TERM "BOLSHEVIK" IS TOO INCLUSIVE, SAYS ISAACS

Classification is the remedy that Dr. Nathan Isaacs, Thayer Teaching Fellow in the Law School, would apply to the so-called radical and Bolshevik element not only in the country as a whole but in the colleges and universities as well. Formerly assistant dean of the Cincinnati Law School, Dr. Isaacs resigned his position in 1918 to join the army; since the armistice he has been connected with a department of the government interested in the study of foreign groups and their movements.

"What would I do with the Bolsheviki in this country?" said Dr. Isaacs. "I am no alarmist and I believe that my first act would be to classify them all. Perhaps this sounds like an unusual if not a cruel punishment, but after all the modern conception of punishment is a dealing with criminals rather than with crimes.

"We now set as the ultimate goal the interests of society rather than the restoration of an equilibrium supposed to be disturbed by an offense. Thus what we are interested in is the avoidance of a driving together of all the forces of discontent, by failure to classify them properly.

"That this is a real danger was illustrated in this country at the time of the signing of the armistice. Then it was not unusual to see on the cover page of a single magazine or grouped together on a single platform, such grotesque combinations as a Russian anti-Czarist who had learned in his youth to respect Lenine and an Irish agitator or agitatress; a Western I. W. W. angered because of the treatment of his leaders in our courts and an eastern highbrow who had detected an inconsistency in the government's policy; a former editor of a German paper who could see no wrong in the Lusitania affair and a religious pacifist who would not take another life to protect his own.

"Among the forces that held this incongruous mass together, no inconsiderable part was played by the forces from without that rushed them together under the meaningless formula 'Bolshevik.' The agitators have generally shown more cleverness in making use of this apparent solidarity than the forces of law and order have in depending upon the very real lack of solidarity that a bit of analysis might readily reveal.

"Thus a New York investigating committee by raiding somewhat theatrically the headquarters of the I. W. W., the Rand School, and the office of the representative of the Soviets, by publishing a list of respectable citizens whose names were found on mailing lists, called down on themselves the joint protests of a dozen or more different groups and were promptly dubbed Bolshevists themselves because of their arbitrary methods of procedure.

"Now the first step in exorcising this Bolshevik demon in Harvard or anywhere else, is analysis. There is no purpose in attaching the odium of pro-Germanism, of insidious foreign propaganda, of bomb throwing, and of dark plotting to the man who is merely speculating as to governmental theory and practice or wondering about a line of decisions of our supreme court.

"If, after this analysis, there are found in the College and in the country any who really belong to the bomb-throwing group, or to the insidious propagandists, make them stand alone and then see how quickly they will fall!"