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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77828 ***
+
+
+
+
+                           _THERE’S NOT A BATHING
+                              SUIT IN RUSSIA_
+
+                             By Will Rogers
+
+
+                                     _If you like the following subjects
+                                     you will just love this text book._
+
+                   § Mary Garden § Aviation § Vodka § Bathing Bareback §
+                       Whiskers, _long ones_ § Propaganda, _all sorts_ §
+                      Free Love § Bombs § Grand Dukes & Princesses § and
+
+                                  _21 other wrong ways to run a country_
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+                    With Illustrations by Herb Roth
+
+                                  1927
+                                New York
+                         Albert & Charles Boni
+
+
+                             By Will Rogers
+
+
+                               There’s Not a
+                                Bathing Suit
+                                 in Russia
+
+                            _& Other Bare Facts_
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+                      With Illustrations by Herb Roth
+
+                                    1927
+                                  New York
+                           Albert & Charles Boni
+
+
+
+
+           _Copyright, 1927, by Albert & Charles Boni, Inc._
+
+
+            _Copyright, 1927, by the Curtis Publishing Co._
+             _Manufactured in the United States of America_
+
+
+
+
+                               _CONTENTS_
+
+
+                PAGE
+
+  INTRODUCTION     7
+
+  ONE             23
+
+  TWO             35
+
+  THREE           57
+
+  FOUR            80
+
+  FIVE           100
+
+  SIX            113
+
+  SEVEN          130
+
+  EIGHT          140
+
+
+
+
+_ILLUSTRATIONS_
+
+
+                                                   PAGE
+
+  If he escaped very fast he is a Grand Duke          9
+
+  I thought somebody had loaded me up with
+  molten lead                                        27
+
+  One woman did get over with a safe, she had
+  it hid in her bathing cap                          39
+
+  That is called the mountain region of Holland      43
+
+  Lithuania? Why, I never even heard of it           61
+
+  My one impression of Russia                        67
+
+  I didn’t get a shave, figuring I might pass
+  as a native                                        75
+
+  Everybody said--“They have spies and secret
+  police all over the place”                         83
+
+  I didn’t hardly expect Trotzky to make any
+  faces for me or to turn a few somersaults          91
+
+  He has served his term in Siberia under the
+  Czar                                               95
+
+  They start at the cradle with them in Russia      127
+
+  If there is a bathing suit in Russia, somebody
+  is using it for an overcoat                       131
+
+
+
+
+                             _INTRODUCTION_
+
+
+_Now there has been more said and written about Russia than there has
+been about Honesty in Politics and Farmers’ Relief, and there has been
+just as little done about it as about either of those two._
+
+_I should have written earlier about Russia, but everybody was writing,
+and I thought I would wait till they all got through; but they are
+not going to get through. They just keep on writing about Russia. It
+looks like anyone is an amateur in Literature if they havent exhibited
+Russia’s horoscope to a picture-reading public._
+
+_More people break into Sunday Editions with an article on Russia than
+do by murdering their husbands or swimming the Channel. If you can’t
+get into the papers, never did get in, and are about losing hope of
+having anything get in, why--here is the greatest tip to ambitious
+amateur literary careers--write something on Russia and you will
+replace some regular writer that day. Russia is the biggest Country in
+the World, and men and Women write authoritative opinions on it that
+couldent give you a bird’s-eye view of the Principality of Monaco, and
+you can take a handful of green apples and stand on a hill and hit
+everybody in Monaco._
+
+_It has always been a source of wonder to me that Patricia Ziegfeld,
+Baby Peggy, Paulina Longworth or Nick Altrock have never written a
+book on Russia. Some Congressmen come over to Paris to investigate the
+Cafés, have four cocktails and a Russian caviar sandwich--which they
+dident like, but the rest was doing it--go back home and tell of the
+condition as it exists today in Russia._
+
+_Russia has one peculiarity that I don’t think any other country ever
+enjoyed--that is, that every female gender that come out of there is
+a Princess, and the lowest form of a title in the way of an escaped
+male is a Duke, and if he escaped very fast he is a Grand Duke. From
+the amount of Titles out of there, one would gather right away that
+the sole purpose of the Revolution, proposed and carried out, was not
+to assist the downtrodden, as is generally supposed, but to promote
+foreign travel among the Princesses and Dukes._
+
+[Illustration: If he escaped very fast he is a Grand Duke.]
+
+_Escaped statistics show that among males, 72 per cent. were Grand
+Dukes and the other 28 per cent. just Dukes. Women were all 100 per
+cent. Princesses. You spend half your time in Paris listening to some
+exiled American telling you hard-luck stories about former Russian
+nobility. “The fellow who just opened the Taxi door in front of this
+American Rat Trap you are now in was a Grand Duke and, brother, just
+two Revolutions removed from the Czar.” They are all kin to the Czar.
+“The Girl you mortgaged your hat too as you come in was the Czarina’s
+principal Lady in waiting”; also related to the family. The bus boy--he
+is the fellow they use so the waiter will have somebody to lay the
+blame on--was a Duke, and he would have been Grand if the thing had
+lasted. In fact you are in a nest of royal relatives. Telephone girls
+were Princesses, Taxi drivers used to be Dukes--all, as I say, related
+to the Czar._
+
+_Any man with that many kinfolks, no wonder something happened to
+him. I bet if the truth was found out, he organized his own death
+personally. If I had some of the kinfolks he was supposed to have had,
+I would have hired assassins to exterminate me very early in life. They
+tell of one fellow that was very, very near the Czar--perhaps a twin.
+Well, he is selling Peanuts on the street. We tried to find him, not
+because I was interested in his case, but I wanted some Peanuts. I have
+yet to hear of one that was doing well. Yet they bother you for hours,
+telling you how polished and highly educated and cultured they were.
+They seem to know what temperature to drink their wine at, but most of
+them don’t know how to make a dollar to buy the wine._
+
+_Now if that is all any of them can do, how was it they thought they
+could run a tremendous country like Russia? A fellow will seek his
+level, I don’t care where you are. If opening Taxi doors in front of
+Vodka Joints and helping a waiter break dishes is as high as their
+ability will carry them in eight years, it shows they should have been
+doing that all the time. All those good years they had in Russia was
+not due to any of their own efforts._
+
+_If the present Republican régime was thrown over, and were all
+banished from the District of Columbia, none are going to open any
+Taxicab doors for anybody but themselves. They might not get into
+anything as big as the White House or Czar’s Palace, but they will have
+one big enough that the help problem will bother. Even the Congressmen
+may not be able to plant their own Gardens with Government seed and
+mail letters for nothing. Yet you won’t see any of them have to resort
+to peddling goobers on anybody’s street. They can even pull the Cabinet
+Chairs out from under that band of accomplices who plot against us once
+a week; they will hit the floor, but they will come back up out of it
+with nothing hurt but their political pride. They can always dig up
+enough for the next Campaign fund._
+
+_Of course, at times they may wish, like the deposed Russian Noblemen,
+for the old régime back, and mull over the good old days when they used
+to sit around the old White House hearth and laughingly discuss the
+League of Nations and Philippine Independence; but they will always be
+able to seek their level. Revolution, in the way of Democrats uprising
+and buying enough votes to depose us, might be sorter disconcerting
+for the time being; but they never would have to worry about where
+those Flapjacks and Maple sirup was coming from._
+
+_Now, I may be hard-hearted, but I just couldent seem to work myself
+up into any great frenzy of tears over the old Dukes and Princesses.
+They carry a lot of long, high-sounding names, but mighty little
+sympathy. They can converse in a lot of languages, but they’re not
+strong on making a living in any of them. They have spent a lifetime
+trying to learn how to dance in a Ballroom, but they have never learned
+it good enough to get paid for it. The old American is there with
+the uncouthness, but he never comes in on a pass. His rudeness is
+unintentional and not studied._
+
+_I bet you if I had met a Russian in Paris and he had said, “I was
+a poor Peasant in Russia before the War; I never had anything in my
+life; I always had to work very hard; I never in all my life even saw
+the Czar; I had no culture, either then or now, no refinement, no
+education; I was just struggling along”--say, I could have taken that
+kind of a Russian out in Paris and told them about him and collected
+him a million Francs. People would have gone crazy over him, he would
+have been such a novelty. Of course there is no such one. If there
+was, he is perhaps President of a Bank in Paris, or else he is perhaps
+Premier a day or so every once in a while. No, Sir; the poor ability of
+many of the Russians that come out of there has really been more of a
+boost for the Revolution than any other one thing._
+
+_Well, when I saw they were not going to quit writing about Russia,
+why, I am going to get busy and write the most novel thing on Russia
+that was ever written. I have had a research made, and there has never
+been a book on Russia that tells you what I am going to tell you, and
+there has been more ink wasted on Russia and Prohibition than any other
+two subjects in the world, both equally unsettleable._
+
+_Now here is the novelty and truth of my Book on Russia:_
+
+_I am the only person that ever wrote on Russia that admits he don’t
+know a thing about it._
+
+_And on the other hand, I know just as much about Russia as anybody
+that ever wrote about it._
+
+_Nobody knows anything about Russia._
+
+_I have read dozens of books and hundreds of Articles by various
+people, such as “The Real Russia, by one who spent five years in a
+Moscow jail”; “My ten years banishment in Siberia, by a real Russian”;
+“The Heart of Russia”; “Russia as I know it, by a House Detective”; and
+millions of others. Now how is anybody going to find anything out about
+Russia by spending five years in a Moscow jail? Or ten years in Siberia
+wouldent give you any too good a line on the financial or economic
+future of the Empire._
+
+_Now just stop and think a minute. Suppose somebody come to you
+tomorrow and said, “Tell us about America.” Now how could you tell ’em
+about America, in an Article, a Book, or a dozen volumes, or a thousand
+volumes? It’s too big; nobody could tell about it. Suppose somebody
+tried to write on The Heart of America. Why, Lord, we can’t even keep
+track of the toe of Maine or the heel of California, much less the
+heart! Now if nobody could write a composite Article on America, how
+are they going to do it on Russia, a country that is so much bigger
+than us that we would rattle around in it like an idea in Congress?_
+
+_I have even read all I could find that Lenin and Trotzky said about
+Russia, and it don’t give me any better idea than Mutt and Jeff._
+
+_Just get this size and composition of Russia and her people and see
+how anybody could tell you anything about Russia: It’s the largest
+continuous domain in the World; it covers nearly one-sixth of the
+total surface of the earth; there is over one hundred different
+Nationalities live inside the Soviet Union. Get the statistics of these
+nationalities; it reads like a New York Telephone Directory--70,000,000
+great Russians; 3,000,000 Jews in the western part of the Union;
+1,000,000 Germans on the Volga; 500,000 Greeks along the northern
+coast of the Black Sea; Moldavians, Bessarabians, Georgians; 500,000
+Armenians; 1,000,000 Persians; Ossentines, Ingushes, Circassians,
+Abkhasians, Checkenians. Why, there is 5,000,000 Tartars! Boy, what a
+sauce that is alone! And eighty other races that even the census man
+hasent got to yet._
+
+_Talk about the Lost Tribe of Israel! Say, they could have been in
+Russia all this time and never be lost at all, and still nobody would
+have found them._
+
+_Now scramble all that together and let somebody think they can
+diagnose it. Russia is the boarding-house hash of Nations. Hash, Russia
+and flivvers are three things nobody has ever been able to catalogue
+the contents._
+
+_Trying to tell what Russia is is like trying to tell the difference
+between a Conservative Republican and a Progressive Democrat. If you
+are a visiting Communist, or have Communistic leanings, why, naturally
+you will write of it from their accomplishment point of view, and are
+liable to--accidentally--leave out any little defects you might have
+seen._
+
+_Then on the other hand, if you are not the least bit in sympathy with
+any part of their program, why, you naturally are not liable to let
+yourself see anything that has any merit in it. So, if you are looking
+for me to solve the Russian Problem, you are not going to get it done.
+Now a Congressman could do it in twenty minutes and a Senator in ten,
+but it stuck me. But I tell you what I am going to do--I am just going
+to be like a prisoner at the bar when some wise, old good-natured Judge
+who wants to get the facts asks, “Will you please tell the Court in
+your own way and your own language just what happened on the entire
+night of June the twelfth?” Now that’s what I am going to do. I am just
+going to tell you everything I saw and what happened here in Russia in
+the last few weeks._
+
+
+
+
+                 _THERE’S NOT A BATHING SUIT IN RUSSIA_
+
+
+
+
+                                   I
+
+
+I was passing through Paris and looking for a good show and somebody
+suggested the House of Deputies. It’s a Satire on our Congress, so
+that will set you laughing right there. It was the best thing I ever
+saw in Europe in the way of entertainment. A man on one Party was
+trying to make a speech and the Socialists and the Labor Members on
+the other--who were in the minority, but they sure wasent when it come
+to making noise. This old Boy had no more chance of being heard than a
+Republican vote has being counted in a Tammany election.
+
+They would get up and run at each other and shake their fists. You
+would think the whole thing would be murder. But they don’t really
+fight any oftener than Dempsey. I could take this same troupe to
+America and rent the Hippodrome and I can get them enough money to pay
+their debts. New York would go crazy over a show like that. Over home
+we couldent understand how people could be so mad at each other and
+even live in the same country.
+
+This last fellow, Poincaré, had the right idea. The minute they put
+him in he made a motion that the Chamber adjourn for the rest of the
+summer. So they couldent throw him out till they met again. That
+assured him of a few weeks Steady work. After I come out of this
+show, I had a date to eat Dinner with Morris Gest, the Miracle Man
+and organizer of the late Russian invasion to America. Morris is just
+soaked full of Art, and I wanted to see at close range just how a
+real artistic temperament acted. I like Morris with or without Art;
+everybody likes Morris.
+
+I have known him since away back in the old Hammerstein’s Victoria,
+which had nothing to do with Art--it was entertainment. He had just
+come out of Russia--he and Ashton Stevens, of Chicago, the only
+Dramatic Critic that ever learned William Randolph Hearst to play the
+Banjo. They had been in looking over this year’s Art crop and they
+claimed it looked like a bumper year. Balieff--you all knowed Balieff,
+the best bald-headed Comedian that ever stepped out from behind plush
+curtains. You have laughed and admired his artistic show for years, the
+Chauv Surrey, or Sworee, or something like that. He is a real Artist,
+this Balieff.
+
+Well, we went to one of those Russian layouts that have littered up
+Paris. Everywhere there used to be a coal cellar there is a Russian
+Restaurant now. They asked me if I had ever had a taste of Vodka, and
+they poured out a little small glass of what I thought was water. It
+was the most innocent-looking thing I ever saw.
+
+Then all said just drink it all down at one swig; nobody can sip Vodka.
+Well, I had no idea what the stuff was, and for a second I thought
+somebody had loaded me up with molten lead, and I hollered for water.
+
+Now over in Europe the water is in quart bottles, and here was this
+Vodka in another quart bottle, and it looks exactly like water; and
+this Clown Balieff, thinking quick, immediately grabbed the Vodka and
+loaded up the glass again; and me thinking it was the water, and my
+throat a-burning, why, I gulped it down quick, and here I was just
+twice as bad off as I had been. If I could have seen which one to hit
+I would have swung on him, but they already were blurred. Lord, what
+quick results that stuff delivers!
+
+I asked, “Where do they get this white Iodine?” They informed me then
+that that was Russia’s national dissipation. Why, that old white corn
+down South would be branch water compared to this stuff. Jack Brandy
+and White Mule would be used as a chaser where this stuff come from.
+How they can concentrate so much insensibility into one prescription
+is almost a chemical wonder. This Balieff, the native of that land of
+boots and blood, then related to me the recipe, which reads as follows:
+
+One half bushel of old Potato peelings; fourteen ears of Russian corn,
+or maise, Cob and stalk included; four top and soles of worn Russian
+boots; five grams of Giant Powder; three Bombs chopped up fine. Mix all
+this in a washtub full of Vulgar River water, add two Revolutions and
+serve.
+
+[Illustration: I thought somebody had loaded me up with molten lead.]
+
+Well, I will tell you how these two accidental shots acted on me. We
+dident know where to go, and Gest suggested that we go up to the Opera;
+that it was Mary Garden’s last night singing there. Well, it was too
+late. They had been turning people away since the day before. But you
+can’t stick Morry, so we waited till the time the show was over and we
+went into Mary’s dressing room. Her and Morry and all these others were
+great friends. I had never had the pleasure of meeting her, but she
+had been responsible for me going on the Concert tour; for she ribbed
+Charley Wagner up to it, as they were old Pals. So when I come in with
+them, Mary rushed right over and threw her arms around me and kissed
+me, and to show you how this Vodka was working, I wouldent push her
+away; in fact I dident even get mad at her. ’Course, there is not much
+use going on with the story. About the only moral I can get out of it
+is, take two swigs of Vodka and then start hunting Mary Garden.
+
+Well, that begin to give me a whole lot of encouragement. I had never
+been able to get near Mary Garden before. So I started in by asking,
+“Where is this country that can manafacture such explosives in liquid
+form? Mebbe they got something that goes with it. Any Nation that’s
+ingenious can’t be confined to one good idea.”
+
+They said, “It’s Russia, Bud; it’s Russia.”
+
+Now if there is one thing that is a worry to us, it is too much
+drinking going on over home. I thought up to this that we had the world
+beat on the collecting of unique articles and scrambling them together
+and selling the combination under the nom de plume of a livable
+beverage. But if I can get this Vodka stuff, I will be able to cut the
+drinking down one-half and mebbe three-fourths. One tiny sip of this
+Vodka poison and it will do the same amount of material damage to mind
+and body that an American strives for for hours.
+
+I am--and I think every prohibitionist is--for anything that will cut
+our drinking down and get it over with as soon as possible. If we must
+sin, let’s sin quick and don’t let it be a long, lingering sinning. So
+I asked them, “Where do you get a Veesay to this Utopia?”
+
+Now that is the whole story to Vodka. The recipe I have is only
+problematical. Nobody in the world knows what it is made out of, and
+the reason I tell you this is that the story of Vodka is the story of
+Russia. Nobody knows what Russia is made out of, or what it is liable
+to cause its inhabitants to do next.
+
+Well, I sure did want to go somewhere where I wouldent be continually
+reminded that “On the right you will see the Fountains of Versailles”;
+or “That is the Houses of Parliament, where all the laws of England are
+made”; or “That is the dome of St. Peter’s.”
+
+I asked Morry Gest, “Do they have rubber neck wagons up there?” He
+answered in the negative. I think it’s negative when you say no, ain’t
+it?
+
+Ashton Stevens then pulled the best Gag of the entire tour: “You know,
+Will, you are just about the poorest dressed Actor I know; in fact that
+assertion takes in people that are not Actors. Well, as bad as you look
+when and if you get to Russia, for once in your life you will be the
+best dressed man in the biggest country in the world.”
+
+Well, I went right over to London and made application for one of
+those famous Veesays. Russia has an Embassy in London; it’s a kind
+of an unofficial one. They recognize Russia just enough to sell
+’em something. It’s a sorter “You can stay as long as we are doing
+business, but socially we have lost your address.” In other words, they
+hate ’em at heart but love ’em financially.
+
+It’s pretty hard to get into Russia. Your application has to be sent
+to Moscow and be approved or rejected. I had a nice chat with the
+fellow who put in my application and then hopped out for Geneva to see
+the Preliminary Disarmament Conference. It had been then going a few
+days and I figured that everybody’s Navy would be scrapped; that the
+Airships would be beat into windmills, poison gases would be turned
+into fertalizing Nitrates, and that every Army would be released to
+join Jazz bands.
+
+They are still over there, and they all have to be personally armed
+before they will go in and confer with each other. Again I ask, will
+we please stop anybody going anywhere to confer with anybody unless
+it’s his Doctor? And then he is just losing time. The only time we ever
+attract any attention at a conference is when we don’t go. There has
+been more talk about us and the League of Nations through being out of
+it than there ever would have been in the World if we were in it. You
+know yourself that you have gone to a lot of things that afterwards you
+had wished you hadent gone too. Nobody can ever get in wrong by not
+attending anything. But every time you go you take a chance either of
+getting in wrong or being misunderstood.
