They have the warmest affection for
America, believe in President Wilson, and are certain that
we are coming to their assistance, and, together with our
engineers, our food, our school-teachers, and our supplies,
they are going to develop in Russia a government which will
emphasize the rights of the common people as no other
government has. I am so convinced of the necessity for us
taking a step immediately to end the suffering of this
wonderful people that I should be willing to stake all I
have in converting ninety out of every hundred American
business men whom I could take to Petrograd for two weeks.
It is needless for me to tell you that most of the stories
that have come from Russia regarding atrocities, horrors,
immorality, are manufactured in Viborg, Helsingfors, or
Stockholm. The horrible massacres planned for last November
were first learned of in Petrograd from the Helsingfors
papers. That anybody could even for a moment believe in the
nationalization of women seems impossible to anyone in
Petrograd. To-day Petrograd is an orderly city--probably the
only city of the world of its size without police. Bill
Shatov, chief of police, and I were at the opera the other
night to hear Chaliapine sing in Boris Gudonov. He excused
himself early because he said there had been a robbery the
previous night, in which a man had lost 5,000 rubles, that
this was the first robbery in several weeks, and that he had
an idea who had done it, and was going to get the men that
night.
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