were some—real Russians; and what I mean by real Russians is Russian-born, and not Russian Jews.”
The witness also stated that he knew “several cases” in which well-to-do Jews had been persecuted in the same way as other Russian bourgeois. On page 270 he states:
“Bolshevism cannot be explained along racial lines alone. The Bolsheviks are made up of the very worst elements of many races. It is important, however, that Jews in this country should not favor Bolshevism because of any liberties or privileges which they may think are being accorded to the Jews in Russia by the Bolsheviks. They should study the facts carefully and not be prejudiced by any racial feeling, or they are sure to bring the odium of Bolshevism unjustly to the door of the Jew. The best Jews in this country would do well to brand the Jewish Bolsheviks in Russia as anti-Jews, which they really are, for they bring nothing but discredit to the Jewish race.”
Testimony of Roger E. Simmons
Mr. Simmons was Trade Commissioner, connected with the United States Department of Commerce, who was in Siberia and Russia from July, 1917, until November, 1918. He was in Vologda in July, 1918, and gives a graphic account of his imprisonment there by the assistant of the commissar of that community, a man named Iduke. He says:
“Iduke is a Lettish Jew, a man of a very irascible nature, and, on account of his experience in the uprising in Yaroslav, where the protest against the Bolshevik régime had become formidable, he had the reputation of being the cruelest and the most bloodthirsty Bolshevik leader of the revolution.”
Mr. Simmons then narrates how he himself escaped execution only because he succeeded in bribing a Lettish soldier who had been in America to deliver a letter to the Swedish