+
+Well, after prowling around Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France and
+all of them, Mary Garden come into my mind again; and naturally that
+brought up Vodka, for if it hadent been for that Vodka I would never
+known what Mary Garden perfume smelled like on the original. So I wires
+over to London to see what has happened to the application for the
+Veesay. They wire back collect that it is laying right there and that
+all I have to do is to come and get it and start getting in Russia.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+
+Well, I fly back over to London. By this time I have done so much
+flying that if I was in the Army I would be like Colonel Mitchell. I
+would be thrown out for not staying on the ground more. When I got to
+the Embassy there was a bunch of about ten young American Bolsheviki’s
+signing up their passports. They had come from various colleges over
+home and were going to Russia by boat; a couple of girls among them,
+and two gentlemen who’s ancestors come from below the Mason and Dixon
+Line. So if you hear of your washwoman or cook advocating: “Is I am a
+communist? I ain’t nothing else but. I believes in everything dividing
+up. Says which?” Well, you will then realize that communism has
+penetrated the black belt.
+
+These two boys may turn out to be the Lenin and Trotzky of Birmingham.
+They will have every Crap shooter on Octavus Roy Cohen’s beat sharing
+his winnings with the losers. We may see the time when your Gin will be
+everybody’s gin. They were going up by boat. I don’t want any more boat
+than is absolutely necessary at any time. So I was going in by Airship.
+I had been aviating so much around Europe that to go anywhere on a
+train seems too much like walking to me.
+
+I left London one morning about 9:30. Flew over some of the prettiest
+country before striking out across the Channel. Looked over the edge of
+the plane all the way across the Channel, watching crowds of American
+Women swimming it. One old Lady was a great Grandmother and she had
+three generations of daughters swimming it with her. You could see
+crowds of men standing on the shore waiting for a smooth sea to cross
+it in a boat.
+
+One woman of Irish and Jewish parentage, but who had become a
+naturalized American last year, was swimming over and back without
+touching. Another American woman of Peruvian parentage on both her
+Father and Mother’s side was training on the shore at Dover at Pole
+vaulting--she was going to jump the Channel. There was two or three
+Ladies of recent American Citizenship who were on the plane with us;
+but we come down when we reached the beach and their husbands made
+them get out and swim across--told them they would meet them on the
+other side. One of the Ladies said she couldent do that; she had tried
+it before and dident make it, and she knew that she couldent do it.
+She was right away accused of being masculine, when in reality it was
+discovered that she was an offspring of generations of pure American
+stock.
+
+The funniest sight of all I saw looking over that day was one old lady
+swimming in and towing her husband over on her back. There was one
+traffic cop out in the middle--well, what you would call a copess. She
+was just treading water and playing around out there, directing the
+other swimmers. Every few days somebody would row out and leave her
+some provisions. She was of Eskimo parentage, but when we took over
+Alaska she was in that deal and become an American.
+
+The English customs authorities have to be very careful. When the
+first American contingent came to land--Miss Ederle--they held her for
+an hour till they could go through every pocket of her bathing suit,
+looking for Cigars, Cigarettes, Spiritious liquors and perfumes. A
+girl the other day got away pretty lucky. When she got about a mile
+from shore she dropped the smuggled goods and then swam back out there
+the next day and dived down and got them. The English authorities are
+pretty particular that way; it’s hard for swimmers to smuggle in much.
+One woman did get over with a safe. She had it hid in her bathing cap.
+
+[Illustration: One woman did get over with a safe, she had it hid in
+her bathing cap.]
+
+This swimming has not only called for a new definition in the
+Dictionary describing which is the weaker sex but it has brought on a
+great deal more than that. It has demonstrated just how close together
+England and France are, and that’s what’s hurting them. Neither one of
+them wants to be close to each other. If we could have given some
+kind of demonstration that would have proved that they were really
+further apart in mileage than they are, why, both Nations would have
+hailed it as a God-given discovery. But this bringing them closer
+together has got them more sore at America than ever. We can do more
+things that get us in wrong unintentionally than any Nation in the
+world. So it looks like the next war between France and England will
+be fought in bathing suits. The way women are showing up men swimmers,
+it’s not monkey glands men need, but fish glands.
+
+Well, after we had waved good-by to the swimmers, why, we turned up
+along the coast of France and Belgium and landed at Ostend. That’s
+a regular junction point of Airships. They hollered: “Change planes
+for Cologne, Vienna, Paris, Constantinople and all points south! This
+plane goes to Rotterdam, Amsterdam. Change there for Berlin, Warsaw
+and Copenhagen.” It reminded me of the old Frisco depot in Monett,
+Missouri, when we used to pull in there after shipping cattle to St.
+Louis to Strahorn, Hutton and Evans. You remember the train splits
+three ways. One goes to Kansas, one to Arkansas; and the same one goes
+right on down through Oklahoma, to Claremore, the principal stop.
+
+Well, there at Ostend they had--and do at all these airship places--a
+regular little Harvey eating house, where you can go in and wrestle
+with the food and the language. Planes was dropping and going out from
+everywheres. We had about twenty minutes, and I crawled back in this
+old Aerial Barge of ours and we breezed along on up the coast. It was
+mighty inspiring. We passed The Hague, looked over and saw the old
+Peace Palace, where they were going to meet to stop all wars. It’s
+turned into an ammunition factory and Army drill hall.
+
+Flying over Holland in an Airship is the only real way to see it,
+’cause if you are down on the level--and if you are in Holland you will
+be standing on the level--Holland’s highest point is eight feet six and
+a third inches above sea level. That is called the mountain region
+of Holland, that’s where they do their skiing and winter sports. Mind
+you, it’s the prettiest little country you ever saw in your life. Just
+look down and see those hundreds of canals and boats going along all of
+them. Your farm is not fenced off from your neighbor’s; there is just a
+canal between you and him. You either visit by boat or holler over. If
+your next-farm neighbor starts to walk over to you some night, he may
+get there, but he will arrive wet. There is no road-contracting graft
+in Holland, no road commissions. All roads come under the heading of
+Harbor and Dock Commissions. If there is a flivver in Holland, it has
+oars on it instead of wheels.
+
+[Illustration: That is called the mountain region of Holland.]
+
+She sure is a pretty dairying Country. Those old big black cows with
+a white bandage around their stomachs don’t seem to mind at all. You
+don’t have to brand your cattle and your herd will never get mixed up
+with your neighbor’s unless they develop web feet or grow a rudder in
+place of a tail.
+
+That windmill Gag that every Artist always pictures with Holland has
+been kinder exaggerated. Higgins, Texas, has got more Windmills than
+all Holland, and what I did see looked like they were sorter tired out;
+they wasent doing much; they just seemed to be like a lot of things all
+over Europe--they was just trying to get by on tradition. They wasent
+what I could call turning out 100 per cent production. I had always
+thought they were located by a little white house. Say, there is not
+a little white house in Holland. There’s not even a Big white house
+there. It’s the only country in the world where there is absolutely
+only one color, and a paint man would starve to death trying to sell
+any other. It’s a kind of red, or a dark bay. So don’t you believe
+Pictures any more. What makes everything look white is because it is so
+clean and neat and nice.
+
+Looked for the old Kaiser out in the yard chopping wood some place,
+but everybody was burning coal that I could see. Guess the old Boy was
+setting in the house, brooding over making the wrong jump out of the
+King row.
+
+Amsterdam was the next stop--changed planes for Berlin. Everybody got
+out and had a few Sandwiches and a couple of steins of Holland Gin.
+Into a German plane and out over Germany. Say, they was farming too.
+Little long strips of land laid out instead of having it all in one
+big field. They do that so they can rotate the crops on the different
+pieces. Forests, the most beautiful forests, all out in rows. Every
+time they cut down a tree it looks like they planted two in its place.
+Every time we cut one down, the fellow that cuts it down sets down to
+have a smoke and celebrate. He throws his cigarette away and burns up
+the rest of the forest.
+
+We hit Berlin at 5:30 that afternoon. Just think! Left London at 9:30,
+had these stops, seen all these wonderful countries and was clear over
+in Berlin in time for a drive around the city and dinner. I was going
+to stop in Berlin on my way back out of Russia, so at two o’clock in
+the morning, or night, I left for Russia. You go to By Königsberg.
+Well, I had been in planes in the daytime, but driving away out there
+in a taxi alone and crawling into an airship in the night-time is no
+particular relief to a Comedian. This was a big German Junker. Not only
+had two engines and two propellers but three, one big one in front and
+two others as assistants.
+
+Well, when a German outfit say they are going to leave at two o’clock,
+don’t you get there at one minute past two. If you do, you will just
+hear the propeller buzzing around up in the air. She was dark as we
+left. We had about twelve on board. She gets light pretty quick and
+early up there; and seeing the lights down the streets as we flew
+over the city and out across country, day soon begin to break and the
+fog and clouds in the low places made you think every minute you were
+flying right out over the ocean, and these clouds looked like big
+waves. There was a regular light line miles apart that was a big light
+revolving with different colors and no matter how dark, the pilot could
+see where he was going.
+
+But she was light within less than a hour. They had a wireless or
+radio on there, getting weather conditions ahead of them. We got into
+Königsberg about eight o’clock, went in and had breakfast and come out,
+and there was a German Fokker. It was the one we were to make the long
+hop from there to Moscow in. It was piloted by the funniest looking old
+chuckleheaded, shave-haired Russian boy that dident look like he was
+over twenty. But say, Bub, that clown could sure rein that thing around
+and make it say Uncle and play dead and roll over. He was an Aviator.
+
+It dident do my nerve any good when they pointed our plane out to me,
+for it had only one engine. You know, there is some confidence attached
+when you know there is a sort of bevy of engines, and if one goes
+wrong, why, some of the others will keep percolating. But I looked at
+this one and thought: “Sister, if you stop on us, we are just smeared
+over the landscape of Western Russia.”
+
+A single Engine looks awful scarce after just emerging from one of
+those Pullman-looking layouts. She looked to me like she was naked.
+
+Now a while ago I said that was the plane that we were going to Russia
+in. I was mistaken--that was the plane that I was going to Russia in,
+for I constituted Russia’s sole aerial immigration that day. Well, in
+one way, I am generous. If I am going to drop, I don’t want to have the
+pleasure all to myself; I want to share it with somebody. You never
+want company till danger comes--then you like to look around and see
+that somebody is sorter with you.
+
+The plane really could seat about five passengers. There was just room
+for one, the Pilot, out in front; and the Mechanic was in the sort of a
+compartment with me. As I got in I commenced to think of all the jokes
+I had told about Russia. And then I remembered that people had remarked
+to me they dident know why I had been given a passport into Russia,
+when it was so hard to get one. Well, come to think of it, I dident
+either. Then I thought, “Mebbe they know about some of the jokes and
+this Aerial Cossack is about heading right off to Siberia with me.” I
+commenced to think what kind of an act I could do for my fellow exiles
+away off up there. I dident know a word of Russian, and this lad in
+the compartment with me, or the Pilot either, dident know a word of
+American--not even English.
+
+This littlier plane seemed mighty small and jumpy to me. But this old
+Russian boy pulled the slack out of his reins, kinder clucked to her,
+and I want to tell you she left there right now.
+
+We headed off for what the ticket said was to be Russia, but he could
+have been going toward South Africa as far as I could tell anything
+about it.
+
+Now this is 8:30 in the morning, and--barring accidents--this same
+old wash boiler is scheduled to breeze into Moscow at 6:30 that same
+afternoon, with only one stop, and that was to be at Smolensk. I could
+tell the way he started out that no matter where he might be headed
+for, he was certainly going to do no loitering up in that air. He just
+give her her head, and dident seem to pull up for rivers, Railroad
+crossings or mountains. Sitting in there kinder give me time to think
+things over, or, as the novelist calls it, soliquizing: Just why was a
+bonehead like me breezing off into Russia, or off into anywhere else?
+What was the matter with the Verdigris bottoms down in old Rogers
+County, Oklahoma? Why, there I used to be scared to climb up as high as
+the barn loft unless they was a load of hay being pitched in. I could
+understand a man flying out of Russia, but not in there.
+
+Well, we are just vaulting from cloud to cloud and the Country is
+looking mighty nice down below, but not good enough to fall on. I
+dident know where this Smolensk was, or what time we was supposed to
+get there. You know, I think that what worried me more than anything
+else was being somewhere and not being able to talk to anybody. I
+wouldent have minded having a wreck if I could just have asked him on
+the way down “How fast are we falling?” or any little casual remark,
+just so he would have got it. It wasent the height as much as it was
+keeping my mouth shut a whole day.
+
+Then I dident know whether I would be any better off for talk after
+I did land there. You know, the thing that impressed me more away
+up there, away over in Russia, was this: Here I am, for no apparent
+reason, able to fly from London, England, to Moscow, Russia, in two
+days, part of it over a country that we laugh at and look on as
+backward and primitive; and here we have hundreds of business men in
+Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Talala, and
+hundreds of Cities like those that want to get somewhere, mebbe on
+account of illness, or thousands of other reasons, and the best they
+can get there is just like their forefathers got two generations before
+them. We do more talking progress than we do progressing.
+
+You should jump into an Airship in New York in the morning, go to a
+show in Denver that night and on to Los Angeles, with enough daylight
+to spare, the second day to see Mary Pickford’s home, buy a lot and
+cuss the climate before bedtime. Just think of being in something that
+would go by Chicago without having to stay over all day and change
+depots. Look at the lives it would save there, passing over where
+nobody could shoot you.
+
+No, sir, air is the thing--get people used to getting up into it. The
+next war is going to be all in the air. Nobody ain’t going to hand you
+a pair of putties and a Helmet in the next war. They are going to slip
+a throttle of an airship into your hands and say, “Go aloft and see if
+you are lucky enough to come down of your own accord or will somebody
+have to bring you down.” It will be as big a disgrace ten years from
+now not to know how to run an airship as it is now not to know how to
+run a flivver. The day of the old General on the gray horse, standing
+up on a little mound, waving his sword telling the other boys where to
+go--that’s museum stuff. In the next war the guy that can grab him a
+single-seater and go up and lay behind a cloud and tell the boys where
+to go is the real coming general.
+
+There will be a great change of public statues in a few years. The
+fellow standing there with an old Musket will have to share honor with
+the statue swung down from the clouds on wires, representing a fellow
+shooting through his propeller with a machine gun.
+
+And I am mighty glad that Henry Ford took it up. Now you know that Ford
+wouldent leave the ground and take to the air unless things looked
+pretty good to him up there. What Borah is to Politics and fantastical
+things like that, why, Ford is to practical business needs. So keep one
+eye on that old Boy. He knows more than what a Ford car is made out of.
+I knew he had gone about as far as he could go on the ground unless you
+breed more people.
+
+So if either party want an issue that you won’t have to be ashamed
+of, or stand astraddle of, why, shout Airships--commercial, Private,
+Government, Army, Navy; and even the air department can do with another
+one. Listen and America won’t have to sit all day in a day coach to get
+a hundred miles. And say, these trips over here cost you just about
+what they would by first-class fare on the trains when you consider
+sleepers and all. It’s not expensive traveling.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+
+Well, I must get back up in the air again and quit monkeying my time
+away trying to advise. We are flying along, and all at once I feel the
+old Overland stage a-kinder doing like she was circling. I couldent
+imagine what that was for. I dident know we had to fly around any
+corners or sharp turns in going from one place to another, unless they
+was fixing the road and he had to detour. Then I felt her nose heading
+down like a bronc when he starts to swallow his head.
+
+I looked out to see if there was going to be a traffic accident or what
+we was dodging, and below was a little town along a river. He kept
+circling and getting lower, and there I could see right under us then
+an aviation field. You could see other planes down there. Well, the
+main thing you got to watch in an Aviator is how he gets down. All of
+them have got up, but few can get down right. This bird could have lit
+on an egg and never broke it. We skimmed along like a flat rock on the
+water and he brought her up short and nice like a real hand reins a
+good horse.
+
+We piled out and I noticed these old Hombres getting out their
+passports and I started reaching for mine. That’s the one thing you
+want to carry in your hand anywhere in Europe. It might be a forged one
+and no good, but they just seem to get a pleasure out of having you
+dig for it. Well, the officer that took it started in yapping about
+something, and I told him he was fooling away his time and wasting some
+kind of mighty good language on me; that I dident even know what the
+language was, much less the words; that I spoke only English, and that
+up to only two syllables. He went off and dug up another one that knew
+a little of it. There was a lot of Soldiers and a lot of activity there.
+
+This new one said to me, “You have no Veesay.” In other words, I dident
+have an O.K. on my passport.
+
+Well, that sho threw a scare into me. Here I have come all the way here
+and gone to all that trouble, and now there is something the matter
+with it. I grabbed at it and showed him what damage the Russians had
+done to it in London for quite a few dollars.
+
+“Yes, Russia; but no Lithuania.”
+
+“Lithuania? Lithuania? Why, I never even heard of it, much less getting
+a passport to it! Where is it? Where are we anyway? I thought I was
+going to Russia.”
+
+[Illustration: Lithuania? Why, I never even heard of it.]
+
+Well, they soon made it known to me that I had better have done some
+studying on Geography since the Versailles Peace Conference--that
+really wasent a Peace Conference; it was just a map remodeling. Say,
+but I want to tell you they had them a Country, all right, from the
+looks of all the officers running around there. I saw one of them
+kinder looking out toward his little army and getting them ready to
+call into action. At first when I saw them around there I thought they
+were making a Picture; it looked just like Hollywood. I soon found it
+was on the level.
+
+“You should have Veesay.” I had to tell them that I dident even know I
+was flying over their country much less landing in it. It seems that
+this was not a regular stop; this Aviator has had to come down for
+something. They called a general war conference to see what to do with
+this American who had dropped in on them without a calling card. They
+then decided to phone down to the town, which was Kovno, and is the
+Capital.
+
+Well, down in town they called the House of Parliament or Congress
+together to devise ways and means to deal with such an unusual case. So
+instead of phoning back, why, they sent a soldier back on a Bicycle. It
+was quite a ways out of town. He had the news that I was to buy $3.50.
+I gave them a Russian ten-ruble piece--that’s about five dollars in
+our money. A ruble is worth fifty cents in Russia and about two cents
+outside of there. They wasent any too anxious to take it, but they did,
+and went off for change, when I told them that that was all right; just
+keep the change and let the Army have a drink on me.
+
+If I had just thought and told them I was a friend of President
+Wilson’s, I would have got by, because he is the one that laid all
+these countries out. It was one of those Self-Determination of small
+Nations. No man ever lived that had more noble ideas than Mr. Wilson,
+and any time a committee would come to him with ten names signed on an
+application, and tell him that they wanted a Country, why, he would
+give them one. If they dident know exactly where they wanted it, and
+couldent decide, why, the League would give it to them off of Russia.
+Different little Nations gnawed so much off the edge of Russia that on
+the map it looks like a piece of pie that somebody with every other
+tooth out has bit into. Right up above them is another troop called
+the Lats, of Latvia, then several others. They are all pretty fine
+little Nations. But it’s a pretty tough struggle to get a new Country
+started, though they are all making a pretty good fight. This one had
+a mighty nifty-looking little army. All had on nice neat uniforms,
+and the Officers looked great. Made the Red Army in Russia look like a
+burlesque for appearance. So I am going to send the League of Nations a
+bill for $3.50 for finding one of their Countries for them.
+
+Say, here is a little inside Diplomatic stuff too. There was a French
+plane up there among them, and this Frenchman was showing them how to
+do it.
+
+Well, I gathered up my two Russians and we hooked up the traces,
+clucked to the old Fokker and we was off somewhere else--I dident know
+where. But I warned them in my best pantomime not to be hunting around
+for any other new Countries, but to find Russia. If it wasent big
+enough to find, why, we better go down and borrow a map.
+
+Well, all this delay had kinder set us back in time, and this old
+Bolsheviki Boy just looked like he took a string and tied his gas
+throttle right down to the floor. She was wide open, and we started in
+hunting Russia. The clip we was going at I knew we couldent land in any
+little Country. We was going so fast we would have gone plumb through
+it before we could have come down to earth. So I knew then it must be
+Russia, for it was the only country in the world that could furnish
+that much ground to whiz over. All I was scared about was that we would
+wind up at Vladivostok or in Japan.
+
+Now in going into Russia I think I am just like the majority of
+people--we don’t know or have any idea what it is like. My one
+impression of Russia is a sleigh going through a forest, with deep snow
+on the ground, pulled by a horse with a big high Yoke up over his neck
+and the wolves jumping up biting at the horse’s throat, and some others
+trying to devour the inmates of the sleigh. Now that is the picture
+that I have had uppermost in my mind of Russia all my life, and I bet a
+lot of you have the same. We always associate that picture with Russia,
+just like we always associate the Delaware River with the picture of
+Washington standing up in the middle of the boat, with the ice all
+around, not rowing himself but telling the other boys which way to
+row. He was a natural Commander. I have often wondered what he would
+have been doing if they had had to swim the river.
