Francis is going to take tonight to
Paris I have tried to point out some of the things that have
interested me in Petrograd. Naturally I have emphasized the
brighter side, for the vast amount of absolutely false news
manufactured in Helsingfors and Stockholm and sent out
through the world seems to me to necessitate the emphasizing
of some of the more hopeful features of the present
government. Naturally the character of the Russian people
has not changed to any great extent in 18 months, and there
is doubtless corruption, and there is certainly inefficiency
and ignorance and a hopeless failure to grasp the new
principles motivating the government on the part of many of
the people. A people subjected to the treatment which
Russians have had during the last 200 years can not in one
generation be expected to change very greatly, but
personally I feel the present government has made a vast
improvement on the government of the Czar as I knew it in
1916-17. Without doubt the majority of the people in
Petrograd are opposed to allied intervention or revolution
and wish the present government to be given a fair chance to
work out the salvation of Russia. One of the most hopeful
symptoms of the present government is its willingness to
acknowledge mistakes when they are demonstrated and to adopt
new ideas which are worth while.
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