Moral Ascendancy

U. S. Ambassador to Russia Joseph E. Davies, before leaving the U. S. last week for Moscow, where he will say good-by to Bolsheviks prior to becoming Ambassador to Belgium, dropped around to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, strongly remonstrated about the case of famed Ruth Marie Rubens (TIME, Feb. 7, et ante). Mr. Davies advised Soviet Ambassador Alexander Troyanovsky that U. S. relations with the U. S. S. R. would become unduly strained if jailed U. S. Citizen Rubens, arrested in Moscow on the night of December 9 in the Intourist Hotel National, was not permitted to see U. S. diplomatic representatives in Moscow, as demanded .by Secretary Hull. Repeatedly in the past J. Stalin & Co. have shown unusual favors to aggressively capitalist Lawyer Davies and his General Foods heiress wife (TIME, March 15). Not long after the Davies-Troyanovsky conversation in Washington, the US. colony in Moscow learned that U. S. Charge d'Affaires Loy W. Henderson was at last going to be permitted to see U. S. Citizen Rubens.

Never before had a U. S. diplomatic or consular official been allowed inside one of the prisons of the U. S. S. R. Smart, the Secret Political Police, instead of taking the Charge d'Affaires to their prisoner in Bolshevism's ominous new Lubianka Prison in the heart of Moscow, carefully took him instead to a onetime Tsarist prison in the suburbs, Butyrskaya. There they found an airtight setup. U. S. Citizen Rubens, who appeared decently dressed in a zipper-closed U. S. frock, was not permitted to talk freely or be alone even for a moment with Washington's representatives. A Soviet official took charge, had Mr. Henderson ask questions which had to be translated into Russian, then after each question told U. S. Citizen Rubens whether she was permitted to answer that question or not. All questions by Mr. Henderson intended to bring out the facts of her arrest and the charges on which she is being held went unanswered. Citizen Rubens said that she left the U. S. on a passport bearing her own name, was supplied en route by her "husband" with a bogus U. S. passport in another name visaed for the U. S. S. R. Last week there were even such rumors current as those that the "husband" may have been a woman dressed as a man.

Citizen Rubens, who seemed in good health with only normal prison pallor, said finally in reply to Charge d'Affaires Henderson that there was nothing the U. S. Embassy could do to make her more comfortable or assist her. "Thank you," she concluded, "I need no help." In an effort to explain why U. S. Citizen Rubens refused help against the Secret Police who have got her in jail, Walter Duranty cabled: "I know the system. It is not hypnotism but the establishment of a moral ascendancy. If that is not clear ask a psychoanalyst."

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