Points of Friction
bad in bad taste is unpardonable. If we had resolutely severed the word "idealism" from the bloody chaos which is Russia, we should have understood more clearly, and have judged no less leniently, the seething ambitions of men who passionately desired, and desire, control. The elemental instinct of self-preservation is the first step to the equally elemental instinct of self-interest. Natural rights, about which we chatter freely, are not more equably preserved by denying them to one class of men than by denying them to another. They have been ill-protected under militarism and capitalism; and their subversion has been a sin crying out to Heaven for vengeance. They are not protected at all under any Soviet government so far known to report.
Nothing is easier than to make the world safe for democracy. Democracy is playing her own hand in the game. She has every intention and every op-
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