You live in a free country, free from all persecution, enjoying every human comfort, under an established Government; and you go to Russia, spend two weeks there with your bleating, mouthing perversion of humanity, Maxim Gorky, and come back and tell your countrymen that they must support a set of blackguards.
A final word with you, Mr. Wells—leave Russia alone. You have done a lot of harm and you have earned the just resentment of every true friend of Russia. If you must dabble with poison, write another “Ann Veronica.” The Russian problem is one which will be solved by men, not by literary acrobats.
In conclusion, I would like to remind the great American people that they fought in the great war to make the world safe for democracy. You helped to destroy German militarism, but remember that German militarism was nothing as compared with that of Soviet power. Having set out to rid the world of militarism and make it safe for democracy, have you any right to leave the task undone? Is there not a moral obligation resting upon you to crush the militant minority which is exploiting and terrifying 99 per cent. of the Russian people?
The World
NEW YORK
ITS ACCOMPLISHMENTS—ITS AIMS AND ITS CLAIMS
THE WORLD as established by
JOSEPH PULITZER, May 10, 1883:
“An institution that should always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.”
More than thirty-seven years have passed since that utterance was made. During all that time The World has tried mightily to realize the supreme ideal thus set for it and to that end it is striving with all its power now.
So it is not unbecoming to point out the degree of success which The World has attained. There can be no boasting in measuring the altitude this newspaper has reached in its ever soaring flight; no braggadocio in reiterating its aims, in setting forth its claims.