Fourth Week

Having disposed of the Far East, the British Labor Movement, Population, International Finance, the Experts' Plan, the League, Japanese Immigration, Pan-Americanism, the Statesmen (amateur and professional) of Williamstown (TIME, July 28 et seq.) focussed their mentalities upon other problems. It was the fourth, and semifinal, week of their Institute of International Politics.

P:Rear Admiral William L. Rodgers, executive head of the U. S. Navy, taking courage from the warm reception his blunt remarks in favor of aggressive warfare had received the week before, continued blunt. He charged England with instigating the 1920 Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments in order that the U. S. Navy might be reduced and Britannia left free to rule the world's commerce. Sir James Arthur Salter, onetime Assistant Director of the Transportation Department at the British Admiralty, thereupon arose. Said he: "I assure you upon my honor. ... I have never in the most intimate private conversations heard a whisper of the kind of farsighted, long-directed, carefully thought out, carefully worked out policy of which I have learned this morning."

P:There followed a brief spat over the U. S. policy of collecting Latin-American debts. Banker Albert Strauss, of Manhattan, opposed Dr. Leo S. Rowe, Pan-Americanist, cited the Monroe Doctrine as the business man's friend.

P:Then came Russia's turn. In Chapin Hall there brooded Boris A. Bakhmeteff, the last Russian Ambassador to the U. S. (under the Kerensky regime, 1917). He has not seen Russia since the Red deluge and there was some speculation in the press as to how well fitted he was to preside over a discussion of present-day Russia. He introduced John Spargo, U. S. publicist, whose Socialist tint is more distinguishable from Soviet Red than his rather alarming personal appearance would suggest. Said Mr. Spargo:

"No crime in the history of modem civilization surpasses in malevolence the instructions given by the Russian Soviet Government at the recent Third International Congress calling upon Communist parties and groups in all parts of the world to work to defeat the Dawes [Experts'] Plan."

Spargo demanded that the Soviet go bankrupt honestly as Austria did; that it meet its creditors in good faith, float a loan, win the world's confidence.

Esthonian Minister Biib, at a round table, defended the Soviet to the extent of saying that in diplomatic affairs it was honest about immediate matters, that its agents did not participate in Revolutionary propaganda. Arthur B. Ruhl, author, traveler, journalist, who has been much in Russia, came out against Spargo's and Bakhmeteff's indictments of the Soviet as a menace. Colonel William N. Haskell, onetime head of the U. S. Relief Mission' to Russia, urged that a Russo-U. S. Conference would lead to Soviet recognition by the U. S., should soon be held.

This was too much for fiery John Spargo. He arose again, poured scorn upon Mr. Ruhl for having "moods" about the Russians, upon Colonel Haskell for having implied that Labor in the U. S., jealous of its prestige and power, was illiberal toward the Soviets. Wilbur Thomas, head of the Relief Commission of the Society of Friends, and Sir Bernard Pares, one of the editors of the Slavonic Review, joined the anti-Spargo forces. Boris Bakhmeteff kept his peace, raising his voice only to beg the learned disputants to take their debating with somewhat more repose.

The New York World: . . . "John Spargo, theorist, . . . has never seen Russia at all save through the somewhat smoky lens of his own profound convictions.

"Messrs. Spargo and Bakhmeteff, reading the stars from a great distance, argue that the new economic policy of Lenin has been abandoned, that contact with Russia is contamination. . . .

"Col. Haskell, who has been somewhat nearer the scene of action, believes that the time is ripe for a positive policy. Life in Russia, he thinks, is not life in Mars or life very much different from life in any other country, except for the lack of currency."