2-B— EDITORIAL PAGE + We stand for the Constitution “""~ government_as SALT LAKE Cl of the United States with its three departments (VA. therein 2% set 4 each of one fully independent in its own field. Spreading Ate arith Is Greatest World Threat in History The Sunday i issue of the Ne ew York Times, J under date of July 2, presented a map which, _ = at first glance, seemed to be merely another “world map, with an unusual distribution of light and dark areas. A second look, coupled “awith a figures, consideration of the. accompanying brings out startlingly the fact that Soviet Russia, in the brief span of 11 years, “ Kas spread its controls to a degree that makes it the largest empire known innane history of ~the. world. - | «In 1939, before the outbreak of World denttal is ee the largest area andes one governmental unit ever known in the history of the world. eee who “sighed for more worlds to conquer” could almost have lost his little empire in one corner Of the huge Russian dominions. But the 25 per cent increase in the lands ‘controled by Russia sinks into insignificance beside the increase in population brought un. der the Soviet yoke. pied of or controlled more than The nations now occu- by Russia 830,000,000 include a total persons — some- War II, Russia was large in bulk, but consid- — thing in excess of one-third the population of erably smaller in importance. Its area was huge, it is true — more than 8,000,000 square miles, more than double the area of all of Europe, and more than a million square miles _darger than the continent of South America. Its population was some 170 millions, approximately a third of all in Europe; but the large proportion of peasants was such that ~ Russia was considered as a large, rather than _@ great, nation. Although _-. the Russian nation, as such, “has not extended its boundaries greatly, the Communist Party controlled by the Russian leaders has reached out and brought under Russian control nearly two million square miles within the past eleven years. Russia now occupies all of Western Europe, and so far as present political influence or identity is concerned, has practically rubbed out such nations as Poland and Czechoslovakia. On the Pacific side of the continent, Russian armies are occupying Mongolia and Manchuria, and Communist control has been ex- tended over nearly all of China. _ Unlike the far-flung colonial empires of some of the European powers of a few years ago, the Russian holdings are compact and contiguous. The unbroken area under Soviet the world! main over An extension of the Russian doanother one-fourth of its former extent has brought under the government of Russia more than four times as many people as before World War II. The announced aim of the Consist Party is totalitarian domination not of a na-. tion, nor of a continent, but of the world. The facts shown on the “Times” map show _ the startling extent of the spread of that domination within the past few years. | _ How large a nation can grow before starting to crack up under its own bulk is a ques- tion that only time offers no parallel. ever, can answer —history History does tell us, how- that no tyrant. was ever able to elimi- when many of those nate the spark of liberty from among his subjects, particularly subjects were brought into subjection by dishonest methods. But the light of freedom has certainly gone into eclipse for the time being in those nations that have been ruthlessly gobbled up by the Russian bear. | The Russian achievements, then, and their aims and methods, must be recognized as probably the greatest threat to the freedom of humankind that has ever occurred in the history of men upon the earth. |