COMMUNIST WEAK SISTERS

Impromptu debates with Communist and Hitlerite hecklers enlivened the recent Ford Hall address of Dr. Ernst Jackh on the immediate political destiny of Germany. As soon as Dr. Jackh had finished a discussion of Nietzsche, he was forced to interpret Karl Marx to a questioning audience. The intelligent liberalism of the speaker was in sharp contrast to the inflexible dogmatism of his Communist interlocutors.

The influence of the Communists in America, in spite of conditions favorable to their activities, is noticeably weak. While their friends in Russia are overcoming the inertia of centuries of aristocratic incompetency, they hurl insults and repeat the old catchwords which have a strong emotional glamor, but, when they stand alone, no definite meaning. When they are permitted to harangue bystanders, Communist orators quickly exhaust their supply on invectives, and only the arrival of the police can make their demonstrations interesting even to the most bitter opponents of capitalism.

The Soviets' concentration upon the five year plan has made them anxious for peace. Their inaction in Manchuria, and their hostility to overthrow the present regime in Germany are tangible proofs of a desire to postpone social revolution. Perhaps the decline in the quality of soap-box oratory on the Common or in Ford Hall is caused by lack of Soviet encouragement.