+
+So, after thinking of that picture and the wolves, I believe that is
+why I took the airplane in there. I felt pretty safe up there from the
+wolves. The way we was going, any old wolf would sure have had trouble
+jumping up and snapping at us. If he had ever jumped up at us, he would
+have hit the fellow in the plane on the same route next day.
+
+We was flying nice and low and you could see all the people out in
+the fields working--well, not exactly all the people, but the ones
+that were women. Then every time we would pass over a little town or
+village you would see a kind of a market place, and all the men would
+be gathered; or you would see them driving in or out of town in little
+wagons with one horse.
+
+I think the men are pretty good that way in Russia. They make mighty
+good husbands. If the wives raise anything, why, the Husbands are
+perfectly willing to take it to town and sell it.
+
+[Illustration: My one impression of Russia.]
+
+It’s not a bad arrangement, at that. You know a lot of these countries
+have got things that I would like to see put in over in Cuckooland.
+If women can go out and swim all the Channels they can find, why,
+they certainly ought to be able to pitch some hay. So I can’t think
+of a better arrangement than these Russians have for all parties
+concerned--that is, as long as the wife raises something. The women in
+Russia cultivate the land and the men cultivate their whiskers. The men
+are the best farmers--they have never been known to have a bad whisker
+crop. No such thing as a failure. When in doubt, raise whiskers.
+
+All the western part of Russia is level, with slight rolling hills.
+Very few farmhouses are off to themselves; they are in sorter a little
+bunch. The houses are low, built of logs, and have straw-covered roofs.
+The houses and the stables are all built into one, generally in a
+square shape. It’s a beautiful country to look at. And grass? Oh, Boy,
+I just thought if some of my old Western ranchmen could see all that
+big fine grass going to waste--millions of acres and very little stock
+on it, with plenty of water. There was quite a few herds of goats, a
+good many horses, and cattle, mostly milk stock. Everything fat and fine.
+
+And here is one thing I want to tell you too before I forget it:
+Even in Moscow, where the old fellow that is driving his Droshky--or
+whatever it is they call those old kind of one-horse-buggy things--may
+look like he hadent had anything to eat in a week, but I tell you his
+horse is sure fat. They got the fattest, best-looking horses there I
+ever saw--never saw a poor one.
+
+One of the only mysterious occurrences of the trip happened just before
+we got into this Smolensk. This Mechanic in there with me pulled the
+curtains tight over the windows on both sides and I couldent see out.
+Then I felt the plane turning and knew we were landing. He left me
+sitting there looking at myself till we were entirely stopped. There
+was nothing to see after I got on the ground. There was some kind of
+military operations going on around there, as they are always arguing
+with Poland and this is near the line. They think France is backing
+Poland. Every nation in Europe goes to bed with a gun under its head.
+
+Well, whatever they were trying to keep from me, they kept it. I went
+into a neat little eating place there and got my first crack at some
+Russian Tea. They serve it in big high glasses like Lemonade; no cream,
+but they use Sugar. It’s mighty good, and after I tried their coffee
+I went right back on this ration of Tea. I had these old Russian boys
+come in and eat with me, and we made a lot of signs and had a lot of
+fun, loaded up with gas. It’s along in the afternoon now, and this old
+Russian Casey Jones grabbed his throttle and this other old Nester kept
+his blinds pulled till we were away out of town. We are breezing along
+and I feel him kinder tack off to one side and I peep out and I see a
+big black cloud ahead. Well, sir, he went over to the right to try to
+take roundance on the thing. Then he decided to go under it; then he
+changed his mind and went over it. Of all the dodging and twisting and
+ducking that he did, and I want to relate to you that he sho did keep
+out of it. I wouldent be afraid to meet a cyclone with that old boy if
+he could just see her coming. She would have to do some tall twisting
+to catch him.
+
+We went into Moscow right on the dot--not a minute late. That field was
+full of Airplanes; there must have been eight or ten single-seaters up
+doing their stuff. Now just the last few days you have read about the
+advance in aviation and the amount of planes that Russia has. Now that
+is what I am trying to get you to understand. These Guys over here in
+Europe, no matter how little or how big the country, they have left the
+ground and are in the air. Nobody is walking but us; everybody else is
+flying. So in a few years, when somebody starts dropping something on
+us, don’t you say I didn’t tell you.
+
+Now everybody had said to me in going in, “Don’t take anything in with
+you; they examine everything. They look at every card. Don’t take a
+thing or don’t write a thing while you are in there; everybody is a Spy
+and everybody is listening to what you have to say.”
+
+Well, they throwed such a scare into me that I stripped myself down
+till I dident have a single piece of paper about me but my passport.
+I tore up two handfuls of cards that people had given me of people in
+Russia to look up for them. I had the parents’ address of everybody in
+New York City. Now I dident know exactly how they might stand, and if
+they caught me with these names, I might be suspected of being a Spy or
+something. Outside of my passport, if I had been run over in Russia,
+nobody in the world could have told where I was from or who I was.
+
+I had an address I had to tear up that Morris Gest had given me of
+a good restaurant that served Kafilka Fish and Luction Soup, both
+of which I have learned--after strenuous apprenticeship--to like. I
+dident want it to get out in Russia that I knew Gest, so I tore that
+up. Dawes’ letters to all the Financiers in Europe I tore up, for I
+thought the worst thing in the world you could be caught with was any
+connection with Capital. I thought if they found them on me they will
+have me in the Kremlin, waiting for daylight to come so the squad
+will be sure not to miss a shot. Al Jolson had given me a letter to a
+Jewish musician there who writes all the words and music to all his
+Southern Mammy Songs. I took in only one suit and four extra shirts, as
+I was told if I took in too much I would be suspected of capitalistic
+tendencies. I debated with myself a long time in the hotel in Berlin
+the night I left whether two extra pair of socks instead of one would
+constitute capitalistic affluence. I wouldent risk it. I even dident
+get a shave for a few days, figuring I might pass as a native.
+
+[Illustration: I didn’t get a shave, figuring I might pass as a native.]
+
+Now, as a consequence, I dident have a soul in the world to go to, or a
+single address. For when you tear up the name and address of a Russian,
+that name is gone forever. No English-speaking person living today
+can remember a single Russian name. They were told they could have only
+so many letters in their Alphabet. Well, they took fifteen of these
+they dident want and traded them for fifteen extra K’s and Z’s. So the
+alphabet consists of twenty-six letters, seventeen K’s and Z’s and nine
+other letters. That is the thing that has made Lenin and Trotzky famous
+outside Russia. They were the only ones that the outside world could
+pronounce their names.
+
+Well, due to such expert advice, no one ever knocked on the portals of
+Sing Sing any lighter equipped than I entered the city of Moscow. I
+dident even have my Shriner pin or my Elk Tooth Fob. I tell you I was
+practically Neglige.
+
+Now you talk about having sea legs when you get off a boat. Say, crawl
+out of an Airship after about sixteen hours in the air!
+
+Your legs don’t wabble like they do when just off a boat; it’s your
+arms. They want to start flapping and you want to ascend again. I
+never felt anything as low in my life as that ground was. I went into
+a little customs office. They took my passport, but instead of like
+lots of countries where they take it away and hold a Clinic over it,
+why, this old boy give it a peek and shoved it back to me. I opened up
+the grip. He got one peek--dident even feel in there. Talk about not
+bringing in anything, why, I could have had a Grand Plane in there and
+he would never have seen it!
+
+And as for looking to see what you had in your pocket or had on your
+person, why, I could have had a bass drum in each hip pocket, a
+Saxophone down each leg and two years’ collection of the Congressional
+Records in my coat pockets. Now you know yourself that would have
+been the most bunglesome thing I could have had. I also had a little
+Typewriter. This Customs fellow thought it was a Cash Register. So, you
+see, there was one set of advice blew up.
+
+I bid this old Russian Aviator Boy good-by, and when I shook his hand
+I meant it, and if I ever decide to take up the usual tourist trip of
+flying over the North Pole, why, this old funny-looking square-headed
+boy would be the one I would take out a stack with. But I guess the
+traffic will be so congested next summer flying over the pole that you
+would just have to wait for your turn to pass it.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+Now a few years ago the Bourgeois Party ---- Now I better stop right
+here early and tell you what that “Bourgeois” word is, what it means
+and how it is pronounced. There are two main words in Russia--one
+is “Bourgeois” and the other is “Proletariat,” and “Soviet,” of
+course, which means Council or Congress, only not quite as bad as our
+understanding of Congress. Now “Proletariat” means the poor people,
+or what would be known in America as the Democrats; and the word
+“Bourgeois” means the rich people, which in America would be known as
+Republicans; or if they are very rich, the Conservative Republican
+Party.
+
+Now the word “Proletariat” you can pronounce; even some Congressmen can
+get it right; but the word “Bourgeois” has bogged down more politicians
+grammatically than the name Susanne Lenglen. “Bourgeois” is pronounced
+by the Russians--and it’s theirs, they ought to know--it’s pronounced
+“Burge-Wah.” So, you see, while Russian spelling is terrible, the
+pronunciation is generally correct. Now I am just explaining these to
+you so in using them, as I perhaps will be in future Russian matters,
+we will understand each other. I really was not sent here to instruct
+America grammatically--only Diplomatically. But a little Intelligentzia
+now and then is relished by the best of men, even politicians.
+
+Well, as I started to say, the Bourgeois--remember pronunciation--party
+sent over Elihu Root years ago on practically the same mission as I
+was on, but he dident find out much. In fact, if I remember right, he
+didn’t find out anything. So if I can report on how to pronounce and
+define three Russian words, I can well report progress.
+
+Now the first thing I want to do is to dispel one generally popular
+illusion that everybody has to watch one’s conduct while in Russia.
+Everybody said: “Be very careful what you say or do while in there;
+they have spies and secret police all over the place. Every waiter or
+servant in the Hotel, they let on they don’t speak English, but they
+do, and report everything. It’s that G. P. P., or Cheko, the famous
+secret-service organization of Russia.”
+
+[Illustration: Everybody said, “They have spies and secret police all
+over the place.”]
+
+Well, they had me so scared that New York third-degree police methods
+wouldent have got a word from me. If anybody said to me, “It’s a nice
+day today,” I would be afraid even to agree with them. I would just
+nod my head both ways, kind of a half yes and 50 per cent no. I was as
+agreeable to everybody as an Insurance Agent before he lands you.
+
+Then a lot of friends had said to me, “Oh, you will get many a laugh
+out of there; I would like to be with you up there.”
+
+Funny? Say, I was just about the saddest looking thing you ever saw.
+Claremore, Oklahoma’s favorite light Comedian was in no jovial mood
+to derive merriment from a Bolsheviki régime that far away from home.
+I had seen pictures of long trains wending their way across the Trans
+Siberian Railway, hauling heavy loads of human freight, when nobody had
+a return ticket but the Conductor, all perhaps for getting funny
+with Russia.
+
+So if I thought of an alleged Wise Crack, it was immediately stifled
+before reaching even the thorax. If somebody was going to pull nifties
+at the expense of the Soviet Régime, I certainly was not going to be
+the culprit. The whole system of Communism might have openly appeared
+to me Cockeyed and disastrous, but if I thought so, I would have said
+it to myself.
+
+No, come to think about it, I wouldent even have said it to myself. I
+would have been afraid some thought reader would pick it up. I dident
+want to do anything or say anything that could be used against me. I
+wanted to get out in the peaceful way I had got in. I wanted to arrive
+back home 100 per cent whole this fall, to tell my little wheezes to
+the dissatisfied agrarian popolation, or what is mistakenly called the
+Rube Belt. I couldent think of a single Prohibition joke that I thought
+would get over around a Prison Camp fire on the shores of the Behring
+Straits. You know, I don’t think there is anything as pitiful or sad as
+a half-scared Comedian. I looked, I absorbed, but I dident utter.
+
+Then for the next popular illusion I was told by everyone, “Oh, they
+will take care of you; they will just take you around and show you just
+what they want you to see. You won’t be allowed to see anything. You
+will be sheperded around to just all the good-appearing things.”
+
+Well, here is the funny part about it: I don’t think there was a soul
+in Russia that knew I was in there. In fact it kinder hurt my pride
+when I found nobody was watching me or paying me any attention. You
+see, it’s so hard to get a Passport in there that I thought when they
+did give me one I felt kinder like every new Congressman when he
+first comes to Washington and look for Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge and the
+Cabinet and Alice Longworth and Walter Johnson all to meet him at the
+train. Then he comes and prowls around for a week before anybody but
+his Landlord knows he is there. In fact some stay there for years and
+nobody ever knows they are there.
+
+Well, that’s the way I felt. ’Course, I dident figure on any
+public reception. I dident hardly dare to hope for so much as the
+much-heralded Cossacks to charge and cut the heads off any remaining
+nobility in Red Square. But I did begin to think if they are going to
+start showing me about they better be at it. I tell you it was lonesome
+and humiliating on me. I wanted to hire my own Detective and have him
+watch me just to keep up the popular tradition.
+
+Well, I went all over the country; drove out to villages, went to other
+towns, got on the train and made a night’s journey from Moscow to St.
+Petersburg--or Leningrad was the name of it that week--and wasent
+stopped or asked a question; and dident even have any passport, as it
+had been left with the Hotel to give to the Police, as that is their
+custom.
+
+I run onto an old American boy that was working for a big mining
+concern and he and I looked at everything there was to see, and a lot
+of things that if they had been very careful they shouldent have let
+us see. I talked to various Government officials connected with their
+Foreign Department, and everywhere had the greatest courtesy and
+consideration. They explained anything that I would ask them about the
+government or the country. One thing, though, that a Communist can do is
+explain. You can ask him any question in the world, and if you give him
+long enough he will explain their angle, and it will sound plausible
+then. Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation.
+
+I wanted to go in the Kremlin, the old-time Czars’ Castle and Fort.
+It’s now where all the Government business is carried on. ’Course,
+you have to have a permit, but they gave it to me and in I went. They
+give you a Guide who speaks English to take you through. But that was
+the only place where they furnished me one. Anywhere else I could mess
+around all over the place. Lenine’s Tomb--the body is just there in a
+glass case. Well, at the present time you can’t go in there, as they
+are overhauling or upholstering the body, or something. It’s just a
+little wooden building outside the Kremlin wall.
+
+I wanted, of course, when I went in there, to see Trotzky. I wanted
+to write about him and tell how he stacked up with Borah and Young
+LaFollette and Jim Reed and Al Smith and Sol Bloom and the New York
+Times man in there, Duranty, who has been there for years and is the
+best informed man in Russia on their affairs, and a fine congenial
+little fellow and a godsend to visiting English or Americans. Well,
+Duranty and I went to see a man about seeing Trotzky. A little fellow
+named Rothstein, who spoke English and used to work on a paper in
+England, he has to do with censoring all that goes out to the Press. I
+told him the nature of the visit to Trotzky was to find out just what
+kind of a Guy he was personally; that I dident want any of his state
+secrets. I just wanted to see did he drink, eat, sleep, laugh and act
+human, or was his whole life taken up for the betterment of mankind.
+I told him that anything that I wrote would not break up the pleasant
+relations that existed between our two glorious Nations.
+
+Mr. Rothstein informed me: “We are a very serious people; we do not go
+in for fun and laughter. In running a large Country like this we have
+no time for appearing frivolous. We have a great work to perform for
+the betterment of mankind. We are sober.”
+
+Well, I explained to him that I dident hardly expect Trotzky to make
+any faces for me or to turn a few somersaults or tell the one about two
+Hebrews named Abe and Moe. I tole him that the man must have some very
+good human qualities, and on account of being in America at one time,
+he has always been of especial interest to us; more than anyone else in
+Russia since Lenin’s death. I wanted to tell them that what they needed
+in their Government was more of a sense of humor and less of a sense of
+revenge.
+
+[Illustration: I didn’t hardly expect Trotzky to make any faces for me
+or to turn a few somersaults.]
+
+I saw that this old boy wasent so strong for me X-raying Trotzky. But
+I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found
+him a very interesting and human fellow, for I have never yet met a man
+that I dident like. When you meet people, no matter what opinion you
+might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet them
+and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a lot of
+good in all of them. You know how it is yourself. I bet you have had
+Political enemies and you would think from your impressions of them
+that they ought to be quartered in the zoo in the reptile house. Yet
+when you met them you could see their side and find they wasent so bad,
+and that you were both trying to get about the same thing in the long
+run.
+
+Rothstein wants me to stay over one day longer, and he would have me
+see Tchitcherin. He was the Prime Minister, and naturally would be the
+main one. But it was Trotzky I want to see if possible. These Prime
+Ministers, they are so sudden that before I can write you about one of
+them he may be out and be three Ministers removed from his old position.
+
+But I found out the real reason I dident get to see Trotzky. Trotzky is
+not in so good with the present government. It may seem rather funny
+to some to hear he is too conservative for them. He has his ideas how
+things should run, as he is one of the old-timers in the party. He got
+so bad as an opposition that the Party shipped him away off down in
+the Ural’s to get him out of the way. But he is really strong with the
+people, and there was such a fuss raised over it that they had to drag
+him back to the capital again and create a job for him; so they made
+him Minister of Concessions.
+
+Now, on the face of it, that looks like a pretty soft job, for Russia
+certainly has lots of concessions to peddle out. But they made it so
+Red-Tapey that he couldent give out the Vodka-selling privilege at the
+next Revolution without having it passed by an act of the entire Soviet
+Council; so it really wasent so much of a job as it appeared on the
+letterhead. He had charge of the Army for a long time, and built up
+quite a formidable gang.
+
+The real fellow that is running the whole thing in there is a Bird
+named Stalin, a great big two-fisted fighting egg from away down in the
+Caucasian Mountains. He is the Borah of the Black Sea. He is kinder the
+Mellon and Butler combined of the Russian administration. He is the
+stage manager of Bolshevism right now. He don’t hold any great high
+position himself, but he tells the others what ones they will hold. He
+has served his term in Siberia under the Czar. Well, Trotzky is kinder
+not sitting at his round table at lunch. But the Peasants out in the
+county are still strong for Trotzky. He sees that there must be some
+changes made in the way they are running things. The Peasants think
+they have a kick that they are not getting enough for their grain, and
+Trotzky is sorter siding with them. So he is called a conservative.
+
+[Illustration: He has served his term in Siberia under the Czar.]
+
+A Conservative among Communists is a man with a Bomb in only one hand;
+a Radical is what you would call a Two-Bomb Man. They have one in each
+hand, and will spit a third one at you if possible. But I saw and
+talked to lots of them in the Government; also met all the gang that
+they sent out from America that time with Big Bill Haywood--was going
+to see old Bill, but he was sick in the Hospital and I couldent get to
+see him. From what I heard, Bill sho would like to get back among the
+gang in Chicago. If I was Bill, and had that opportunity of going from
+Russia to Chicago I would give it serious thought before I would make
+the change.
+
+Met the smartest, brightest old Bolshe fellow in there named George.
+I don’t know his other name, but you couldent pronounce it if I wrote
+it. He said he was one of the twenty-two that Judge Landis sent to
+Leavenworth to break their jump to Russia that time. He is a bright,
+smart kind of a Duck, but not what I would call a Landis rooter. Met a
+big nice jovial fellow from Chicago--forgot his name, said he run for
+President on the Socialist ticket the year Jimmy Cox did. I told him I
+could faintly remember Jimmy, for he happened to be a good friend of
+mine; but I couldent remember him. He said he runs pretty near every
+year on that Ticket--said, “I may run this year.” I told him there was
+no Presidential election this year unless there was an impeachment.
+
+He said, “Ain’t there? Well, mebbe it’s next year then; I don’t pay
+much ’tention to what years I am running and what years I am not.”
+
+He was feeling pretty good about the whole way things were running in
+there, and was very enthusiastic about it all; he was strong for ’em.
+He had a passport back! I bet if you had stole that passport away from
+that old Boy you would have just had 284 pounds’ worth of suicide on
+your hands. The funny part about it among these American ones you meet
+over there visiting, they are all so nice and friendly and enthusiastic
+about it, and believe in it away above our form of government; but
+they all go back over home. It just looks to me like Communism is such
+a happy-family affair, that not a Communist wants to stay where it is
+practiced. It’s the only thing they want you to have but keep none
+themselves. Well, this continuous Presidential Candidate was a mighty
+nice fellow, and I would like to see him get into the finals some day,
+even if he don’t win.
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+Now I know you want to know what about it, and how is it working,
+and what is it. Well, I am giving it as much study as a Bird like me
+could give serious study to anything. Before coming in here, I read
+everything. I read so many of that fellow Marx’s books that I don’t
+want even to see the Marx Brothers, as clever as they are. I have come
+to the conclusion that the reason there is so many books on Socialism
+is because it’s the only thing in the world that you can’t explain
+easy. It’s absolutely impossible for any Socialist to say anything in a
+few words. You say, “Is it light or dark?” and it takes him two volumes
+to answer Yes or No; and then I know there is a catch in it somewhere.
