The above despatch was published in the April 26, 1919, issue of "The New York Times."
On April 28, 1919, the following very apt comment was made on it and appeared on the editorial page of the "New York Times":
"As explained by somebody whom a Milan paper calls a 'Bolshevist statesman,' marriage as regulated by the great and good Lenine is not at all the dreadful thing described recently by the mendacious enemies of his Socialistic paradise. As pictured by his friends, nothing worse has been done than to exert a gentle pressure on the marriageable unmarried to the end that they may do their duty to the Bolshevist State and provide it as soon as may be with new sons and daughters to take the place of those recently 'removed' by a benevolent terrorism. "Bachelorhood and spinsterhood are to be regarded as 'irregular'--conditions that must be explained in writing to the proper authorities. For the well disposed a simple civil marriage ceremony is provided; also a simple divorce ceremony in case the union proves wearisome. And that is all there is to the Bolshevist marriage system, the statesman says. "But one notices that he does not disclose what is done to those who fail to find pleasing mates in the six months allowed after notification for the making of a choice. Apparently it is then that the so-called nationalization of women comes in, and the statesman forgot to say a word about the only peculiarity of the system that has evolved any serious criticism."
Commenting on Bolshevism, Mr. Eber Cole Byam, in the April 26, 1919, issue of "America," very aptly says: