FEAR OF A NAME

Socialism and Bolshevism are different things, and Anarchy is different form either, Senator Watson of Indiana identifies the three. Last week he introduced a resolution accusing several employees of the Federal Trade Commission of being Socialists, and called on the Government to investigate the Commission as a preliminary step in the eradication of Bolshevism.

"Fundamentally," said Senator Watson, "there is no difference between Socialism and Bolshevism." John Spargo and Charles Edward Russell, take notice; you have each written a book against the Government of Lenin and Trotzky, but fundamentally you are Bolsheviks. "Men ought not to be selected to represent the Government," says Senator Watson, further, "who are against all government." The inference is that the "Bolsheviks" Senator Watson has discovered in the Federal Trade Commission are against all government--i.e., that they are Anarchists. Lenin, who consistently anathematizes the "bourgeois," says they are the Anarchists; but Lenin's view does not count. His war-against the Anarchists of Russia is of no significance; his idea of Bolshevism as a paternal pervasive government--the antithesis of no government at all--is neither here nor there; what does Lenin know about Bolshevism? Finally, Senator Watson accuses on Mr. Johann G. Ohsol of being "a soviet of the most virulent type." Since when was it a crime to be a committee of one?

The muddle-headedness of the Senator form Indiana would be scarcely deserving of comment were it not so general. The occasion for his attack is the publication by the Federal Trade Commission of a third volume of damaging revelation concerning the big packers, and the advocacy by that body and by the Department of Agriculture of Federal control as a means to bring down the price of food. The Commission secured the services of certain Socialist reformers in its investigation. The packers are making a last stand to preserve their private monopoly; and Senator Watson is their involuntary spokesman. But federal control of a private monopoly is not the usual definition of Bolshevism. Senator Watson balks at a name.