THE SOVIET'S FIRST FRUITS

After nearly ten years of silence the papers are again full of news from Soviet Russia, whether through laxity of censorship or because the Russian authorities feel that they are now ready to show the world what they have accomplished, is not known. In the interim, while the United States and Europe devoted themselves to a fad of things Russian, such as the Chauve Souris, the former dominions of the Czar have been the scene of events of a more serious nature. That Moscow faces the approach of winter with a thieving, lawless swarm of two hundred and fifty thousand homeless children--the "wild boys", the products of war and revolution--is a fact worthy of more than pictorial reproductions in the Sunday papers.

Neither the "I told you so of these who believe that the revolution was wholly bad, nor the excuses of those who believe that the Soviets are not at all to blame, adequately represent the situation. Such a condition is inconceivable to dwellers in American cities. It is safe to say, however, that this mass of irresponsible and unsheltered children, too numerous for the orphanages of any nation to control, will serve in the next ten years as a test of the Soviet's ability. If they neither die off, nor grow up into gangs of adult criminals, but find a place in the social order, unlimited praise will be given to the government which rescues them.