One of several reasons for my requesting the President not to reappoint me when my interim appointment expired was that, in my opinion, any additional controversy in Washington ought to be avoided for the public welfare. Since Colonel George Harvey, however, has published a foolish and vindictive attack on me, one of my reasons for repeating my request to be let out of the service immediately was the necessity of answering Harvey's falsehoods. They are particularly mean and malignant and may be summed up as follows:
(1) That I was “a plenipotentiary of Lenine and Trotsky.” This grotesque falsehood is particularly offensive to me. I have been opposed to communism all my life. The “dictatorship of the proletariat” is revolting.
(2) That I had “abused the American legation at Copenhagen as a trading post for the Soviet government.” This invention is as despicable as the other. I never had any dealings, direct or indirect, with any member, agent, or representative of the Soviet government.
(3) That I made “repeated overtures” in Wall Street “to finance the Bolsheviki.” Although this charge is as false as the rest it requires more explanation, since while the others are pure inventions this is a distortion of what did occur. It is an audacious reversal of the meaning of two incidents. Mr. Alexander Berkenheim came to this country with a letter from Prince Kropotkin. As I had been taking a positive and constructive stand on the Russian question for several years he came to me. He was Vice-President of the great central cooperative association, representing the seventeen million cooperatives of Russia. Although he was so anti-Bolshevik as to have been five times arrested by the authorities Mr. Berkenheim opposed the blockade, and wished to establish sufficient credit with private firms or banks to begin business. His belief was that the best way to overcome Bolshevism was to restore trade. Agreeing in this view I gave Mr. Berkenheim cordial letters to officials of our government and heartily urged that he be permitted to ship out such stores as flax and hemp, that were piled up to the value of two or three hundred million dollars in the possession of the cooperatives, awaiting export, and to import in exchange such things as agricultural machinery, shoes, sugar, and medicine,. So great are the available Russian exports that only a few million dollars short credit would be required to put an enormous exchange into operation. Indeed, long before I was appointed Minister to Denmark I had urged the view that the cooperatives were the key to the Russian situation.
The second episode is a detail in the first. A young friend of mine, employed by the Guaranty Trust Company, invited me to dinner with him. The dinner took place at the City Club and the other seven people present were all members of the Guaranty Trust Company. The conversation covered world-trade but so far as the Russian part was concerned it turned on what would be safe business enterprise when the blockade should be lifted, especially imports carried on by credits based on deposits in neutral banks. I explained why I thought the cooperatives were strong enough to do business without being successfully interfered with by the Bolsheviks. I have since sent to Washington the original report in Russian of the cooperative activities up to January 1, 1919, and I think it justifies my contention. Shortly after the dinner, however, there appeared in the public press a report that the Moscow authorities had declared that imports could be made only through its agency. I sent this report to Mr. Booth, a vice-President, who, at the dinner, had put particular stress on the business difficulties whether contracts with the Soviet Government itself, with deposits as stated growing out of the absence of private property in Russia, and asked him above, would not mean that imports could be sent in without the danger of not being able to obtain safely the corresponding exports. My note to Mr. Booth in some way reached the Senate Committee on Foreign aAffairs. Also in some way from the Committee it reached Harvey and has been used against me as proof that I was attempting to strengthen the Bolshevik despotism, and to betray my country and my President.
(4) That the above-described charges were the ground on which the Senate Committee failed to act on my nomination. Actually, the hostility developed as soon as my nomination was sent in. That was in February. The dinner was in April. The reason was my previous activity in American politics.
Turning from this displeasing political intrigue to the question at issue, I may conclude by stating that my views have not changed. I still believe that Bolshevism is strengthened by the blockade, not only in Russia, but elsewhere, in proportion as Europe suffers from the inability to get raw materials and food from Russia, and to send her manufactured articles in return. There will be no recovery in central Europe until Russia is opened. Since the failure of Judenitch, Kolchak, and Denekin I am not so lonely in my opinions as I was. More people now realize that the best way to kill Bolshevism is to stimulate business of every kind.
