Page:Samuel Gompers - Out of Their Own Mouths (1921).djvu/253

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CAMOUFLAGED TRADE AGITATION
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plea that no other government could stand and that if the Soviets fell we should have a nation of Asiatic hordes running stark wild over the country.

The all important thing that Americans know about Russia is that in every sense the Soviet Government and the philosophy back of it are absolute in their denial and repudiation of democracy. This is the principle that has been at stake in all the history of the contest between freedom and slavery, self-government and autocratic government, light and darkness. This was the issue in the struggle against Prussianism. It was the issue when the first man, in answer to a spark that had been lighted in his soul, struck the first blow against imperial rule. It is the issue over which the agonies of the world have rolled. It is an issue on which Americans can not be deceived and from which they will not be budged.