XXVI LEAVES FROM MY NOTE BOOK

Siberia is one of the richest lands in the world in undeveloped resources. The wealth in its plains and hills, its rivers and forests, is beyond computation. Our wheat fields of the northwest in comparison to the wheat plains of Siberia are but backyard gardens.

Thousands of square miles in Siberia are literally underlaid with precious metals, its great forests are filled with fur-bearing animals, its rivers teem with great fish, its bird-life offers unlimited food possibilities.

Siberian butter in normal times is shipped to Europe by train-loads and much of it sold through Denmark as Danish butter. Siberian honey is famous for its flavor. Fur and hair, hides and meat, vegetables and forage—Siberia could feed the world if its agricultural industries were operated under modern methods.

We think of Siberia as a land buried in snow most of the year. There is snow in the foothills of the Urals and beyond, and far to the north, but early in February, traveling from Chita to Vladivostok, a distance of some two thousand miles, I saw brown plains from horizon to horizon day after day without a patch of snow the size of my hand. There is very cold weather, it is true, but with proper clothing, homes properly heated, trains and shops properly equipped for keeping out the cold, the low temperatures do not cause much discomfort. However, it is not comfortable to remain out of doors very long during the bitter cold. The seventy-two-below weather registered in Chita, and mentioned elsewhere in this book was not so terrible as it sounds, when there was absence of wind. The air in Chita was very rare, as that city has an elevation of nearly five thousand feet above sea level, and is just below the High Plain of Vitim. The climate is invigorating.

Transportation is the great problem of Siberia. I have heard it said by Colonel Emerson, general manager of the Great Northern Railway, that the Trans-Siberian Railway loses money on freight charges of five cents per ton mile. Our American railways operated before the war at good profits with freight charges computed in mills per ton mile.

Graft and ignorance, waste and laziness, even before the Bolshevist troubles, sapped the life from the organization. The line was strewn with scrap metal, from trucks with flat wheels to all the small parts which break on trains. The Japanese bought this scrap as junk, remilled it at home and sold it back to the Russians at from five to ten times its cost as scrap.

The repair shops ran at a very low point of efficiency, and without modern machinery—bolts, for instance, being made by hand! The whole system appeared to be run for no other purpose than creating jobs, and was over-manned.

Business is done in Siberia at a high margin of profit in order to offset losses by theft. It is estimated that twenty-five per cent must be allowed to cover loss by theft. Goods left in the customs house over night under the care of watchmen are not always found intact in the morning—the cases are opened and goods abstracted. A car-load of shoes shipped to an inland city arrived apparently safe, with the seals on the cars unbroken. When opened, the car was found to be full of cord-wood. A person unfamiliar with the country had better avoid doing business on a small scale there. An American who came to Chita with fifty suits of ready-to-wear clothing, had to part with about half of his lot to pay graft.

The velvet covering on the seats of cars is all ripped off. I heard that the Bolshevists took the coverings to make clothing. At a theater I saw many women in gowns of blue, gray and red velvet, and discovered that the blues had come from first-class cars, the gray from second-class cars, and the red from third-class cars. Combined with old lace curtains, the stuff made rather attractive gowns.

A British colonel, coming up from Vladivostok with regular troops bound for the front, wired to Chita to the “British consul” to arrange for four hundred baths, twenty buckets, two hundred loaves of bread and communion service of the Church of England for four hundred men. He also stated that he wanted a hall in which the men could eat their Christmas dinner, the hall to be decorated with holly and other greenwood stuff.

The British officer who opened the telegram did his best, but there was a hitch about the communion service, because the Russian church could not give communion to non-communicants. When the colonel arrived, he cited the fact that a Russian bishop had once arranged with a bishop of the Church of England for mutual exchanges of courtesy in regard to communion in emergencies. His men marched to a Russian church for services that day, but did not receive communion. They were taken out of their crowded box-cars, bathed and fed and preached to, and paraded through the streets of Chita with fifes and drums.