+It’s like a long Theatrical Contract. If one of them tells beyond the
+Salary and the amount of weeks you are to work, why, you might just as
+well light a cigarette with it. More words ain’t good for anything in
+the world only to bring on more argument.
+
+If Socialists worked as much as they talked, they would be the most
+prosperous style of Government in the World. But the thing is they
+don’t know anything about it themselves. There is not two of them in
+the world with the same idea of what it is. They say, “All we want is
+somebody to come in and see with an open mind.” Well, if ever a Guy
+went into Russia with an open mind it was me. It was not only open but
+it verged on being empty. Lord, if 130,000,000 people that never had
+it any too soft in their lives are trying to work out a way to better
+their condition, why, it ain’t for a yap like me to come along and tell
+them that they are all wrong.
+
+You know, I dident have to go to Russia to find comedy or chaos in
+Governments. If I was looking for governments that wasent just exactly
+hitting on all six, why, I left one and went through a dozen more
+going to Russia, so anybody better not start heaving too many rocks at
+Russia’s government--I don’t care which country you come from--till
+you have looked your own over.
+
+Liberty don’t work as good in practice as it does in Speech. You got to
+figure that bunch of fellows are playing with the biggest Toy in the
+world. They are like a poor old Farmer or Rancher out home in Oklahoma
+that has a bunch of Kids, and they have never had anything to play
+with in their lives but an old hound pup; and then Dad strikes Oil,
+is paid a big bonus, and wanting to do something for his Gang, goes
+to Tulsa and gets them all the mechanical toys of every description
+in the world and hands them to them to play with. Well, that is what
+somebody has slipped these soviet fellows. They have had an electric
+train thrust into their hands and they had never pulled the string on
+even a jumping jack before, and they are naturally going to have a lot
+of short circuits and burned fingers before they get the thing started.
+Cæsar and Nero and that bunch of boys that got credit for steam-roller
+measures through the Roman senate were playing county politics compared
+to these Babies. The whole Roman Empire, in its balmiest days--and it
+had some balmy days--that little Minor-League Empire would have got so
+lost in Russia that Columbus, De Soto and Lewis Clark couldent have
+found it.
+
+Now handing this bunch of fellows Russia would just be like Judge Gary
+coming backstage at the Follies and saying, “Here, Will, you and the
+Girls take over the Steel Corporation and run it.” Now you have to have
+some kind of training to handle something big or else you have to do
+a lot of practicing on it after you get it, which is generally pretty
+expensive. Most of these fellows were on little Communist Newspapers.
+
+Now America has withstood some pretty rough handling at times, but I
+sure would hate to see it fall under the management of a troop of our
+Dissatisfied Newspaper men. Put it in the hands of an old hardheaded
+Farmer or a small-town Merchant, but deliver it from Editors. They
+would have more Theories how to run us than the Communists. So you
+got to give these fellows a little bit of the benefit of the doubt.
+They are practicing and are trying to do the best they can, but
+unfortunately they are practicing on 130,000,000 people that have to
+remain the horrible example till these Guys find out themselves just
+what it’s all about.
+
+’Course, it won’t be such a terrible disgrace--on them--if they don’t
+make it, for there is Nations with men trained from childhood in
+government that looks like they were getting practiced on. It’s just
+tough on the people, that’s all. It’s no disgrace not to be able to
+run a country nowadays, but it is a disgrace to keep on trying when
+you know you can’t. ’Course, things look pretty bad there. You see,
+this is ’26 and the war started in ’14. That means twelve years that
+trains, street cars, Public Buildings, and in fact everything, has not
+had a thing done to it since the day the Czar’s forces marched off to
+fight Germany; no painting, no streets fixed up to amount to anything.
+Most of the streets are, however, kept clean. You see a great deal of
+poverty among the people along the streets, a great many ragged little
+children begging. ’Course, you can see these things in lots of cities
+besides Russian ones, but it’s worse in there.
+
+I never saw a pair of silk stockings on a single lady on the street.
+Everything is very expensive. Most all the manufactured things have to
+be imported, as their factories, very few of them are operating. The
+Factories are there, but the machinery is all rusted and spoiled in all
+these years of no usage; and they have to get in new machinery; and it
+costs a lot of money to re-equip all those. Food things shouldent be
+so high, for they raise everything in the world up there; but it seems
+to cost them a lot to handle it through the stores. They have these
+coöperative stores; in fact everything is supposed to belong to the
+government, but they are changing now and allowing private ownership
+and cutting prices over each other.
+
+You see, the Communism that they started out with, the idea that
+everybody would get the same and have the same--Lord, that dident work
+at all. That has all been changed--the idea that the fellow that was
+managing the bank was to get no more than the man that swept it out.
+That talked well to a crowd, but they got no more of that now than we
+have. I don’t suppose there is two men in Russia getting exactly the
+same salary. They get what they can get, and where they can get it.
+When the government runs anything, as they do practically everything
+over there, there is always about twice or three times as many working
+in the place as would be found in private enterprises.
+
+During these hard times they have had so much dishonesty among the
+people working where they could get their hands on any money that it
+takes about two to watch one, and then four others to watch those two.
+There is also an awful lot of unemployment.
+
+Taxes are very high. They have succeeded in stabilizing their
+money--that is, inside the Soviet Union. The Ruble is worth 50 cents,
+which is the par value of it. The Chervonetz, or sort of a little
+pocket Chevrolet, is worth just about five dollars, and compares
+with the English pound. Right after the Revolution, when they were
+operating their money like a lot of these Countries over here do, on
+just a Printing-Press basis, why, they had bootleg money-makers, just
+like they do over home with--alleged--booze. If you needed any money,
+you would go to your Currency Bootlegger and buy it. Each one claimed
+to make Nothing but Prewar stuff. Now they got it stabilized, but it’s
+up so high nobody can get any of it.
+
+I asked an official of their Foreign Office how they maintained it at
+standard, and he said: “We balance our budget. We estimate how much
+will come in during the year and don’t spend any more than that. We
+make our exports and imports balance, and that is one reason we cannot
+bring in as many things as we would like to.”
+
+But another very prominent man who had been in there off and on for
+years, doing a big business in there, said: “They originally started
+out with a bunch of Gold that they inherited from the original
+Government, and what they had confiscated from various ones during and
+after the Revolution, and they took that to England and borrowed its
+equivalent in money on a loan against the gold. Well, they took this
+money and come back home and issued more currency against what they had
+brought from England, saying, ‘It’s all backed by our gold reserve.’
+They would issue another batch against the last one, just pyramiding,
+all backed up by this original that was in hock to England. But anyhow,
+they have kept it steady, and you don’t have to read the papers every
+day to see what you have.”
+
+Of course, anyone going in will ask, “Is it working? Is everybody
+happy?” Well, they are not. Over 90 per cent of the population in
+Russia are farmers, and live out in the country and Villages. The
+Revolution was to get the Peasant the land. They took all the land and
+everything that the rich or even fairly prosperous had away from them,
+and it’s owned by the Government. They give it to the Peasant, but it’s
+only his as long as he lives on it and tends it. He can’t trade it off
+or sell it. The real deed to the land is held by the Government.
+
+’Course, that beat the old way of being under the thumb of the
+Landlord. But now that the Peasant owns it, he has to pay the taxes on
+it. Before, it was the Landlord had to pay them. So the difference in
+what he pays the Government and what he paid the Landlord is so little
+that he can’t hardly see where he comes in to be much better off.
+
+But that is not the real and the serious trouble there. It is this: The
+Government tells the farmer what he shall get for his products--based,
+of course, on the market value at that time. Well, he is not kicking
+so much on that as he is on this: When he sells his grain, he can’t
+take the money and go buy what he needs. He can’t buy his plows and his
+wagons and his harness and many other things that has to be made by a
+factory. They cost him more than his grain brought him; and if he did
+happen to have enough, then the things are not to be found to buy. They
+have to import most of them and the cost to the farmer is tremendous.
+So what does the old Farmer do? He won’t sell them the stuff.
+
+The Russian Peasant may be Illiterate, but he is not what you would
+call Dumb. He knows something about this Guy Marx’s theories himself.
+He knows what’s the use raising anything if you can’t trade it or sell
+it for what you want. So he is just raising for his own use. And living
+on what he raises. If he does raise more, when they say, “You have so
+much wheat here; you must sell that,” he illiterately replies, “No, I
+eat that. My family very big bread eaters, eat lots of wheat. I have
+none for sale.”
+
+Sometimes he hides it; but, anyhow, he is not selling it, and that has
+got the whole Communistic Party about cuckoo right at this minute.
+Their problem is to satisfy him. They have to get him some stuff in
+there cheaper than they can afford to, or make it, or pay more for his
+grain than they can get for it in outside world markets. Somebody is
+going to lose some money on the thing, and it ain’t going to be old
+Mr. Peasant. He can set and live on just exactly what he raises. But
+the old Boys in town has got to get enough nourishment from what the
+farmer raises to make those brotherhood-of-man speeches on. The old
+farmer just grinds his extra up into Vodka, lays in a lot of wood and
+hibernates for the winter.
+
+If you got that Vodka for a companion you got a mighty ally on your
+side when it comes to forgetting your troubles. The old Peasant has
+gone through many of these same winters. He knows it’s not going to
+make much difference with him who is in. You see, there is only 600,000
+Communists in the whole of Russia, and they are ruling over the other
+130,000,000. So this 600,000 has got to figure out some way to sorter
+half satisfy this small minority.
+
+Look over home the Pheasants out in the West and Middle West are
+either hollering for higher prices for their grain or cheaper prices
+for flivver parts, phonograph records, Crystal sets, cheaper movie
+admission and Government instruction in Black-bottom dance steps. So,
+you see, Russia’s problem is about our problem, only Russians can get
+along without all these necessities. They can live on what they raise,
+and drink the surplus and enjoy it. But you have got to supply our
+Pheasants with these essentials, for they can vote and the Russians
+can’t--they can vote, but they can’t get them counted.
+
+So, after all, the world is just about the same whether it be on the
+banks of the Vulgar or the Potomac. So we are not in a position hardly
+to blame the Communists for not finding a solution when we pay 600 men
+$10,000 apiece a year and they can’t find out.
+
+So, as I said before, I dident have to go to Russia to find humor in
+Government.
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+We will start in looking the towns over. This is the town they used to
+call St. Petersburg. Then when the war come along with Germany and they
+got afraid Germany would capture it, they changed its name to Petrograd
+so it would fool the Germans and they wouldent know what town they were
+capturing. Well, that worked fine. Germany couldent find it, and just
+when the Czar and all his board of strategy was gloating over their
+clever ruse, why, a fellow named Lenin found out where it was, and he
+had never had a town named after him; in fact, they had always kept him
+moving so fast that he couldent tell whether the town was named after
+him or before him.
+
+Well, he said, “If I take this town, will you name it after me?”
+
+They replied in the affirmative. So he found it and took it, and now
+it is named Leningrad. I found it; so if you hear of it being called
+Rogerskofsxzy, why, that will be partly in my honor.
+
+From what I could gather from the old-time residents there, it used
+to be quite a place; kind of a cross between Hollywood, California,
+St. Louis and Chicago. It had the drab night life of Hollywood, the
+color, dash and brilliance of St. Louis and the pistol and rifle fire
+of Chicago. It is situated at the mouth of the Neva River; and when I
+say the mouth of the Neva I am wrong. I mean the mouths of the Neva.
+It’s plural, and it’s also singular that it should have so many mouths,
+but it has. It just can’t make up its mind how to get out of Russia and
+empty in the Gulf of Finland. Nurmi is the capital of Finland.
+
+The ground is very low under Leningrad; in fact, it’s the only town
+in the world whose altitude is just exactly 0. There is towns that
+are above sea level, and there is towns that are below sea level; but
+Leningrad couldent make up her mind which she wanted to be, so she just
+split the difference.
+
+You have to move twice a day in Leningrad--at low tide you live
+downstairs and at high tide you move back upstairs. It’s built on
+poles driven into the mud and clams. Peter the Great settled it, but
+that is not why he was called Peter the Great. He lost an election
+bet--the other side spent too much money--and he either had to build a
+town in some odd place or roll a wheelbarrow around the living room, so
+he decided on the former. He got even with all the other Czars, for he
+put a Joker in the 19th Amendment of their Constitution, so they would
+have to live there. Like our old-time Presidents used to have to live
+in Washington in the Summertime. Winter starts the first week in July
+and ends the last week in June. Spring, Summer and Fall are not what
+you would call long, but they are comfortable--all three days are very
+pleasant. But with all its flatness, it’s much the most beautiful City
+in Russia. The streets are all laid out straight and cross at right
+angles. It has some wonderful buildings and marvelous Churches.
+
+It was the Capital of the Country when the Bolshevikis got it, but
+was so close to the Gulf that they got afraid somebody would come up
+there with a big Battleship and drop a few shots among the assembled
+Senators. You know, Communists like to throw things themselves at
+various Governments and prominent people, but they don’t like the idea
+of being on the receiving end of anything in the nature of a bomb.
+
+The city is much more modern and European than Moscow. Moscow has more
+of the Far East in its appearance, with all of its Mosque-like domes
+to all the Churches. It’s really ancient, while Leningrad has been
+made to order. The main street is the Nevskii Prospekt. The Soviets
+have changed the name to the 25th of October. That’s the date of a
+Revolution. They changed the old names on everything that was connected
+with the Czar’s régime.
+
+Now when these people took everything over and run everybody out
+that had anything, they took most of the Palaces and big places that
+belonged to the rich and made Museums and Schools and Clubs and Public
+buildings. Of course, they have not been able to keep them up in very
+good shape, but you can see what they must have been when the old Gang
+were going good. ’Course the main one most everybody is interested in
+is the Czar’s Palace, or the Winter Palace. It fronts out on a great
+big square, composed of big old worn Cobblestones.
+
+It was formerly called Palace Square, and is the one you have seen in
+most pictures showing the Czar’s Armies and Revolutionary scenes; in
+fact, just about everything of any importance that wanted to happen in
+Russia for hundreds of years back had to wait for their turn to happen
+on this square. And it was in it that the present Government captured
+it from the Royal régime. It’s now called Uritzsky Square. He was a
+Socialist that was killed here. They, as I say, always name things
+after the last man killed there on their side. If you get killed on
+the side that don’t win, you don’t get the place named after you; but
+if you do win, why, you can die knowing you had a square named after
+you, provided you are the last one killed. You must always be careful
+about that--pick your time to get shot. Get these names: The Garden of
+the Toilers another square is called; then there is the Square of the
+Victims of the Revolution. One of their bridges is called the Bridge of
+Equality.
+
+This Palace was practically the constant home of the Czars. It is now
+a Museum. Part of it is given over to what is called the Revolutionary
+Museum--more about that later. The Palace has seven hundred rooms. If a
+young Czar ever forgot the number of his room, he would be an old Czar
+before he found it. The Apartments of Nicholas I, Alexander the II and
+Nicholas II are shown as they were as historical memorials, including
+all the big rooms of State.
+
+Then you come to the Apartments of the late Czar and Family. It
+almost looks as if they had left it that morning. All their personal
+photographs of people we are familiar with in these times, with
+personal writing on them, are there--a great many photos taken with
+King Edward, and enlargements from what must have been snapshots of
+various groups of the family. The whole thing looked like the rooms
+in any wealthy man’s home with a family--that is, one that has
+always been wealthy. Everything was modern and up-to-date. No big
+Gold furniture; all things that you could use in a home today and not
+attract any attention.
+
+They had a Telephone connection, with a little switch thing on it that
+they could connect with the Opera and hear everything.
+
+They had even the Children’s colored Easter eggs, and dozens of
+pictures of them on their Ponies and in sleighs. Pictures in all kinds
+of little silver and some just ordinary cheap frames.
+
+In the Czarina’s bedroom the ceiling and the Tapestries are covered
+with some sort of blue floral design. Her devoutly religious nature
+shows very plainly by the fact that the rooms are full of Icons and
+many images of Saints. There were lots of little personal keepsakes
+that had been given by friends. In the drawing-room is some Louie
+the 14th furniture given them as a wedding present by King Edward.
+The Czar’s rooms is just about what you would see in a Gentleman’s
+Apartment today only a great many Japanese things--gifts received on a
+visit of his to the Far Fast.
+
+It looked like these folks, when they got away from the pomp and
+parade of appearing in public, tried to live like human beings. It was
+so simple and modest that I doubt if any Oil millionaire or a Moving
+Picture Star would have lived in it without having it redone.
+
+There is one thing that this Soviet outfit has certainly done, and
+that is go in strong for Museums. I think there is some 700 museums in
+the various Cities and towns. They are trying to develop Art, and they
+have some of the most wonderful art treasures in the world. You see,
+they not only have the State but all the private collections of all the
+rich nobility that have had it handed down in families for dozens of
+generations.
+
+Now I don’t know just how far that Art thing is going to get them. I am
+not so strong on art myself as a commodity. I think most countries have
+kinder overestimated the importance of our Artists and underestimated
+the importance of people that did something to help provide Corn Bread
+and Bacon and cheapen the things we had to have. Athens, Greece, was
+mangy with Art. Now they ain’t eating regular. Rome had nothing to
+recommend it but art and broken columns till Mussolini come along and
+made ’em all throw their paintbrushes in the Tiber and go to work at
+something productive.
+
+So, after looking over Russia, I believe there is a hundred things I
+could think of to improve them with besides Art. Russians need meat
+right now worse than they do naked Statues. The thing about all these
+Museums is, when you have gone through one of them you have gone
+through all of them. You take the Hermitage in Leningrad--which, by the
+way, is one of the most famous museums in the World; it’s right next to
+the Czar’s Palace and had an entrance from the Palace. You take it and
+the Louvre and the Metropolitan in New York, and the big ones in Rome
+and London--they give the ordinary man just about all the art he can
+digest in one lifetime.
+
+Russia don’t need to develop so many men who can paint or sculpture a
+beautiful, well-rounded human body. What they need is somebody that can
+provide the wherewith to fill out that well-rounded body. Los Angeles
+got the right idea. Instead of having seven hundred Museums, they got
+seven thousand filling stations. If you got a big family, art is all
+right for one son to indulge in; but you want to have the other 12 to
+bring home some revenue and feed him and humor him. It should only
+be indulged in by every 13th member of a family, and then only after
+unanimous consent and sacrifice of the other 12.
+
+Now we go into the Red Museum, which is part of the Palace. Oh,
+Baby, talk about a Chamber of Horrors! Huber’s Museum and Madam
+Tussaud’s waxworks would be children’s nurseries in comparison to this
+blood-and-thunder outfit. It was founded in 1921 and everything in it
+is connected with revolutions; not only Russian Revolutions but anybody
+else that happened to have had a good bloody Revolution and had any
+old Guns or Bombs or skulls or anything that would make particular
+decorative atmosphere.
+
+On account of its short life, they make apologies for the small amount
+of material. But I couldent see any need too. It looked to me like they
+had done pretty well, and the only way they could get any more horrors
+in there would be to get some more people killed. So I think in the
+Revolutionary Museum line they can well report Progress. They can just
+load up the old Bombs they got there now and blow up half of Europe.
+
+As you enter, there will be a wax-size figure of an old boy with a Bomb
+drawn back just ready to shy it at a Czar out on a Balcony. Then there
+are big loud-colored paintings all over the walls that look like Movie
+Lithographs, showing Cossacks charging Women and Children and cutting
+them down. There are dozens of photographs and oil paintings of any Red
+that ever got his man; court-room trials; every Pistol or saber that
+ever dropped a Czar or a Capitalist in his tracks. One sees all the
+episodes of the Dekabrists’ trial. They were the ones to originate
+the idea of not letting the Czars sleep too well. It contains all the
+scenery and props in connection with the murder of Alexander II. Rows
+of special show cases contain bombs to fit any hand.
+
+Rooms were made up to represent cells where revolutionists have been
+confined; room after room of somebody either being killed or somebody
+getting ready to kill somebody else. One room is devoted to Lenin,
+called Lenin’s Corner, where all kinds of material in his private and
+political life is exhibited.
+
+Now we went through there on a Sunday morning, and we couldent hardly
+wedge our way through. The man with us was an Englishman, but spoke
+good Russian, and he described to us what was going on. It was Teachers
+taking young children through and stopping and lecturing to them: “Here
+is Kzolxsvlozxusz. He had the best record of any of the late bomb
+heavers. It’s through him you are enjoying this wonderful liberty that
+you are having today.”
