The New Crusade

Cardinal Desire Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, in Belgium, writing to the Columbia, official magazine of the Knights of Columbus, set forth the suggestion that the League of Nations undertake an international crusade against the Bolsheviki.

"In four years, the World War mowed down, I believe, 10,000,000 of human lives. In a little more than that time Bolshevist Socialism has sacrificed from 20,000,000 to 30,000, 000.

"It is not for me to suggest the means whereby the Red bands shall be disarmed and the legion of honor recruited which shall undertake the magnificent task of pacifying Russia, and I surmise that if such a bold suggestion should reach the ears of the civil or military heads some of them would find it inopportune or unstrategic.

"Would not the League of Nations win universal confidence at one stroke if it succeeded in opening an international crusade against the barbarism of the Soviets for the safeguarding of our age-old civilization?"