Early one morning I was summoned to the military prison of a certain town. A note was brought to me by a smart young Cossack, who clicked his heels, saluted most deferentially, and remained at attention in the best military manner while in my room. He said the note was from the prison commandant, and when my orderly had read it, he said my presence at the prison was requested.

We drove to the prison, and informed the sentry at the gate that we wished to see the commandant. Thereupon we were ushered into a spacious corridor, crowded with prisoners.

A young man pushed his way out of the crowd and accosted me in Russian. I told him that I could not talk with him till I had seen the commandant. He then said in perfect English: “I am an American—I am going to be shot. You must save me.”

It was my business to protect Americans.

“What part of the United States are you from?” I asked.

“New York City—Grand Street.”

“Were you born in New York City?”

“No. I was born in Russia. But I am an American. You tell ’em they can’t shoot me.”

“When were you naturalized in America?”

“Well, I didn’t take out any papers. But I lived in New York nine years.”

“Then Russia is your country. When did you come back?”

“About a year ago.”

“Why did you come?”

“I wanted to help my country.” Now the tears were running down his face.

“My orderly here was also born in Russia,” I said. “But he is a naturalized American citizen, and has been six years in the regular army. You have come back to help your country, but your country does not appear to appreciate your services. You might have returned in an American uniform, but for nine years you lived in New York and did not care to become an American citizen. Now you claim American protection. Why are you going to be shot?”

“I don’t know. I never was told. Please go and ask to see my papers. Every minute is valuable! Save my life! I am a good American!”

The other prisoners now swarmed about us. The commandant pushed through them and eyed me angrily. I told my orderly to inform him that I had come in response to his summons, and handed over his note.

To my amazement he stared at the note and declared that he had neither written it nor sent it. And he informed me that the very smart young Cossack soldier, who had clicked his heels so ceremoniously, was a suspected Bolshevist against whom no definite evidence had been found. And this “soldier” had himself been released from the prison only that morning! (Later in the day he was re-arrested for bringing the forged message to me.)

I explained to the commandant that under the circumstances I had no intention of interfering, but I desired that the execution might be delayed till I could talk with the local chief of staff. He assented.

I drove hurriedly to the office of the chief of staff of the Cossack commander, and asked about the prisoner. The passport of the condemned man was put before me. He had obtained the passport as a Russian subject. Also, he had pretended upon arrival to be an envoy sent by radicals in the United States to the Bolshevists. And I was shown clippings from Russian papers, which related how the “New Yorker” had in street speeches after his arrival in Siberia denounced the government of the United States as “capitalistic.” He had been arrested while trying to pass through a certain city with Bolshevist dispatches.

“I wish the execution might be delayed,” I said, “until I can talk with this man again. He might give me some information of value.”

The chief of staff nodded his head, and as I went out, reached for the telephone.

I drove back to the prison. The commandant, now smiling and suave, led me, when I asked to see the prisoner, to a window overlooking the prison yard. There he pointed to a figure lying in the reddened snow. It was the “New Yorker.”

In a party of condemned prisoners taken out for execution, there was a woman from the East Side of New York. She brought up the rear of the little column. She was a tall, fine-looking Jewess, and bore herself proudly, looking with scorn at the firing-squad.

When the death-grove was reached there was some delay. She observed Americans among the on-lookers, and beckoned them over to her.

“Why, they’re not going to shoot me,” she boasted. “Look at me—I am an attractive woman. I have been in that prison two months.” And significantly, “I have been a good friend to the commandant. Tell him I want to speak to him.” She smiled coyly.

The commandant came. He smiled at her admiringly, and gave her an intimate wink.

“Of course I am not going to have you shot,” he declared. “I had to bring you out here to make the others think that I am not showing you any favoritism. But my soldiers have orders not to aim at you. Do not fear the volley.”

These was a sharp command. The rifles came up. Some of the condemned dropped to their knees in the snow to pray, some made a brave show of facing the muzzles without a tremor, others openly wept. But the woman stood upright, with a confident smile on her lips, sure that none of the bullets was for her.

The volley crashed upon the cold air. The woman’s face took on an awful look of surprise. Her body snapped backward from the impact of flying lead, and then she pitched forward upon her face in the snow.