+
+Of all the Museums, this Revolutionary one was the one that they were
+centering the attention of the smaller ones on. You did not see nearly
+as many looking at the beautiful paintings by the old masters as you
+did looking at the old guns that had their notches in the handles.
+
+It seems the whole idea of Communism, or whatever they want to call
+it, is based on propaganda and blood. Their whole life and thought is
+to convince somebody else. It looks to me like if a thing is so good
+and is working so fine for you, you would kind of want to keep it to
+yourself. I would be afraid to let anybody in on it, and that generally
+seems to be about the usual brand of human nature everywhere. But the
+Communist has so many good things he just wants you to join in and help
+him use some of them.
+
+They start at the cradle with them in Russia. They have a great many
+schools in Russia, which seem intended not so much to eliminate
+illiteracy as they are to teach propaganda. Political propaganda starts
+with their A B C’s. Their statistics prove that they are now operating
+many more schools than in prewar days. There is no such thing as a
+private school allowed in Russia. They have agricultural schools for
+the peasant children in some places. They have craft schools which
+give professional education in different branches to over one hundred
+thousand people annually. There are 24 universities. The number of High
+School students is given as 160,000.
+
+[Illustration: They start at the cradle with them in Russia.]
+
+They are trying to foster art and culture, but all of it is of the
+Revolutionary type. If it is a painting, the main character has one
+foot on a capitalist’s neck and is punching another capitalist in
+the jaw. But the main thing that dominates this whole thing is to
+spread propaganda. Talk about some of our states guarding what their
+school-books contain--these children never get a chance to read
+anything only about how terrible everything is but Communism.
+
+You can’t go to a bookstore and buy any book you want. Every book that
+is sold in Russia has to be O. K.’d by the Soviet party. You can’t buy
+outside newspapers, and every paper printed in Russia is under the
+supervision of the government. So you have got to learn their angle
+or you don’t learn anything--there is nothing else for you to form an
+opinion about.
+
+They have quite a few community playgrounds and there is bunches of
+them out there practicing all kinds of games. But they don’t allow
+competition between different teams in Athaletic events. They don’t
+have big intersectional games between different clubs or schools; they
+claim that is against true communism; that if you defeat your fellow
+man it might make him think he was not as good as you, and they don’t
+want to leave that impression. If that was the way we looked at it over
+home, imagine how poor Harvard would feel. They would be so low down
+socially that they would be practically vacant.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+
+Now while I am on this Athaletic stuff I better kinder call you over
+to one side and tip you off to a little bit of the life that is really
+very interesting, in fact kinder exciting, and to an outsider makes
+life worth while in Moscow. The river runs right through the town and,
+contrary to the general notion and looks of some of them, why, they do
+bathe--that is, some of them do; and when I say they bathe, I mean they
+bathe together. They don’t let race, creed or sex interfere with them.
+And what I mean--they bathe right. They just wade in what you would
+call the Nude, or altogether. No one-piece bathing suits to hamper
+their movements.
+
+If there is a bathing suit in Russia, somebody is using it for an
+overcoat. Why, there is only two pair of trunks in Russia, and they
+were being mended the weeks I was there. Well, when I saw that I
+just sit right down and cabled my old friend Mr. Ziegfeld: “Don’t bring
+Follies to Russia. You would starve to death here.” But you know the
+way they do it there--don’t seem to be so much what we used to years
+ago call--what was that word? Oh, yes, “Immoral.” Well, they just walk
+down there on the bank of the river and everybody skins off their
+clothes. They don’t have much. Underwear is about as scattering there
+as bathing suits.
+
+[Illustration: If there is a bathing suit in Russia, somebody is using
+it for an overcoat.]
+
+Now if it hadent been for this bathing existing I would have got out
+and seen a lot more places in Russia than I did. But I want to state
+positively that while I did not get to see all of Russia, I got to see
+all of some Russians.
+
+We must hide ourselves away and see what else we can learn from the
+Muscovite Empire that America may profit by besides Negligee Bathing.
+Oh, yes, Aeroplanes! It just seems like I can’t write without drawing
+attention to the amount of flying that is being done in Europe. Now take
+Russia. Here is Russia, so poor that they don’t even know where their
+next Revolution is coming from, and get this--what just one Society did
+to help their country out in the way of Aviation; a thing that they
+know is absolutely necessary. They enlisted two million members and
+got in contributions seven Million Rubles--that, in sensible money, is
+$3,000,000--organized 20 air clubs, set up over a thousand aeronautical
+Libraries and distributed millions of pamphlets of propaganda all
+on flying, opened up landing fields, bought 130 fighting planes and
+presented the government with seven equipped Air squadrons. Now this
+was all in addition to establishing Civil and Commercial routes.
+
+This was not the Government. It was just one Society; and there is two
+others almost as big that have accomplished as much. And here is New
+York City, the second biggest city in the world, that hasent even got a
+place to land. You have to go halfway to Montauk Point and then drive
+back two hours in an Auto to get to New York after you get out of a
+Plane. And here is the humor of it--you can make a landing field on
+half the ground it takes to make a Golf course on.
+
+So just look what those poor Russians are doing, and they are so poor
+they havent got a Golf Course to their back. That, by the way, is one
+thing that makes me sometimes think they will eventually pull through.
+Mind you, all these Commercial Air lines in Russia and all over Europe
+are subsidized by their Governments. Of course, at home the minute we
+holler for a subsidy for ships to keep our Flag on the ocean, why, up
+jumps some cocklebur Congressman and objects: “Where do you come in
+to give some Airplane Co. help, or some Steamship line? You don’t do
+a thing for the Cafeteria Owners, and they are just as good Americans
+as anybody ever broke a tray of dishes for. What about the Farmer? Why
+don’t you give him a subsidy? No, sir-ree, I am agin helping anybody
+till you help my constituents.”
+
+The subsidy to give most of our people is to take their spedomoter away
+from them and give them an Alarm Clock. If America don’t look out they
+will be caught in the next war with nothing but a Niblick and a Putter.
+Putting is all right, but it keeps you too close to the ground to be of
+much use in the real war of the future.
+
+And if you think there ain’t going to be no Next War you better see
+some of these Nations drilling and preparing, and they are not the
+people that will go to work and learn a trade that they are not going
+to work at. The next war you don’t want to Look Out; you want to Look
+Up. When you look up and see a cloud during the next war to end wars,
+don’t you be starting to admire its silvery lining till you find out
+how many Junkers and Fokkers are hiding behind it.
+
+’Course, these are only tips, and you needent play them unless you want
+too; but as that is what I am doing over here, why, I am giving you
+this for all it is worth. I am like the old Rooster when he brought
+out the Ostrich egg and showed it to all the hens and said, “I am not
+criticizing, but I just want you to know what others are doing.” Now
+that’s an old Gag, but it has to be an old Gag to get over with you
+fellows. In talking and writing to Politicians you have to be like a
+Country preacher. You have to illustrate everything you want to drive
+home with a simple story that all of them can understand. So I just
+want you-all to know what even Russia is doing. Everybody is using
+their air for something besides speeches but us.
+
+Now while we are on wars, you might like to know about Russia’s Army.
+They are without a doubt the seediest-looking layout I ever saw in my
+life. They look about like a Chamber of Commerce in Evening clothes
+lined up to meet Queen Marie. Their uniforms are made out of a very
+heavy grade of calico. They have what used to be a red stripe down the
+leg. Then their pants are stuck in those big old heavy, clumsy boots.
+So the pants, I imagine, are really just union suits if the Guy had his
+boots off. They are not drafted. They have some kind of an arrangement
+by which they make them think it is an honor to belong to the Red
+Army. It is composed of men and boys at first that cannot read or
+write. They get, so they told me, the most low and ignorant they have;
+then they teach them after they get them in. But he is taught along
+their lines--they don’t want enybody that has his own ideas. So they
+do away with illiteracy. The Soviet Literature says they teach them
+culture.
+
+Well, I wouldent go as far as to claim that if I was them. But
+“culture” is their main word over there. Everything is supposed to
+improve their culture. Well, if it is improving their culture, why,
+culture must have started at a mighty low ebb originally.
+
+The Red Army is instructed politically, as they figure, I guess, that
+in a war, if the worst comes to the worst, why, the Red Army can shoot
+a few Proletariat truths at the enemy, lay down a barrage of “Everybody
+should divide up equal even if he ain’t got anything.” The present
+standing of the Army is admitted to be 600,000. But there is millions
+of the workers that are receiving Military training in addition to the
+army.
+
+’Course, you take those ignorant old Boys and give them some real
+training and they are going to be kinder hard to clean. War is a relief
+to them anyway.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+Now the main question that I know strikes you is, Has Russia changed
+much and is it better off? Say, that is the one answer you can go and
+bet on. Russia hasent changed one bit. It’s just Russia as it has been
+for hundreds of years and will be for the next hundreds of years. A
+hundred million people are out in the Country and small Villages, and
+are living just the same lives they lived under the Czar, and their
+existence wouldent be changed even if the Prohibition, the Populist,
+the Farmer-Labor or even the Democrats run Russia. It wouldent be
+nothing but Russia. People don’t change under Governments; the
+Governments change, but the people remain the same.
+
+Look at us! What does it matter who is in any four years? You got
+to get out and hustle for it or you don’t get it, no matter what
+Government is in. And there is a country with over 90 per cent of
+their population Peasants, and they have to make a living from the
+soil. They work hard, don’t have much; some years a little more than
+others; have to pay their taxes or their rent money as in the old days.
+Now the taxes are just as much as the rent share was in the old days
+with the landlords. So what difference does it make to them what kind
+of Government it is? In fact, they claim that they are not as well off
+now, because in these times they can’t buy the things they want, like
+they used to be able to do, as they are not to be had.
+
+This eighty or ninety million are no more Communists than you are; they
+don’t know what it’s all about. The country is run by the Communist
+Party, which has less than 600,000, and they rule this 130,000,000.
+They are allowed to elect men to send to the various councils of the
+Soviet. But get this--you see, the Communist strength is among the
+Industrial workers in the Cities; but they give him a Representative in
+the Government for what we will say is one for every 100 voters. But
+the Farmers or Peasants get only one for every 1,000 voters. That’s
+not the exact Representation, but it is the correct proportion.
+
+So where does your equality come in? They do that to sorter help
+overbalance the great majority of the Peasant vote. Russia under the
+Czar was very little different from what it is today; for instead of
+one Czar, why, there is at least a thousand now. Any of the big men in
+the Party holds practically Czaristic powers. Siberia is still working.
+It’s just as cold on you to be sent there under the Soviets as it was
+under the Czar. The only way you can tell a Member of the Party from
+an ordinary Russian is the Soviet man will be in a car. They are all
+supposed to only receive $112 a month, which is supposed to be the
+salary of all Communists that do work for the Government. Well, some of
+them must be pretty good managers to get along as well as they do on
+that.
+
+There is as much class distinction in Russia today as there is in
+Charleston, South Carolina. Why, I went to the races there, and the
+grand stand had all the men of the Party, and over in the center field
+stood the mob in the sun. Well, there was Bourgeois and Proletariat
+distinction for you.
+
+Here is the queer thing to an outsider: They had the Revolution to run
+out the rich, and now the only one that can get in there is either some
+rich man or some of his Representatives that say they want to invest
+there.
+
+They are very strict about who they let in, and yet any rich fellow
+they would meet at the line and escort them in. You see, it dident take
+them long to learn that somebody has got to pay the wages or they won’t
+have anything to divide up.
+
+You see, that is where Mussolini has outsmarted the Bolsheviks. They
+have spent all the money they could rake and scrape on Propaganda in
+other Countries, and here they were in Russia with the biggest and
+richest Country in the World to work with. They should have spent every
+cent of all this on just working and improving Russia, and getting it
+so it looked like something. That was what Mussolini had done. All his
+Propaganda has not cost him a nickel. He kept every nickel in Italy
+and put everybody to work, and now you go in and see it, and he don’t
+have to spread any propaganda for your sake. He says look at it and see
+how things are. That’s his advertisement. And just think, he is in a
+poor Country, where they have few natural resources. You turn that Wop
+loose in Russia for a few years, with all their vast unearthed wealth,
+and he would really pull a Napoleon on the World.
+
+Now his plan is what the Communists should have done. They have always
+wanted Communism. Now they have it, and they have it in the finest
+Country there is; so if they don’t make a go of it, their plan must be
+wrong, and they will have nobody to blame but themselves. They have
+certainly had opportunity knocking at their door. What should they care
+about what Communism is doing in Chicago or London? Fix up Moscow and
+show the world what can be done under Communism and then let people
+come there and see, and they will get all the converts they need and
+never spend a dime on Propaganda. Instead of hiring a man to spread
+propaganda, hire him to spread some paint and soap and water around.
+Turn some of those museums into Bathhouses. Never mind showing us what
+Ivanof and Serof did. Show us what Annette Kellermann did. Never mind
+bearing down so much on culture; bear down on Industry.
+
+You see, here is what makes it look kinder bad--these fellows took over
+a Country that was already a going concern; that dident have a cent of
+debt--that is, they repudiated all Russia’s debts, as they claimed they
+had nothing to do with the contracting of them. Now the biggest expense
+of any country is its interest on its national debt. They confiscated
+everything, paid nobody for anything, have everything that the entire
+Country possessed. They claimed they dident want any salary for doing
+it, so that should have eliminated another big expense. They were
+supposed to be working for just the love of saving their fellow man.
+
+Now if you can’t take one that’s handed to you like that, what chance
+have you got with it when there is nothing more to cop from anyone,
+and paying interest on a big indebtedness? You see, they confiscated
+Trains, Factories, Public Buildings and everything. Now those are
+wearing out and have to be repaired and rebuilt. What are they going
+to do? Nobody has anything else free for ’em. So, just offhand to an
+unobserving bonehead, it don’t look like they have manipulated their
+affairs any too good.
+
+These other so-called Capitalistic Nations after the war have kept up
+repairs and debts, and still look better off than Russia. Russia hasent
+paid it out in big salaries. Nobody has ever received in the way of
+working wages more than a mere living. But they changed their scheme
+around a dozen times since they been in, and they are liable to change
+it a dozen more, because none of them ain’t what you would exactly call
+a-hitting just right. They have been messing with Russia for nearly
+nine years. It’s a good thing that the 90,000,000 are not organized or
+there would be a change there overnight.
+
+Communism will never get anywhere till they get that basic idea of
+Propaganda out of their head and replace it with some work. If they
+plowed as much as they Propagandered they would be richer than the
+Principality of Monaco. The trouble is they all got their theory’s out
+of a book instead of any of them ever going to work and practicing
+them. I read the same books these Birds learned from, and that’s the
+books of that guy Marx. Why, he was like one of these efficiency
+experts. He could explain to you how you could save a million dollars
+and he couldent save enough himself to eat on.
+
+I read his life history. He never did a tap of work only write
+Propaganda, according to his own history. He couldent even make his own
+writings pay, much less his theories. He wrote for the dissatisfied,
+and the dissatisfied is the fellow who don’t want to do any manual
+labor. He always wants to figure out where he and his friends can get
+something for nothing. They even suggest somebody dividing with them.
+You could take those 600,000 Communists over in Russia and take 600,000
+rich Americans and you could put them all together and make the
+Americans divide up with them equally, and in six months the 600,000
+Communists wouldent have a thing left but some long hair and a scheme
+to try to get back the half that the Americans was smart enough to take
+from them. While the Russians would be practicing their book theories,
+the Americans would be practicing just the ones that they know would
+work. If you have never been smart enough to make it yourself, you
+wouldent be smart enough to hang onto it after you got it.
+
+I hate to keep dragging Mussolini in this, but it was his being in
+the Communist Party for all those years that he found out just which
+ones of their Theories were wrong. Communists have some good ideas,
+of course; but they got a lot that sound better than they work. So
+Mussolini has just used the good ones in Italy and thrown out all the
+others and replaced them with his own. So he really has Communism
+to thank for his success in learning what not to do. If this Stalin
+turns out to be a kind of a Mussolini, why, they may pull out; but
+somebody has got to handle that troop with a knout. They say Russia is
+supposed, by their law, to be run by everybody. Well, it looks it.
+
+You know a Communist’s whole Life work is based on complaint of how
+everything is being done. Well, when they are running everything
+themselves, why, that takes away their chief industry. They have
+nobody to blame it on. Even if he is satisfied with it, why, he is
+miserable because he has nothing to complain about. Same way with
+strikes and Revolutions. They would just rather stir up a strike
+somewhere than eat. So, naturally, in Russia with themselves, they feel
+rather restrained, for they are totally unable to indulge in their old
+favorite sport of going on strike and jumping up on a box and inviting
+all the boys out with them. You know, that is their whole life, and
+that is why I don’t believe they will ever be satisfied to run their
+own country, especially if everything runs smooth. You make one
+satisfied and he is no longer a Communist. So if they ever get their
+country running good they will defeat their own cause.
+
+Now, mind you, I may be wrong about these people, for you can never
+tell about a Russian. They all may be just having the best time in the
+World over there and enjoying it all fine. You know, that is one thing
+about the Russian--he thrives on adversity. He is never as happy in his
+life as when he is miserable. So he may just be setting pretty, for he
+is certainly miserable. It may be just the land for a Comrade to want
+to hibernate in.
+
+Some days in there it would really look to me like they were trying to
+do something, and were going to get somewhere; and the next day you
+would see stuff that would make you think, “What has all these millions
+of innocent, peace-loving people done that through no fault of their
+own they should be thrown into a mess like this, with no immediate
+prospects of relief?” So I am going to be honest with you--I don’t know
+whether to kiss ’em or kill ’em.
+
+But now we are going to get down to the real thing as to whether they
+can really last or not, and that is religion. The Russians, I guess
+from what little I have read, were about the most whole-hearted
+religious people anywhere. They are at heart just big, simple,
+kind-hearted, God-fearing people. Practically all of them were devout
+members of the Russian Orthodox Church. Some of the most wonderful
+Churches in the World are in Russia. Now here is something that
+everybody don’t know--that the basic foundation of the Communist Party
+is to be a nonbeliever--in other words, they are all Atheists.
+
+You can’t belong to the Party and belong to any Church, no matter what
+Church. All the Jewish members of the Party have to be nonbelievers.
+Before you can get into the Party, it takes a couple of years or more,
+and this Atheist test is the one that is hardest. They try to lead
+these Russians to believe that all their troubles all these years have
+been directly traceable to their religion; that if they throw over
+their devout religion everything will be all right. They point out that
+the Czar and all those that oppressed them were members of that Church,
+and that if a God existed, why hadent He done something to help them?
+
+Now nobody is making any Alibi for the Czar or any of his old Gang, for
+from what I could learn in Russia from everybody I talked with, not
+only the Bolsheviks but others on the other side, who had been in there
+for years, the Czar was pretty small Potatoes. He wasent intentionally
+bad, but he was just weak. They all seemed to think the Czarina had
+quite a bit of backbone, and if he had had her nerve Russia might have
+had a different story today. ’Course, you have to admit that fanatical
+religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but
+not quite.
+
+Now they will tell you that the worship of Leninism is their religion.
+Lenin preached Revolution, Blood and Murder in everything I ever read
+of his. Now they may dig ’em up a religion out of that, but it’s too
+soon after his death really to tell just how great he was. History has
+to ramble along a good many years after a man puts some policies into
+effect till you can tell just how they turned out.
+
+Why, some fellow may come along in Russia at any time with a whole new
+set of plans that beat Lenin’s all to pieces, and he would be the Big
+Man. So where would all your Lenin worship be then? You know, there is
+a lot of big men die, but most of them are not so big that they won’t
+all be buried. Now Lenin may come through right on through the ages,
+but at the present time they are kinder forcing him on the people.
+The Government has erected more Statues and Busts to Lenin than there
+is flivvers in America. Everywhere you go--every room in every public
+building has a bust of Lenin. They make the children speak of him as
+Uncle Lenin. Now it’s always best to let the people pick out their own
+Hero. Don’t try to force one on them; it’s liable to have the opposite
+effect sometimes.
+
+Mind you, you can’t condemn everybody just because they started a
+Revolution. We grabbed what little batch of liberty we used to have
+through a revolution, and lots of other Nations have revolutions to
+thank today. But I don’t think anyone that just made a business of
+proposing them for a steady diet would be the one to pray to and try
+and live like.
+
+We all know a lot of things that would be good for our Country, but we
+wouldent want to go so far as propose that everybody start shooting
+each other till we got them. A fellow shouldent have to kill anybody
+just to prove they are right.
