Democratic governments, no matter how large and powerful, have no propaganda funds. Hence the undeniable and considerable effect of the Bolshevist agitation in America as well as other countries. Though the evidence coming from Russia, consisting in large part of Bolshevist documents, is vast and overwhelming, it has secured less circulation than the audacious falsifications and inventions of the Bolshevists and their sympathizers—disproven one day only to be repeated in some new form on the next.
The Soviets and their supporters threw themselves into the Presidential election campaign last autumn with the avowed hope of securing recognition from the present Executive and State Departments of the United States. But in spite of the huge bulk of the pro-Bolshevist matter put out—by thousands of publications, the practical results achieved were equal to zero. The great majority of American people read it, pondered upon it and—threw it into the waste basket.
The new administration did not have to hesitate a moment in deciding what to do. President Harding and Secretary Hughes had not been in office more than a few days when, Great Britain having signed her trade agreement (on March 18th), the Soviets immediately played their long expected card in the shape of a note asking that the United States Government officially receive a so-called trade delegation from Soviet Russia. Doubtless one consideration affecting the new administration in its prompt reply was the fact that all such trade delegations throughout Europe had been employed by the Soviets for the purpose of revolutionary agitation to overthrow the gov-
