Madame Breshkovsky's friends are to be found in every civilized nation, and her influ- ence, from an exile's hut in an isolated village in the Arctic Circle, has radiated to remote quarters of the globe. From her prison at Irkutsk this woman, nearing her seventieth birthday, sends messages of hope and cheer, proclaiming her unquenchable faith that the cause is just, and therefore must prevail. I would not have our profound interest in the Russian revolution entirely explained by the fel- lowship we have had with those who have par- ticipated in it, by the literature which has stirred hearts and minds everywhere, or by our actual experience with innocent victims of outrages. The continuance of a policy of sup- pression of freedom infiltrates the social order everywhere, destroys the germination of new forms of social life, and he who has not sym- pathy with the throbbing of the human heart, and who does not revolt against injustice any- where in the world, who does not see in the gigantic struggle in Russia a world movement for freedom and progress that is our struggle too, will not comprehend the significance of the sympathy of the many Americans who are friends of Russian freedom. -248- |