+
+I can’t understand by what reckoning they think everybody connected
+with running the Country should be a nonbeliever. Just what quality
+does that add to Government? I don’t care what you believe in, but
+you certainly got a right to that belief, and you shouldent have to
+give it up to take part in the Government of your Native Land. If the
+Bolsheviks say that religion was holding the people back from progress,
+why, let it hold them back. Progress ain’t selling that high. If it is,
+it ain’t worth it. Do anything in this world but monkey with somebody
+else’s religion. What reasoning of conceit makes anyone think theirs
+is right? These present religions are liable to knock on the door up
+above and find that there is not a Soul been admitted that ever saw an
+Automobile or a train. You may be told:
+
+“Oh, no; you so-called educated people thought you knew so much, and
+lived so much better down there, and tried to make all others believe
+in yours instead of their own religion. They were the ones that were
+right. Yet they dident try to impose theirs on you. I am sorry. Good
+day.”
+
+It’s better to let people die ignorant and poor, believing in what
+they have always believed in, than to die prosperous and smart, half
+believing in something new and doubtful.
+
+There never was a nation founded and maintained without some kind of
+belief in something. Nobody knows what the outcome in Russia will be
+or how long this Government will last. But if they do get by for quite
+a while on everything else, they picked the only one thing I know of
+to suppress that is absolutely necessary to run a Country on, and that
+is Religion. Never mind what kind; but it’s got to be something or you
+will fail at the finish.
+
+P.S. Now I have told you all about Russia, but the best way I can
+describe Russia to you is, Russian men wear their shirts hanging
+outside their pants. WELL ANY NATION THAT DON’T KNOW ENOUGH TO STICK
+THEIR SHIRT TAIL IN WILL NEVER GET ANYWHERE.
+
+
+
+
+                         =Transcriber’s Notes=
+
+ Some words appear to be purposely misspelled; these have not been
+ changed.
+
+ Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.
+
+ Illustrations have been moved to appropriate paragraph breaks.
+
+ New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
+ public domain.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77828 ***
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+    <title>
+      There’s not a bathing suit in Russia & other bare facts | Project Gutenberg
+    </title>
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+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77828 ***</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="center xlarge bold">
+<i>THERE’S NOT A BATHING SUIT IN RUSSIA</i>
+</p>
+
+<p class="center xlarge bold">
+By Will Rogers
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p>
+
+<p class="right large"><i>If you like the following subjects
+you will just love this text book.</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="right large">
+  § Mary Garden § Aviation § Vodka § Bathing Bareback §<br>
+  Whiskers, <i>long ones</i> § Propaganda, <i>all sorts</i> §<br>
+  Free Love § Bombs § Grand Dukes &amp; Princesses § and
+</p>
+
+<p class="right large"><i>21 other wrong ways to run a country</i></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp15" style="max-width: 120px;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_000frontispiece.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+
+<p class="center large bold">With Illustrations by Herb Roth</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+  1927<br>
+  New York<br>
+  Albert &amp; Charles Boni
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p class="center xlarge bold">
+By Will Rogers
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<h1>
+  There’s Not a<br>
+  Bathing Suit<br>
+  in Russia<br>
+  <i>&amp; Other Bare Facts</i>
+</h1>
+<br>
+
+  <figure class="figcenter illowp15" style="max-width: 120px;">
+  <img src="images/i_000title.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="center large bold">With Illustrations by Herb Roth</p>
+<p class="center">
+  1927<br>
+  New York<br>
+  Albert &amp; Charles Boni
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">
+  <i>Copyright, 1927, by Albert &amp; Charles Boni, Inc.</i><br>
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <i>Copyright, 1927, by the Curtis Publishing Co.</i><br>
+  <i>Manufactured in the United States of America</i>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">
+    <i>CONTENTS</i>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<a href="#CONTENTS"></a>
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdr">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">7</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#I">One</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">23</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#II">Two</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">35</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#III">Three</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">57</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#IV">Four</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">80</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#V">Five</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">100</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#VI">Six</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">113</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#VII">Seven</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">130</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#VIII">Eight</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">140</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak">
+    <i>ILLUSTRATIONS</i>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<table class="autotable">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="tdr">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_009">If he escaped very fast he is a Grand Duke</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">9</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_027">I thought somebody had loaded me up with molten lead</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">27</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_039">One woman did get over with a safe, she had it hid in her bathing cap</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">39</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_043">That is called the mountain region of Holland</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">43</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_061">Lithuania? Why, I never even heard of it</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">61</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_067">My one impression of Russia</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">67</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_075">I didn’t get a shave, figuring I might pass as a native</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">75</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_083">Everybody said—“They have spies and secret police all over the place”</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">83</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_091">I didn’t hardly expect Trotzky to make any faces for me or to turn a few somersaults</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">91</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_095">He has served his term in Siberia under the Czar</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">95</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_127">They start at the cradle with them in Russia</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">127</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl"><a href="#i_131">If there is a bathing suit in Russia, somebody is using it for an overcoat</a></td>
+<td class="tdr">131</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">
+    <i>INTRODUCTION</i>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><i>Now there has been more said and written
+about Russia than there has been about
+Honesty in Politics and Farmers’ Relief,
+and there has been just as little done about
+it as about either of those two.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I should have written earlier about Russia,
+but everybody was writing, and I thought
+I would wait till they all got through; but
+they are not going to get through. They
+just keep on writing about Russia. It looks
+like anyone is an amateur in Literature if
+they havent exhibited Russia’s horoscope to
+a picture-reading public.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>More people break into Sunday Editions
+with an article on Russia than do by murdering
+their husbands or swimming the
+Channel. If you can’t get into the papers,
+never did get in, and are about losing hope
+of having anything get in, why—here is the
+greatest tip to ambitious amateur literary
+careers—write something on Russia and you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>will replace some regular writer that day.
+Russia is the biggest Country in the World,
+and men and Women write authoritative
+opinions on it that couldent give you a bird’s-eye
+view of the Principality of Monaco, and
+you can take a handful of green apples and
+stand on a hill and hit everybody in Monaco.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>It has always been a source of wonder to
+me that Patricia Ziegfeld, Baby Peggy,
+Paulina Longworth or Nick Altrock have
+never written a book on Russia. Some Congressmen
+come over to Paris to investigate
+the Cafés, have four cocktails and a Russian
+caviar sandwich—which they dident like, but
+the rest was doing it—go back home and tell
+of the condition as it exists today in Russia.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Russia has one peculiarity that I don’t
+think any other country ever enjoyed—that
+is, that every female gender that come out
+of there is a Princess, and the lowest form
+of a title in the way of an escaped male is
+a Duke, and if he escaped very fast he is
+a Grand Duke. From the amount of Titles
+out of there, one would gather right away
+that the sole purpose of the Revolution, proposed
+and carried out, was not to assist the
+downtrodden, as is generally supposed, but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pgs 9-10]</span>
+to promote foreign travel among the Princesses
+and Dukes.</i></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_009" style="max-width: 958px;">
+  <img src="images/i_009.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>If he escaped very fast he is a Grand Duke.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<br>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[Pg 11]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Escaped statistics show that among males,
+72 per cent. were Grand Dukes and the other
+28 per cent. just Dukes. Women were all
+100 per cent. Princesses. You spend half
+your time in Paris listening to some exiled
+American telling you hard-luck stories about
+former Russian nobility. “The fellow who
+just opened the Taxi door in front of this
+American Rat Trap you are now in was a
+Grand Duke and, brother, just two Revolutions
+removed from the Czar.” They are
+all kin to the Czar. “The Girl you mortgaged
+your hat too as you come in was the
+Czarina’s principal Lady in waiting”; also
+related to the family. The bus boy—he is
+the fellow they use so the waiter will have
+somebody to lay the blame on—was a Duke,
+and he would have been Grand if the thing
+had lasted. In fact you are in a nest of royal
+relatives. Telephone girls were Princesses,
+Taxi drivers used to be Dukes—all, as I say,
+related to the Czar.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Any man with that many kinfolks, no
+wonder something happened to him. I bet
+if the truth was found out, he organized his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>own death personally. If I had some of the
+kinfolks he was supposed to have had, I
+would have hired assassins to exterminate me
+very early in life. They tell of one fellow
+that was very, very near the Czar—perhaps
+a twin. Well, he is selling Peanuts on the
+street. We tried to find him, not because I
+was interested in his case, but I wanted some
+Peanuts. I have yet to hear of one that was
+doing well. Yet they bother you for hours,
+telling you how polished and highly educated
+and cultured they were. They seem
+to know what temperature to drink their
+wine at, but most of them don’t know how
+to make a dollar to buy the wine.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Now if that is all any of them can do,
+how was it they thought they could run a
+tremendous country like Russia? A fellow
+will seek his level, I don’t care where you
+are. If opening Taxi doors in front of
+Vodka Joints and helping a waiter break
+dishes is as high as their ability will carry
+them in eight years, it shows they should
+have been doing that all the time. All those
+good years they had in Russia was not due
+to any of their own efforts.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>If the present Republican régime was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>thrown over, and were all banished from the
+District of Columbia, none are going to open
+any Taxicab doors for anybody but themselves.
+They might not get into anything
+as big as the White House or Czar’s Palace,
+but they will have one big enough that the
+help problem will bother. Even the Congressmen
+may not be able to plant their own
+Gardens with Government seed and mail
+letters for nothing. Yet you won’t see any
+of them have to resort to peddling goobers
+on anybody’s street. They can even pull the
+Cabinet Chairs out from under that band of
+accomplices who plot against us once a week;
+they will hit the floor, but they will come
+back up out of it with nothing hurt but their
+political pride. They can always dig up
+enough for the next Campaign fund.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Of course, at times they may wish, like
+the deposed Russian Noblemen, for the old
+régime back, and mull over the good old
+days when they used to sit around the old
+White House hearth and laughingly discuss
+the League of Nations and Philippine Independence;
+but they will always be able to
+seek their level. Revolution, in the way of
+Democrats uprising and buying enough
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>votes to depose us, might be sorter disconcerting
+for the time being; but they never
+would have to worry about where those
+Flapjacks and Maple sirup was coming
+from.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Now, I may be hard-hearted, but I just
+couldent seem to work myself up into any
+great frenzy of tears over the old Dukes and
+Princesses. They carry a lot of long, high-sounding
+names, but mighty little sympathy.
+They can converse in a lot of languages, but
+they’re not strong on making a living in any
+of them. They have spent a lifetime trying
+to learn how to dance in a Ballroom, but
+they have never learned it good enough to
+get paid for it. The old American is there
+with the uncouthness, but he never comes in
+on a pass. His rudeness is unintentional and
+not studied.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I bet you if I had met a Russian in Paris
+and he had said, “I was a poor Peasant in
+Russia before the War; I never had anything
+in my life; I always had to work very
+hard; I never in all my life even saw the
+Czar; I had no culture, either then or now,
+no refinement, no education; I was just
+struggling along”—say, I could have taken
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>that kind of a Russian out in Paris and told
+them about him and collected him a million
+Francs. People would have gone crazy over
+him, he would have been such a novelty. Of
+course there is no such one. If there was,
+he is perhaps President of a Bank in Paris,
+or else he is perhaps Premier a day or so
+every once in a while. No, Sir; the poor
+ability of many of the Russians that come
+out of there has really been more of a boost
+for the Revolution than any other one thing.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Well, when I saw they were not going to
+quit writing about Russia, why, I am going
+to get busy and write the most novel
+thing on Russia that was ever written. I
+have had a research made, and there has
+never been a book on Russia that tells you
+what I am going to tell you, and there has
+been more ink wasted on Russia and Prohibition
+than any other two subjects in the
+world, both equally unsettleable.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Now here is the novelty and truth of my
+Book on Russia:</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I am the only person that ever wrote on
+Russia that admits he don’t know a thing
+about it.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>And on the other hand, I know just as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>much about Russia as anybody that ever
+wrote about it.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Nobody knows anything about Russia.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I have read dozens of books and hundreds
+of Articles by various people, such as “The
+Real Russia, by one who spent five years
+in a Moscow jail”; “My ten years banishment
+in Siberia, by a real Russian”; “The
+Heart of Russia”; “Russia as I know it, by
+a House Detective”; and millions of others.
+Now how is anybody going to find anything
+out about Russia by spending five years in a
+Moscow jail? Or ten years in Siberia wouldent
+give you any too good a line on the financial
+or economic future of the Empire.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Now just stop and think a minute. Suppose
+somebody come to you tomorrow and
+said, “Tell us about America.” Now how
+could you tell ’em about America, in an
+Article, a Book, or a dozen volumes, or a
+thousand volumes? It’s too big; nobody
+could tell about it. Suppose somebody tried
+to write on The Heart of America. Why,
+Lord, we can’t even keep track of the toe of
+Maine or the heel of California, much less
+the heart! Now if nobody could write a composite
+Article on America, how are they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>going to do it on Russia, a country that is
+so much bigger than us that we would rattle
+around in it like an idea in Congress?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I have even read all I could find that
+Lenin and Trotzky said about Russia, and
+it don’t give me any better idea than Mutt
+and Jeff.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Just get this size and composition of Russia
+and her people and see how anybody
+could tell you anything about Russia: It’s
+the largest continuous domain in the World;
+it covers nearly one-sixth of the total surface
+of the earth; there is over one hundred different
+Nationalities live inside the Soviet
+Union. Get the statistics of these nationalities;
+it reads like a New York Telephone
+Directory—70,000,000 great Russians;
+3,000,000 Jews in the western part of the
+Union; 1,000,000 Germans on the Volga;
+500,000 Greeks along the northern coast of
+the Black Sea; Moldavians, Bessarabians,
+Georgians; 500,000 Armenians; 1,000,000
+Persians; Ossentines, Ingushes, Circassians,
+Abkhasians, Checkenians. Why, there is
+5,000,000 Tartars! Boy, what a sauce that
+is alone! And eighty other races that even
+the census man hasent got to yet.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Talk about the Lost Tribe of Israel!
+Say, they could have been in Russia all this
+time and never be lost at all, and still nobody
+would have found them.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Now scramble all that together and let
+somebody think they can diagnose it. Russia
+is the boarding-house hash of Nations.
+Hash, Russia and flivvers are three things
+nobody has ever been able to catalogue the
+contents.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Trying to tell what Russia is is like trying
+to tell the difference between a Conservative
+Republican and a Progressive
+Democrat. If you are a visiting Communist,
+or have Communistic leanings, why, naturally
+you will write of it from their accomplishment
+point of view, and are liable to—accidentally—leave
+out any little defects you
+might have seen.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Then on the other hand, if you are not
+the least bit in sympathy with any part of
+their program, why, you naturally are not
+liable to let yourself see anything that has
+any merit in it. So, if you are looking for
+me to solve the Russian Problem, you are
+not going to get it done. Now a Congressman
+could do it in twenty minutes and a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pgs 19-22]</span>Senator in ten, but it stuck me. But I tell
+you what I am going to do—I am just going
+to be like a prisoner at the bar when
+some wise, old good-natured Judge who
+wants to get the facts asks, “Will you please
+tell the Court in your own way and your
+own language just what happened on the
+entire night of June the twelfth?” Now
+that’s what I am going to do. I am just
+going to tell you everything I saw and what
+happened here in Russia in the last few
+weeks.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[Pg 23]</span></p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak">
+    <i>THERE’S NOT A BATHING
+    SUIT IN RUSSIA</i>
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="I">
+    I
+  </h2>
+
+
+
+<p>I was passing through Paris and looking
+for a good show and somebody suggested the
+House of Deputies. It’s a Satire on our
+Congress, so that will set you laughing right
+there. It was the best thing I ever saw
+in Europe in the way of entertainment. A
+man on one Party was trying to make a
+speech and the Socialists and the Labor
+Members on the other—who were in the
+minority, but they sure wasent when it come
+to making noise. This old Boy had no more
+chance of being heard than a Republican
+vote has being counted in a Tammany election.</p>
+
+<p>They would get up and run at each other
+and shake their fists. You would think the
+whole thing would be murder. But they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>don’t really fight any oftener than Dempsey.
+I could take this same troupe to America
+and rent the Hippodrome and I can get
+them enough money to pay their debts.
+New York would go crazy over a show like
+that. Over home we couldent understand
+how people could be so mad at each other
+and even live in the same country.</p>
+
+<p>This last fellow, Poincaré, had the right
+idea. The minute they put him in he made
+a motion that the Chamber adjourn for the
+rest of the summer. So they couldent throw
+him out till they met again. That assured
+him of a few weeks Steady work. After I
+come out of this show, I had a date to eat
+Dinner with Morris Gest, the Miracle Man
+and organizer of the late Russian invasion to
+America. Morris is just soaked full of Art,
+and I wanted to see at close range just how
+a real artistic temperament acted. I like
+Morris with or without Art; everybody likes
+Morris.</p>
+
+<p>I have known him since away back in the
+old Hammerstein’s Victoria, which had
+nothing to do with Art—it was entertainment.
+He had just come out of Russia—he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>and Ashton Stevens, of Chicago, the
+only Dramatic Critic that ever learned William
+Randolph Hearst to play the Banjo.
+They had been in looking over this year’s
+Art crop and they claimed it looked like a
+bumper year. Balieff—you all knowed
+Balieff, the best bald-headed Comedian that
+ever stepped out from behind plush curtains.
+You have laughed and admired his artistic
+show for years, the Chauv Surrey, or
+Sworee, or something like that. He is a real
+Artist, this Balieff.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we went to one of those Russian
+layouts that have littered up Paris. Everywhere
+there used to be a coal cellar there
+is a Russian Restaurant now. They asked
+me if I had ever had a taste of Vodka, and
+they poured out a little small glass of what
+I thought was water. It was the most innocent-looking
+thing I ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>Then all said just drink it all down at
+one swig; nobody can sip Vodka. Well, I
+had no idea what the stuff was, and for a
+second I thought somebody had loaded me
+up with molten lead, and I hollered for
+water.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now over in Europe the water is in quart
+bottles, and here was this Vodka in another
+quart bottle, and it looks exactly like
+water; and this Clown Balieff, thinking
+quick, immediately grabbed the Vodka and
+loaded up the glass again; and me thinking
+it was the water, and my throat a-burning,
+why, I gulped it down quick, and here I
+was just twice as bad off as I had been.
+If I could have seen which one to hit I
+would have swung on him, but they already
+were blurred. Lord, what quick results that
+stuff delivers!</p>
+
+<p>I asked, “Where do they get this white
+Iodine?” They informed me then that that
+was Russia’s national dissipation. Why,
+that old white corn down South would be
+branch water compared to this stuff. Jack
+Brandy and White Mule would be used as
+a chaser where this stuff come from. How
+they can concentrate so much insensibility
+into one prescription is almost a chemical
+wonder. This Balieff, the native of that
+land of boots and blood, then related to me
+the recipe, which reads as follows:</p>
+
+<p>One half bushel of old Potato peelings;
+fourteen ears of Russian corn, or maise, Cob
+and stalk included; four top and soles of
+worn Russian boots; five grams of Giant
+Powder; three Bombs chopped up fine.
+Mix all this in a washtub full of Vulgar
+River water, add two Revolutions and serve.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pgs 27-28]</span></p>
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_027" style="max-width: 963px;">
+  <img src="images/i_027.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>I thought somebody had loaded me up with
+    molten lead.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<br>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a><a id="Page_29"></a>[Pg 29]</span></p>
+
+<p>Well, I will tell you how these two accidental
+shots acted on me. We dident
+know where to go, and Gest suggested that
+we go up to the Opera; that it was Mary
+Garden’s last night singing there. Well,
+it was too late. They had been turning people
+away since the day before. But you
+can’t stick Morry, so we waited till the time
+the show was over and we went into Mary’s
+dressing room. Her and Morry and all
+these others were great friends. I had never
+had the pleasure of meeting her, but she had
+been responsible for me going on the Concert
+tour; for she ribbed Charley Wagner
+up to it, as they were old Pals. So when I
+come in with them, Mary rushed right over
+and threw her arms around me and kissed
+me, and to show you how this Vodka was
+working, I wouldent push her away; in fact
+I dident even get mad at her. ’Course,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>there is not much use going on with the
+story. About the only moral I can get out
+of it is, take two swigs of Vodka and then
+start hunting Mary Garden.</p>
+
+<p>Well, that begin to give me a whole lot
+of encouragement. I had never been able
+to get near Mary Garden before. So I
+started in by asking, “Where is this country
+that can manafacture such explosives in liquid
+form? Mebbe they got something that goes
+with it. Any Nation that’s ingenious can’t
+be confined to one good idea.”</p>
+
+<p>They said, “It’s Russia, Bud; it’s Russia.”</p>
+
+<p>Now if there is one thing that is a worry
+to us, it is too much drinking going on over
+home. I thought up to this that we had
+the world beat on the collecting of unique
+articles and scrambling them together and
+selling the combination under the nom de
+plume of a livable beverage. But if I can
+get this Vodka stuff, I will be able to cut
+the drinking down one-half and mebbe
+three-fourths. One tiny sip of this Vodka
+poison and it will do the same amount of
+material damage to mind and body that an
+American strives for for hours.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span></p>
+
+<p>I am—and I think every prohibitionist
+is—for anything that will cut our drinking
+down and get it over with as soon as possible.
