That is a reasonable statement of facts depicting the other sida of the question, and exposing these specious arguments advanced in favour of the new system. We have also the opportunity of reading in your paper various other contributions on affairs in Russia. But when all is said and done, these very leaders and contributed articles reach the eyo of a small percentage only of the population. The rest—''the browsing herd" of Burke, are not affected. Evidently then, it is but a limited propaganda that may be expected from the public press. As for the daily cartoons with wild-bearded Bolsheviks running) off with bags of gold, etc.—this sort of thing is a vulgar effort, and weak, against a really serious movement. The day of cheap ridicule is over.
On the other hand counter-propaganda from the churches is not to be expected. The churches after all have the Bolshevik note. For, as long as they ave true to their cloth, they will continue, and rightly continue, efforts towards reform in the distribution of wealth. They may be capitalistic in one sense, but all great religions believe implicitly, (and again rightly), in the survival of the fit, and the surviving fit, are as a class, the Poor.
Again capturing pamphlets, closing down printing establishments, espionage, etc., etc., as far as they do succeed, prove merely an irritant, not a deterrent. Speeches, lectures, and the rest, are quite useless—they don't reach that section of the public who would benefit thereby. In the mean time we live on the coast of a vast: ocean of seemingly placid souls, but an ocean none the! less which heaves to the storm in Russia. Against this gathering storm there is no movement except in politics, which is a two-edged sword; except in the loftier press, which floats on the surface: and except for an empty gibe, whose day has fled.
But one huge reservoir remains untapped. The world's educational establishments have been utilized for the strangest purposes—now for the spread of religious intolerance and bigotry, again towards fostering the national spirit, and yet again for war, and again for peace. One can do anything with schools except not lead them. But the Bolshevik propagandists abroad have not been long in seeing this promising opening, as witness on the cover of the local Bolshevik organ—''To -schoolmasters—special terms." The schoolmaster has in his hands a wonderfully plastic material, therefore, says the Bolshevik, "enroll him."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.