There are no sex lines drawn in matters of this kind. No, indeed, there is perfect equality.

The mass of the people in Siberia are Bolshevist. I would say that ninety-eight per cent of them are Bolshevist. This assertion can be very easily misunderstood, and anti-Bolshevists will undoubtedly attack it, while the Bolshevist propagandists will probably use it to prove that they have as adherents the mass of the people. But by “Bolshevist” I do not mean that the people have studied Bolshevism and have decided to adhere to it because they feel that Bolshevism is the form of government which they want—far from it.

What I do mean to say is that the mass of the people, being discontented and being in poverty, favor Bolshevism because it is the only thing which promises them the license which they believe to be liberty. It is a system which has demonstrated to them that they have a right to take what they can; it is a system that tells them that they can do no wrong because they have been wronged—that no matter what the poor man does, he is right. It is the “divine right of kings” applied to the proletariat—it makes every man a king provided he has been a man who worked for somebody else.

When I assert that the mass of the people are Bolshevist in their tendencies, I do not mean that they are all able to discuss Bolshevism intelligently, nor do I mean that they are fighting in the ranks of the Bolshevist army with arms. I mean that the drosky-driver, the waiter, the railroad man,—all working classes,—are hostile to any man who attempts to tell them that Bolshevism is wrong, or any man who looks as though he did not work with his hands. By “Bolshevism” I mean class hatred. The mass of the people of Siberia have been exploited so long, and have been tricked by promises which were never kept, that they are willing to be exploited by any person who comes along and tells them that they own everything in the country merely because they work.

They have never known good government. They do not believe that it exists. To them “government” means oppression, whether it is government in the United States, or government by the Czar.

Now if the mass of the people are Bolshevist (admitting my assertion for the sake of argument, if it cannot be accepted fully) and the forces of the United States in Siberia attempt to control the people, it might be argued that we would be opposing the wishes of the majority of the people of Siberia—not allowing them to have the form of government they desire. In other words, if we go to war against Bolshevism, it means killing all Bolshevists, and if nearly all the people in Siberia are Bolshevistic, it would mean, carried to its logical conclusion, killing or bringing into subjection the mass of people in Siberia.

We do not wish to do that. Then why do we not let them remain Bolshevist and run the country with soviets?

We are a-straddle a barbed-wire fence in Siberia. The Czechs and the Cossacks have whipped the Bolshevist forces in Siberia. We have aided neither the Czechs nor the Cossacks militarily, and the Bolshevists have been waiting till we and the Czechs got out. While waiting, the Bolshevists have joined Cossack armies or have behaved themselves to some extent—they are waiting till the Allies in Siberia give them a clear field again. And the Allies have been surrounded by a vanishing army—fighting Bolshevists who quit fighting and “surrender” when they see that they are in danger of capture or defeat.

I do not believe that Bolshevism is going to be destroyed by “decisive defeats” of Bolshevist armies. Bolshevist forces have been “decisively defeated” time and again, and driven out of many cities, only to reorganize in the rear of their attackers. Bolshevism can only be smothered by attacking the idea of Bolshevism, for it is a soul-disease which has infected vast masses of people who have been wronged for centuries.

I do not object to the fact that these people wish to correct the wrongs of government, the wrongs of exploitation, the wrongs of enforced poverty which they have endured in a land of great natural wealth. The greatest wrong which has been committed against them is the system which has kept them in ignorance. They must be saved from their own ignorance. They must be saved from a new exploitation which is greater than any they have ever known. I do not believe that wrongs against a people can be righted by committing new wrongs.

These people who are Bolshevist in their tendencies, are Bolshevist because they have not seen anything better than Bolshevism, which was visualized for them in tons of worthless money distributed to them. We must demonstrate good government to them, even though we have to “interfere” to do so. They are ready to swing to anything which proves its worth. We have attempted to prove things by reasoning, when they are not equipped mentally to reason. They suspect and fear us because we reason while we have an expedition on their ground—and soldiers to them mean intimidation, treachery and death. They do not trust each other, how can they trust us? They do not trust the Japanese, and we are allied with the Japanese.