+If we must sin, let’s sin quick and
+don’t let it be a long, lingering sinning. So
+I asked them, “Where do you get a Veesay
+to this Utopia?”</p>
+
+<p>Now that is the whole story to Vodka.
+The recipe I have is only problematical. Nobody
+in the world knows what it is made out
+of, and the reason I tell you this is that the
+story of Vodka is the story of Russia. Nobody
+knows what Russia is made out of, or
+what it is liable to cause its inhabitants to
+do next.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I sure did want to go somewhere
+where I wouldent be continually reminded
+that “On the right you will see the Fountains
+of Versailles”; or “That is the Houses
+of Parliament, where all the laws of England
+are made”; or “That is the dome of
+St. Peter’s.”</p>
+
+<p>I asked Morry Gest, “Do they have rubber
+neck wagons up there?” He answered
+in the negative. I think it’s negative when
+you say no, ain’t it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p>
+
+<p>Ashton Stevens then pulled the best Gag
+of the entire tour: “You know, Will, you
+are just about the poorest dressed Actor
+I know; in fact that assertion takes in people
+that are not Actors. Well, as bad as
+you look when and if you get to Russia, for
+once in your life you will be the best dressed
+man in the biggest country in the world.”</p>
+
+<p>Well, I went right over to London and
+made application for one of those famous
+Veesays. Russia has an Embassy in London;
+it’s a kind of an unofficial one. They
+recognize Russia just enough to sell ’em
+something. It’s a sorter “You can stay as
+long as we are doing business, but socially
+we have lost your address.” In other words,
+they hate ’em at heart but love ’em financially.</p>
+
+<p>It’s pretty hard to get into Russia. Your
+application has to be sent to Moscow and
+be approved or rejected. I had a nice chat
+with the fellow who put in my application
+and then hopped out for Geneva to see the
+Preliminary Disarmament Conference. It
+had been then going a few days and I figured
+that everybody’s Navy would be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>scrapped; that the Airships would be beat
+into windmills, poison gases would be turned
+into fertalizing Nitrates, and that every
+Army would be released to join Jazz bands.</p>
+
+<p>They are still over there, and they all have
+to be personally armed before they will go in
+and confer with each other. Again I ask,
+will we please stop anybody going anywhere
+to confer with anybody unless it’s his Doctor?
+And then he is just losing time. The
+only time we ever attract any attention at a
+conference is when we don’t go. There has
+been more talk about us and the League of
+Nations through being out of it than there
+ever would have been in the World if we
+were in it. You know yourself that you
+have gone to a lot of things that afterwards
+you had wished you hadent gone too. Nobody
+can ever get in wrong by not attending
+anything. But every time you go you take a
+chance either of getting in wrong or being
+misunderstood.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after prowling around Switzerland,
+Italy, Spain and France and all of
+them, Mary Garden come into my mind
+again; and naturally that brought up Vodka,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>for if it hadent been for that Vodka I would
+never known what Mary Garden perfume
+smelled like on the original. So I wires
+over to London to see what has happened
+to the application for the Veesay. They
+wire back collect that it is laying right there
+and that all I have to do is to come and
+get it and start getting in Russia.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="II">
+    II
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Well, I fly back over to London. By
+this time I have done so much flying that
+if I was in the Army I would be like Colonel
+Mitchell. I would be thrown out for
+not staying on the ground more. When I
+got to the Embassy there was a bunch of
+about ten young American Bolsheviki’s
+signing up their passports. They had come
+from various colleges over home and were
+going to Russia by boat; a couple of girls
+among them, and two gentlemen who’s ancestors
+come from below the Mason and
+Dixon Line. So if you hear of your washwoman
+or cook advocating: “Is I am a communist?
+I ain’t nothing else but. I believes
+in everything dividing up. Says which?”
+Well, you will then realize that communism
+has penetrated the black belt.</p>
+
+<p>These two boys may turn out to be the
+Lenin and Trotzky of Birmingham. They
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>will have every Crap shooter on Octavus
+Roy Cohen’s beat sharing his winnings with
+the losers. We may see the time when your
+Gin will be everybody’s gin. They were
+going up by boat. I don’t want any more
+boat than is absolutely necessary at any
+time. So I was going in by Airship. I had
+been aviating so much around Europe that
+to go anywhere on a train seems too much
+like walking to me.</p>
+
+<p>I left London one morning about 9:30.
+Flew over some of the prettiest country
+before striking out across the Channel.
+Looked over the edge of the plane all the
+way across the Channel, watching crowds
+of American Women swimming it. One old
+Lady was a great Grandmother and she had
+three generations of daughters swimming
+it with her. You could see crowds of men
+standing on the shore waiting for a smooth
+sea to cross it in a boat.</p>
+
+<p>One woman of Irish and Jewish parentage,
+but who had become a naturalized
+American last year, was swimming over and
+back without touching. Another American
+woman of Peruvian parentage on both her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>Father and Mother’s side was training on
+the shore at Dover at Pole vaulting—she
+was going to jump the Channel. There
+was two or three Ladies of recent American
+Citizenship who were on the plane with us;
+but we come down when we reached the
+beach and their husbands made them get
+out and swim across—told them they would
+meet them on the other side. One of the
+Ladies said she couldent do that; she had
+tried it before and dident make it, and she
+knew that she couldent do it. She was right
+away accused of being masculine, when in
+reality it was discovered that she was an
+offspring of generations of pure American
+stock.</p>
+
+<p>The funniest sight of all I saw looking
+over that day was one old lady swimming
+in and towing her husband over on her back.
+There was one traffic cop out in the middle—well,
+what you would call a copess. She
+was just treading water and playing around
+out there, directing the other swimmers.
+Every few days somebody would row out
+and leave her some provisions. She was
+of Eskimo parentage, but when we took over
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>Alaska she was in that deal and become an
+American.</p>
+
+<p>The English customs authorities have to
+be very careful. When the first American
+contingent came to land—Miss Ederle—they
+held her for an hour till they could go
+through every pocket of her bathing suit,
+looking for Cigars, Cigarettes, Spiritious
+liquors and perfumes. A girl the other day
+got away pretty lucky. When she got about
+a mile from shore she dropped the smuggled
+goods and then swam back out there the
+next day and dived down and got them.
+The English authorities are pretty particular
+that way; it’s hard for swimmers to
+smuggle in much. One woman did get over
+with a safe. She had it hid in her bathing
+cap.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pgs 39-40]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_039" style="max-width: 60.8125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_039.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>One woman did get over with a safe, she had it hid
+    in her bathing cap.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<br>
+
+<p>This swimming has not only called for a
+new definition in the Dictionary describing
+which is the weaker sex but it has brought
+on a great deal more than that. It has demonstrated
+just how close together England
+and France are, and that’s what’s hurting
+them. Neither one of them wants to be
+close to each other. If we could have given
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[Pg 41]</span>some kind of demonstration that would have
+proved that they were really further apart
+in mileage than they are, why, both Nations
+would have hailed it as a God-given discovery.
+But this bringing them closer together
+has got them more sore at America than
+ever. We can do more things that get us
+in wrong unintentionally than any Nation
+in the world. So it looks like the next war
+between France and England will be fought
+in bathing suits. The way women are showing
+up men swimmers, it’s not monkey
+glands men need, but fish glands.</p>
+
+<p>Well, after we had waved good-by to the
+swimmers, why, we turned up along the
+coast of France and Belgium and landed
+at Ostend. That’s a regular junction point
+of Airships. They hollered: “Change planes
+for Cologne, Vienna, Paris, Constantinople
+and all points south! This plane goes to
+Rotterdam, Amsterdam. Change there for
+Berlin, Warsaw and Copenhagen.” It reminded
+me of the old Frisco depot in Monett,
+Missouri, when we used to pull in
+there after shipping cattle to St. Louis to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pgs 42-44]</span>Strahorn, Hutton and Evans. You remember
+the train splits three ways. One
+goes to Kansas, one to Arkansas; and the
+same one goes right on down through Oklahoma,
+to Claremore, the principal stop.</p>
+
+<p>Well, there at Ostend they had—and do
+at all these airship places—a regular little
+Harvey eating house, where you can go in
+and wrestle with the food and the language.
+Planes was dropping and going out from
+everywheres. We had about twenty minutes,
+and I crawled back in this old Aerial
+Barge of ours and we breezed along on up
+the coast. It was mighty inspiring. We
+passed The Hague, looked over and saw
+the old Peace Palace, where they were going
+to meet to stop all wars. It’s turned
+into an ammunition factory and Army drill
+hall.</p>
+
+<p>Flying over Holland in an Airship is the
+only real way to see it, ’cause if you are
+down on the level—and if you are in Holland
+you will be standing on the level—Holland’s
+highest point is eight feet six and
+a third inches above sea level. That is called
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a><a id="Page_44"></a><a id="Page_45"></a>[Pg 45]</span>the mountain region of Holland, that’s
+where they do their skiing and winter sports.
+Mind you, it’s the prettiest little country
+you ever saw in your life. Just look down
+and see those hundreds of canals and boats
+going along all of them. Your farm is not
+fenced off from your neighbor’s; there is
+just a canal between you and him. You
+either visit by boat or holler over. If your
+next-farm neighbor starts to walk over to
+you some night, he may get there, but he
+will arrive wet. There is no road-contracting
+graft in Holland, no road commissions.
+All roads come under the heading of Harbor
+and Dock Commissions. If there is a flivver
+in Holland, it has oars on it instead of
+wheels.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_043" style="max-width: 119.9375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_043.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>That is called the mountain region of Holland.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<br>
+
+<p>She sure is a pretty dairying Country.
+Those old big black cows with a white
+bandage around their stomachs don’t seem
+to mind at all. You don’t have to brand
+your cattle and your herd will never get
+mixed up with your neighbor’s unless they
+develop web feet or grow a rudder in place
+of a tail.</p>
+
+<p>That windmill Gag that every Artist
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>always pictures with Holland has been kinder
+exaggerated. Higgins, Texas, has got
+more Windmills than all Holland, and what
+I did see looked like they were sorter tired
+out; they wasent doing much; they just
+seemed to be like a lot of things all over
+Europe—they was just trying to get by on
+tradition. They wasent what I could call
+turning out 100 per cent production. I had
+always thought they were located by a little
+white house. Say, there is not a little
+white house in Holland. There’s not even
+a Big white house there. It’s the only
+country in the world where there is absolutely
+only one color, and a paint man would
+starve to death trying to sell any other.
+It’s a kind of red, or a dark bay. So don’t
+you believe Pictures any more. What makes
+everything look white is because it is so clean
+and neat and nice.</p>
+
+<p>Looked for the old Kaiser out in the
+yard chopping wood some place, but everybody
+was burning coal that I could see.
+Guess the old Boy was setting in the house,
+brooding over making the wrong jump out
+of the King row.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p>
+
+<p>Amsterdam was the next stop—changed
+planes for Berlin. Everybody got out and
+had a few Sandwiches and a couple of steins
+of Holland Gin. Into a German plane and
+out over Germany. Say, they was farming
+too. Little long strips of land laid out instead
+of having it all in one big field. They
+do that so they can rotate the crops on the
+different pieces. Forests, the most beautiful
+forests, all out in rows. Every time
+they cut down a tree it looks like they
+planted two in its place. Every time we
+cut one down, the fellow that cuts it down
+sets down to have a smoke and celebrate.
+He throws his cigarette away and burns up
+the rest of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>We hit Berlin at 5:30 that afternoon.
+Just think! Left London at 9:30, had these
+stops, seen all these wonderful countries and
+was clear over in Berlin in time for a drive
+around the city and dinner. I was going
+to stop in Berlin on my way back out of
+Russia, so at two o’clock in the morning, or
+night, I left for Russia. You go to By
+Königsberg. Well, I had been in planes in
+the daytime, but driving away out there
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>in a taxi alone and crawling into an airship
+in the night-time is no particular relief to
+a Comedian. This was a big German
+Junker. Not only had two engines and two
+propellers but three, one big one in front
+and two others as assistants.</p>
+
+<p>Well, when a German outfit say they are
+going to leave at two o’clock, don’t you get
+there at one minute past two. If you do,
+you will just hear the propeller buzzing
+around up in the air. She was dark as we
+left. We had about twelve on board. She
+gets light pretty quick and early up there;
+and seeing the lights down the streets as we
+flew over the city and out across country,
+day soon begin to break and the fog and
+clouds in the low places made you think
+every minute you were flying right out over
+the ocean, and these clouds looked like big
+waves. There was a regular light line miles
+apart that was a big light revolving with
+different colors and no matter how dark,
+the pilot could see where he was going.</p>
+
+<p>But she was light within less than a hour.
+They had a wireless or radio on there, getting
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>weather conditions ahead of them. We
+got into Königsberg about eight o’clock,
+went in and had breakfast and come out,
+and there was a German Fokker. It was the
+one we were to make the long hop from
+there to Moscow in. It was piloted by the
+funniest looking old chuckleheaded, shave-haired
+Russian boy that dident look like
+he was over twenty. But say, Bub, that
+clown could sure rein that thing around
+and make it say Uncle and play dead and
+roll over. He was an Aviator.</p>
+
+<p>It dident do my nerve any good when
+they pointed our plane out to me, for it had
+only one engine. You know, there is some
+confidence attached when you know there
+is a sort of bevy of engines, and if one goes
+wrong, why, some of the others will keep
+percolating. But I looked at this one and
+thought: “Sister, if you stop on us, we are
+just smeared over the landscape of Western
+Russia.”</p>
+
+<p>A single Engine looks awful scarce after
+just emerging from one of those Pullman-looking
+layouts. She looked to me like she
+was naked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now a while ago I said that was the plane
+that we were going to Russia in. I was
+mistaken—that was the plane that I was
+going to Russia in, for I constituted Russia’s
+sole aerial immigration that day. Well, in
+one way, I am generous. If I am going to
+drop, I don’t want to have the pleasure all
+to myself; I want to share it with somebody.
+You never want company till danger comes—then
+you like to look around and see that
+somebody is sorter with you.</p>
+
+<p>The plane really could seat about five
+passengers. There was just room for one,
+the Pilot, out in front; and the Mechanic
+was in the sort of a compartment with me.
+As I got in I commenced to think of all the
+jokes I had told about Russia. And then I
+remembered that people had remarked to
+me they dident know why I had been given
+a passport into Russia, when it was so hard
+to get one. Well, come to think of it, I
+dident either. Then I thought, “Mebbe they
+know about some of the jokes and this Aerial
+Cossack is about heading right off to Siberia
+with me.” I commenced to think what
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>kind of an act I could do for my fellow
+exiles away off up there. I dident know a
+word of Russian, and this lad in the compartment
+with me, or the Pilot either, dident
+know a word of American—not even English.</p>
+
+<p>This littlier plane seemed mighty small
+and jumpy to me. But this old Russian
+boy pulled the slack out of his reins, kinder
+clucked to her, and I want to tell you she
+left there right now.</p>
+
+<p>We headed off for what the ticket said
+was to be Russia, but he could have been
+going toward South Africa as far as I could
+tell anything about it.</p>
+
+<p>Now this is 8:30 in the morning, and—barring
+accidents—this same old wash boiler
+is scheduled to breeze into Moscow at 6:30
+that same afternoon, with only one stop,
+and that was to be at Smolensk. I could
+tell the way he started out that no matter
+where he might be headed for, he was certainly
+going to do no loitering up in that
+air. He just give her her head, and dident
+seem to pull up for rivers, Railroad crossings
+or mountains. Sitting in there kinder
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>give me time to think things over, or, as
+the novelist calls it, soliquizing: Just why
+was a bonehead like me breezing off into
+Russia, or off into anywhere else? What
+was the matter with the Verdigris bottoms
+down in old Rogers County, Oklahoma?
+Why, there I used to be scared to climb up
+as high as the barn loft unless they was a
+load of hay being pitched in. I could understand
+a man flying out of Russia, but
+not in there.</p>
+
+<p>Well, we are just vaulting from cloud to
+cloud and the Country is looking mighty
+nice down below, but not good enough to
+fall on. I dident know where this Smolensk
+was, or what time we was supposed to get
+there. You know, I think that what worried
+me more than anything else was being
+somewhere and not being able to talk to
+anybody. I wouldent have minded having
+a wreck if I could just have asked him on
+the way down “How fast are we falling?”
+or any little casual remark, just so he would
+have got it. It wasent the height as much
+as it was keeping my mouth shut a whole
+day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then I dident know whether I would be
+any better off for talk after I did land there.
+You know, the thing that impressed me
+more away up there, away over in Russia,
+was this: Here I am, for no apparent reason,
+able to fly from London, England, to
+Moscow, Russia, in two days, part of it
+over a country that we laugh at and look on
+as backward and primitive; and here we
+have hundreds of business men in Seattle,
+San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New
+Orleans, Talala, and hundreds of Cities like
+those that want to get somewhere, mebbe
+on account of illness, or thousands of other
+reasons, and the best they can get there is
+just like their forefathers got two generations
+before them. We do more talking
+progress than we do progressing.</p>
+
+<p>You should jump into an Airship in New
+York in the morning, go to a show in Denver
+that night and on to Los Angeles, with
+enough daylight to spare, the second day
+to see Mary Pickford’s home, buy a lot and
+cuss the climate before bedtime. Just think
+of being in something that would go by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>Chicago without having to stay over all day
+and change depots. Look at the lives it
+would save there, passing over where nobody
+could shoot you.</p>
+
+<p>No, sir, air is the thing—get people used
+to getting up into it. The next war is going
+to be all in the air. Nobody ain’t going to
+hand you a pair of putties and a Helmet in
+the next war. They are going to slip a
+throttle of an airship into your hands and
+say, “Go aloft and see if you are lucky
+enough to come down of your own accord
+or will somebody have to bring you down.”
+It will be as big a disgrace ten years from
+now not to know how to run an airship as it
+is now not to know how to run a flivver.
+The day of the old General on the gray
+horse, standing up on a little mound, waving
+his sword telling the other boys where
+to go—that’s museum stuff. In the next
+war the guy that can grab him a single-seater
+and go up and lay behind a cloud
+and tell the boys where to go is the real
+coming general.</p>
+
+<p>There will be a great change of public
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>statues in a few years. The fellow standing
+there with an old Musket will have to share
+honor with the statue swung down from the
+clouds on wires, representing a fellow shooting
+through his propeller with a machine
+gun.</p>
+
+<p>And I am mighty glad that Henry Ford
+took it up. Now you know that Ford
+wouldent leave the ground and take to the
+air unless things looked pretty good to him
+up there. What Borah is to Politics and
+fantastical things like that, why, Ford is to
+practical business needs. So keep one eye
+on that old Boy. He knows more than
+what a Ford car is made out of. I knew
+he had gone about as far as he could go
+on the ground unless you breed more
+people.</p>
+
+<p>So if either party want an issue that you
+won’t have to be ashamed of, or stand
+astraddle of, why, shout Airships—commercial,
+Private, Government, Army, Navy;
+and even the air department can do with
+another one. Listen and America won’t
+have to sit all day in a day coach to get
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>a hundred miles. And say, these trips over
+here cost you just about what they would
+by first-class fare on the trains when you
+consider sleepers and all. It’s not expensive
+traveling.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="III">
+    III
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Well, I must get back up in the air again
+and quit monkeying my time away trying
+to advise. We are flying along, and all at
+once I feel the old Overland stage a-kinder
+doing like she was circling. I couldent
+imagine what that was for. I dident know
+we had to fly around any corners or sharp
+turns in going from one place to another,
+unless they was fixing the road and he had
+to detour. Then I felt her nose heading
+down like a bronc when he starts to swallow
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>I looked out to see if there was going to
+be a traffic accident or what we was dodging,
+and below was a little town along a
+river. He kept circling and getting lower,
+and there I could see right under us then
+an aviation field. You could see other
+planes down there. Well, the main thing
+you got to watch in an Aviator is how he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>gets down. All of them have got up, but
+few can get down right. This bird could
+have lit on an egg and never broke it. We
+skimmed along like a flat rock on the water
+and he brought her up short and nice like
+a real hand reins a good horse.</p>
+
+<p>We piled out and I noticed these old
+Hombres getting out their passports and I
+started reaching for mine. That’s the one
+thing you want to carry in your hand anywhere
+in Europe. It might be a forged one
+and no good, but they just seem to get a
+pleasure out of having you dig for it. Well,
+the officer that took it started in yapping
+about something, and I told him he was
+fooling away his time and wasting some
+kind of mighty good language on me; that I
+dident even know what the language was,
+much less the words; that I spoke only English,
+and that up to only two syllables. He
+went off and dug up another one that knew
+a little of it. There was a lot of Soldiers
+and a lot of activity there.</p>
+
+<p>This new one said to me, “You have no
+Veesay.” In other words, I dident have an
+O.K. on my passport.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p>
+
+<p>Well, that sho threw a scare into me.
