THE LAP OF LUXURY

Josef Stalin may allow Russians to bathe stark naked on the Nevsky banks, exile stubborn Kulaks to the wastes of Siberia, or teach clumsy railroad workers an object lesson in front of a firing-squad, but his cloven hoof appears in silk stocking with distressing frequency.

Accustomed as they are to look anywhere in the world but Russia to see luxury in full bloom, most Americans will view the pictures of the new Moscow subway as evidence that, once in a while at least, the camera does lie. As if paying back a jeering capitalist world in its own coin, Mr. Stalin has constructed a subway system in his capital city, which, if the pictures are to be believed, is a cross between the Widener reading-room and the Radio City Music Hall. Although poor capitalistic New Yorkers and Bostonians ride to work in dismal, cement-crusted burrows, the sybaritic Muscovites will travel through indirect-lighted galleries, looking at artistic mosaics and marble-faced walls. If New Yorkers threatened last year to do their stock-trading in Newark because of unreasonable taxes, how much better right have they now to do their commuting in Moscow, where the fare for travel through these palatial arcades is one-half cent!

It will be deplorable if the effeminate Communists are permitted to corrupt their pristine capitalist neighbors. Beginning about a year ago, when he enjoined the cosmetic trust to produce more alluring makeup for Soviet faces, and up to the time of his present debauch under the Moscow streets, Josef Stalin has shown the road to oblivion. It is highly possible that New Yorkers and Bostonians, seduced by the luxurious existence of their Russian cousins, will soon demand silkier face-powder, more tantalizing lipstick, or even a marble subway with messics! The world must unite to save capitalism from this degrading Communist menace!