ploitation. The proportions of the division had been established,
previously, in a series of secret treaties that had been entered into
during the earlier years of the war.

With the Big Five in control, with the lesser capitalist states
silenced; with the border states made or in the making; with the enemy
reduced to economic impotence, and the unexploited portions of the world
assigned for exploitation, the conference was compelled to face still
another problem--the Socialist Republic of Russia.

Russia, Czar ridden and oppressed, had entered the war as an ally of
France and Great Britain. Russia, unshackled and attempting
self-government on an economic basis, was an "enemy of civilization."
The Allies therefore supported counter-revolution, organized and
encouraged warfare by the border states, established and maintained a
blockade, the purpose of which was the starvation of the Russian people
into submission, and did all that money, munitions, supplies,
battleships and army divisions could do to destroy the results of the
Russian Revolution.

The Big Five--assuming to speak for all of the twenty-three nations that
had declared war on Germany--manipulated the geography of Europe,
reduced their enemies to penury, disposed of millions of square miles of
territory and tens of millions of human beings as a gardener disposes of
his produce, and then turned their united strength to the task of
crushing the only thing approaching self-government that Russia has had
for centuries.

A more shameless exhibition of imperial lust is not recorded in history.
Never before were five nations in a position to sit down at one table
and decide the political fate of the world. The opportunity was unique,
and yet the statesmen of the world played the old, savage game of
imperial aggression and domination.

This brutal policy of dealing with the world and its people was accepted
by the United States. Throughout the Conference her representatives
occupied a commanding position; at any time they would have been able to
speak with a voice of almost conclusive authority; they chose,
nevertheless, to play their part in this imperial spectacle. To be sure
the Senate refused to ratify the Treaty,--not because of its imperial
iniquities, but rather because there was nothing in it for the United
States.

3. _Italy, France and Japan_

The shares of spoil falling to Italy and France as a result of the
treaty are comparatively small althou