+Here I have come all the way here and gone
+to all that trouble, and now there is something
+the matter with it. I grabbed at it
+and showed him what damage the Russians
+had done to it in London for quite a few
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, Russia; but no Lithuania.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lithuania? Lithuania? Why, I never
+even heard of it, much less getting a passport
+to it! Where is it? Where are we anyway?
+I thought I was going to Russia.”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_061" style="max-width: 61.0625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_061.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>Lithuania? Why, I never even heard of it.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<br>
+
+<p>Well, they soon made it known to me
+that I had better have done some studying
+on Geography since the Versailles Peace
+Conference—that really wasent a Peace
+Conference; it was just a map remodeling.
+Say, but I want to tell you they had them a
+Country, all right, from the looks of all the
+officers running around there. I saw one of
+them kinder looking out toward his little
+army and getting them ready to call into
+action. At first when I saw them around
+there I thought they were making a Picture;
+it looked just like Hollywood. I soon
+found it was on the level.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p>
+
+<p>“You should have Veesay.” I had to tell
+them that I dident even know I was flying
+over their country much less landing in it.
+It seems that this was not a regular stop;
+this Aviator has had to come down for something.
+They called a general war conference
+to see what to do with this American
+who had dropped in on them without
+a calling card. They then decided to phone
+down to the town, which was Kovno, and is
+the Capital.</p>
+
+<p>Well, down in town they called the House
+of Parliament or Congress together to devise
+ways and means to deal with such an
+unusual case. So instead of phoning back,
+why, they sent a soldier back on a Bicycle.
+It was quite a ways out of town. He had
+the news that I was to buy $3.50. I gave
+them a Russian ten-ruble piece—that’s
+about five dollars in our money. A ruble
+is worth fifty cents in Russia and about
+two cents outside of there. They wasent
+any too anxious to take it, but they
+did, and went off for change, when I told
+them that that was all right; just keep the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[Pgs 61-63]</span>change and let the Army have a drink on
+me.</p>
+
+<p>If I had just thought and told them I
+was a friend of President Wilson’s, I would
+have got by, because he is the one that laid
+all these countries out. It was one of those
+Self-Determination of small Nations. No
+man ever lived that had more noble ideas
+than Mr. Wilson, and any time a committee
+would come to him with ten names
+signed on an application, and tell him that
+they wanted a Country, why, he would give
+them one. If they dident know exactly
+where they wanted it, and couldent decide,
+why, the League would give it to them off
+of Russia. Different little Nations gnawed
+so much off the edge of Russia that on the
+map it looks like a piece of pie that somebody
+with every other tooth out has bit into.
+Right up above them is another troop called
+the Lats, of Latvia, then several others.
+They are all pretty fine little Nations. But
+it’s a pretty tough struggle to get a new
+Country started, though they are all making
+a pretty good fight. This one had a mighty
+nifty-looking little army. All had on nice
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>neat uniforms, and the Officers looked great.
+Made the Red Army in Russia look like a
+burlesque for appearance. So I am going
+to send the League of Nations a bill for
+$3.50 for finding one of their Countries for
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Say, here is a little inside Diplomatic stuff
+too. There was a French plane up there
+among them, and this Frenchman was showing
+them how to do it.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I gathered up my two Russians
+and we hooked up the traces, clucked to the
+old Fokker and we was off somewhere else—I
+dident know where. But I warned them
+in my best pantomime not to be hunting
+around for any other new Countries, but to
+find Russia. If it wasent big enough to
+find, why, we better go down and borrow
+a map.</p>
+
+<p>Well, all this delay had kinder set us back
+in time, and this old Bolsheviki Boy just
+looked like he took a string and tied his gas
+throttle right down to the floor. She was
+wide open, and we started in hunting Russia.
+The clip we was going at I knew we
+couldent land in any little Country. We
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>was going so fast we would have gone plumb
+through it before we could have come down
+to earth. So I knew then it must be Russia,
+for it was the only country in the world
+that could furnish that much ground to whiz
+over. All I was scared about was that
+we would wind up at Vladivostok or in
+Japan.</p>
+
+<p>Now in going into Russia I think I am
+just like the majority of people—we don’t
+know or have any idea what it is like. My
+one impression of Russia is a sleigh going
+through a forest, with deep snow on the
+ground, pulled by a horse with a big high
+Yoke up over his neck and the wolves jumping
+up biting at the horse’s throat, and some
+others trying to devour the inmates of the
+sleigh. Now that is the picture that I
+have had uppermost in my mind of Russia
+all my life, and I bet a lot of you have
+the same. We always associate that picture
+with Russia, just like we always associate
+the Delaware River with the picture of
+Washington standing up in the middle of
+the boat, with the ice all around, not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>rowing himself but telling the other boys which
+way to row. He was a natural Commander.
+I have often wondered what he would have
+been doing if they had had to swim the
+river.</p>
+
+<p>So, after thinking of that picture and the
+wolves, I believe that is why I took the airplane
+in there. I felt pretty safe up there
+from the wolves. The way we was going,
+any old wolf would sure have had trouble
+jumping up and snapping at us. If he had
+ever jumped up at us, he would have hit the
+fellow in the plane on the same route next
+day.</p>
+
+<p>We was flying nice and low and you could
+see all the people out in the fields working—well,
+not exactly all the people, but the ones
+that were women. Then every time we
+would pass over a little town or village you
+would see a kind of a market place, and all
+the men would be gathered; or you would
+see them driving in or out of town in little
+wagons with one horse.</p>
+
+<p>I think the men are pretty good that way
+in Russia. They make mighty good husbands.
+If the wives raise anything, why,
+the Husbands are perfectly willing to take
+it to town and sell it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[Pgs 67-69]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_067" style="max-width: 60.6875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_067.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>My one impression of Russia.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<br>
+
+<p>It’s not a bad arrangement, at that. You
+know a lot of these countries have got things
+that I would like to see put in over in
+Cuckooland. If women can go out and
+swim all the Channels they can find, why,
+they certainly ought to be able to pitch
+some hay. So I can’t think of a better arrangement
+than these Russians have for all
+parties concerned—that is, as long as the
+wife raises something. The women in Russia
+cultivate the land and the men cultivate
+their whiskers. The men are the best
+farmers—they have never been known to
+have a bad whisker crop. No such thing
+as a failure. When in doubt, raise whiskers.</p>
+
+<p>All the western part of Russia is level,
+with slight rolling hills. Very few farmhouses
+are off to themselves; they are in
+sorter a little bunch. The houses are low,
+built of logs, and have straw-covered roofs.
+The houses and the stables are all built into
+one, generally in a square shape. It’s a
+beautiful country to look at. And grass?
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>Oh, Boy, I just thought if some of my old
+Western ranchmen could see all that big
+fine grass going to waste—millions of acres
+and very little stock on it, with plenty of
+water. There was quite a few herds of
+goats, a good many horses, and cattle, mostly
+milk stock. Everything fat and fine.</p>
+
+<p>And here is one thing I want to tell you
+too before I forget it: Even in Moscow,
+where the old fellow that is driving his
+Droshky—or whatever it is they call those
+old kind of one-horse-buggy things—may
+look like he hadent had anything to eat in
+a week, but I tell you his horse is sure fat.
+They got the fattest, best-looking horses
+there I ever saw—never saw a poor one.</p>
+
+<p>One of the only mysterious occurrences
+of the trip happened just before we got into
+this Smolensk. This Mechanic in there with
+me pulled the curtains tight over the windows
+on both sides and I couldent see out.
+Then I felt the plane turning and knew
+we were landing. He left me sitting there
+looking at myself till we were entirely
+stopped. There was nothing to see after I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>got on the ground. There was some kind of
+military operations going on around there,
+as they are always arguing with Poland and
+this is near the line. They think France is
+backing Poland. Every nation in Europe
+goes to bed with a gun under its head.</p>
+
+<p>Well, whatever they were trying to keep
+from me, they kept it. I went into a neat
+little eating place there and got my first
+crack at some Russian Tea. They serve it
+in big high glasses like Lemonade; no
+cream, but they use Sugar. It’s mighty
+good, and after I tried their coffee I went
+right back on this ration of Tea. I had
+these old Russian boys come in and eat
+with me, and we made a lot of signs and had
+a lot of fun, loaded up with gas. It’s along
+in the afternoon now, and this old Russian
+Casey Jones grabbed his throttle and this
+other old Nester kept his blinds pulled till
+we were away out of town. We are breezing
+along and I feel him kinder tack off to
+one side and I peep out and I see a big
+black cloud ahead. Well, sir, he went over
+to the right to try to take roundance on the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span>thing. Then he decided to go under it;
+then he changed his mind and went over
+it. Of all the dodging and twisting and
+ducking that he did, and I want to relate
+to you that he sho did keep out of it. I
+wouldent be afraid to meet a cyclone with
+that old boy if he could just see her coming.
+She would have to do some tall twisting to
+catch him.</p>
+
+<p>We went into Moscow right on the dot—not
+a minute late. That field was full of
+Airplanes; there must have been eight or
+ten single-seaters up doing their stuff. Now
+just the last few days you have read about
+the advance in aviation and the amount of
+planes that Russia has. Now that is what I
+am trying to get you to understand. These
+Guys over here in Europe, no matter how
+little or how big the country, they have left
+the ground and are in the air. Nobody is
+walking but us; everybody else is flying. So
+in a few years, when somebody starts dropping
+something on us, don’t you say I didn’t
+tell you.</p>
+
+<p>Now everybody had said to me in going
+in, “Don’t take anything in with you; they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>examine everything. They look at every
+card. Don’t take a thing or don’t write a
+thing while you are in there; everybody is
+a Spy and everybody is listening to what
+you have to say.”</p>
+
+<p>Well, they throwed such a scare into me
+that I stripped myself down till I dident
+have a single piece of paper about me but
+my passport. I tore up two handfuls of
+cards that people had given me of people in
+Russia to look up for them. I had the
+parents’ address of everybody in New York
+City. Now I dident know exactly how they
+might stand, and if they caught me with
+these names, I might be suspected of being
+a Spy or something. Outside of my passport,
+if I had been run over in Russia, nobody
+in the world could have told where I
+was from or who I was.</p>
+
+<p>I had an address I had to tear up that
+Morris Gest had given me of a good restaurant
+that served Kafilka Fish and Luction
+Soup, both of which I have learned—after
+strenuous apprenticeship—to like. I
+dident want it to get out in Russia that I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>knew Gest, so I tore that up. Dawes’
+letters to all the Financiers in Europe I tore
+up, for I thought the worst thing in the
+world you could be caught with was any
+connection with Capital. I thought if they
+found them on me they will have me in
+the Kremlin, waiting for daylight to come
+so the squad will be sure not to miss a
+shot. Al Jolson had given me a letter to
+a Jewish musician there who writes all the
+words and music to all his Southern Mammy
+Songs. I took in only one suit and four
+extra shirts, as I was told if I took in too
+much I would be suspected of capitalistic
+tendencies. I debated with myself a long
+time in the hotel in Berlin the night I left
+whether two extra pair of socks instead of
+one would constitute capitalistic affluence.
+I wouldent risk it. I even dident get a
+shave for a few days, figuring I might pass
+as a native.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pgs 75-76]</span></p>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_075" style="max-width: 61.4375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_075.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>I didn’t get a shave, figuring I might pass as a native.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<br>
+
+<p>Now, as a consequence, I dident have a
+soul in the world to go to, or a single address.
+For when you tear up the name and
+address of a Russian, that name is gone
+forever. <span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>No English-speaking person living
+today can remember a single Russian name.
+They were told they could have only so
+many letters in their Alphabet. Well, they
+took fifteen of these they dident want and
+traded them for fifteen extra K’s and Z’s.
+So the alphabet consists of twenty-six letters,
+seventeen K’s and Z’s and nine other
+letters. That is the thing that has made
+Lenin and Trotzky famous outside Russia.
+They were the only ones that the outside
+world could pronounce their names.</p>
+
+<p>Well, due to such expert advice, no one
+ever knocked on the portals of Sing Sing
+any lighter equipped than I entered the
+city of Moscow. I dident even have my
+Shriner pin or my Elk Tooth Fob. I tell
+you I was practically Neglige.</p>
+
+<p>Now you talk about having sea legs when
+you get off a boat. Say, crawl out of an
+Airship after about sixteen hours in the air!</p>
+
+<p>Your legs don’t wabble like they do when
+just off a boat; it’s your arms. They want
+to start flapping and you want to ascend
+again. I never felt anything as low in my
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>life as that ground was. I went into a little
+customs office. They took my passport, but
+instead of like lots of countries where they
+take it away and hold a Clinic over it, why,
+this old boy give it a peek and shoved it
+back to me. I opened up the grip. He
+got one peek—dident even feel in there.
+Talk about not bringing in anything, why,
+I could have had a Grand Plane in there
+and he would never have seen it!</p>
+
+<p>And as for looking to see what you had
+in your pocket or had on your person, why,
+I could have had a bass drum in each hip
+pocket, a Saxophone down each leg and
+two years’ collection of the Congressional
+Records in my coat pockets. Now you
+know yourself that would have been the
+most bunglesome thing I could have had. I
+also had a little Typewriter. This Customs
+fellow thought it was a Cash Register. So,
+you see, there was one set of advice blew up.</p>
+
+<p>I bid this old Russian Aviator Boy good-by,
+and when I shook his hand I meant
+it, and if I ever decide to take up the usual
+tourist trip of flying over the North Pole,
+why, this old funny-looking square-headed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>boy would be the one I would take out a
+stack with. But I guess the traffic will be
+so congested next summer flying over the
+pole that you would just have to wait for
+your turn to pass it.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">
+    IV
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Now a few years ago the Bourgeois
+Party —— Now I better stop right here
+early and tell you what that “Bourgeois”
+word is, what it means and how it is pronounced.
+There are two main words in
+Russia—one is “Bourgeois” and the other is
+“Proletariat,” and “Soviet,” of course, which
+means Council or Congress, only not quite
+as bad as our understanding of Congress.
+Now “Proletariat” means the poor people,
+or what would be known in America as the
+Democrats; and the word “Bourgeois”
+means the rich people, which in America
+would be known as Republicans; or if they
+are very rich, the Conservative Republican
+Party.</p>
+
+<p>Now the word “Proletariat” you can pronounce;
+even some Congressmen can get it
+right; but the word “Bourgeois” has bogged
+down more politicians grammatically than
+the name Susanne Lenglen. “Bourgeois”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>is pronounced by the Russians—and it’s
+theirs, they ought to know—it’s pronounced
+“Burge-Wah.” So, you see, while Russian
+spelling is terrible, the pronunciation is generally
+correct. Now I am just explaining
+these to you so in using them, as I perhaps
+will be in future Russian matters, we will
+understand each other. I really was not
+sent here to instruct America grammatically—only
+Diplomatically. But a little Intelligentzia
+now and then is relished by the
+best of men, even politicians.</p>
+
+<p>Well, as I started to say, the Bourgeois—remember
+pronunciation—party sent over
+Elihu Root years ago on practically the
+same mission as I was on, but he dident find
+out much. In fact, if I remember right,
+he didn’t find out anything. So if I can
+report on how to pronounce and define three
+Russian words, I can well report progress.</p>
+
+<p>Now the first thing I want to do is to
+dispel one generally popular illusion that
+everybody has to watch one’s conduct while
+in Russia. Everybody said: “Be very careful
+what you say or do while in there; they
+have spies and secret police all over the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>place. Every waiter or servant in the Hotel,
+they let on they don’t speak English, but
+they do, and report everything. It’s that
+G. P. P., or Cheko, the famous secret-service
+organization of Russia.”</p>
+
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pgs 83-84]</span>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_083" style="max-width: 61.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_083.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>Everybody said, “They have spies and secret police
+    all over the place.”</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<br>
+
+<p>Well, they had me so scared that New
+York third-degree police methods wouldent
+have got a word from me. If anybody
+said to me, “It’s a nice day today,” I would
+be afraid even to agree with them. I would
+just nod my head both ways, kind of a half
+yes and 50 per cent no. I was as agreeable
+to everybody as an Insurance Agent
+before he lands you.</p>
+
+<p>Then a lot of friends had said to me,
+“Oh, you will get many a laugh out of there;
+I would like to be with you up there.”</p>
+
+<p>Funny? Say, I was just about the saddest
+looking thing you ever saw. Claremore,
+Oklahoma’s favorite light Comedian
+was in no jovial mood to derive merriment
+from a Bolsheviki régime that far away
+from home. I had seen pictures of long
+trains wending their way across the Trans
+Siberian Railway, hauling heavy loads of
+human freight, when nobody had a return
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[Pg 85]</span>ticket but the Conductor, all perhaps for
+getting funny with Russia.</p>
+
+<p>So if I thought of an alleged Wise Crack,
+it was immediately stifled before reaching
+even the thorax. If somebody was going
+to pull nifties at the expense of the Soviet
+Régime, I certainly was not going to be the
+culprit. The whole system of Communism
+might have openly appeared to me Cockeyed
+and disastrous, but if I thought so,
+I would have said it to myself.</p>
+
+<p>No, come to think about it, I wouldent
+even have said it to myself. I would have
+been afraid some thought reader would pick
+it up. I dident want to do anything or
+say anything that could be used against me.
+I wanted to get out in the peaceful way I
+had got in. I wanted to arrive back home
+100 per cent whole this fall, to tell my little
+wheezes to the dissatisfied agrarian popolation,
+or what is mistakenly called the Rube
+Belt. I couldent think of a single Prohibition
+joke that I thought would get over
+around a Prison Camp fire on the shores
+of the Behring Straits. You know, I don’t
+think there is anything as pitiful or sad as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>a half-scared Comedian. I looked, I absorbed,
+but I dident utter.</p>
+
+<p>Then for the next popular illusion I was
+told by everyone, “Oh, they will take care
+of you; they will just take you around and
+show you just what they want you to see.
+You won’t be allowed to see anything. You
+will be sheperded around to just all the
+good-appearing things.”</p>
+
+<p>Well, here is the funny part about it: I
+don’t think there was a soul in Russia that
+knew I was in there. In fact it kinder hurt
+my pride when I found nobody was watching
+me or paying me any attention. You
+see, it’s so hard to get a Passport in there
+that I thought when they did give me one
+I felt kinder like every new Congressman
+when he first comes to Washington and
+look for Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge and the
+Cabinet and Alice Longworth and Walter
+Johnson all to meet him at the train. Then
+he comes and prowls around for a week
+before anybody but his Landlord knows he
+is there. In fact some stay there for years
+and nobody ever knows they are there.</p>
+
+<p>Well, that’s the way I felt. ’Course, I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span>dident figure on any public reception. I
+dident hardly dare to hope for so much as
+the much-heralded Cossacks to charge and
+cut the heads off any remaining nobility in
+Red Square. But I did begin to think if
+they are going to start showing me about
+they better be at it. I tell you it was lonesome
+and humiliating on me. I wanted to
+hire my own Detective and have him watch
+me just to keep up the popular tradition.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I went all over the country; drove
+out to villages, went to other towns, got on
+the train and made a night’s journey from
+Moscow to St. Petersburg—or Leningrad
+was the name of it that week—and wasent
+stopped or asked a question; and dident even
+have any passport, as it had been left with
+the Hotel to give to the Police, as that is
+their custom.</p>
+
+<p>I run onto an old American boy that was
+working for a big mining concern and he
+and I looked at everything there was to see,
+and a lot of things that if they had been
+very careful they shouldent have let us see.
+I talked to various Government officials
+connected with their Foreign Department,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>and everywhere had the greatest courtesy
+and consideration. They explained anything
+that I would ask them about the government
+or the country. One thing, though,
+that a Communist can do is explain. You
+can ask him any question in the world, and
+if you give him long enough he will explain
+their angle, and it will sound plausible then.
+Communism to me is one-third practice and
+two-thirds explanation.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted to go in the Kremlin, the old-time
+Czars’ Castle and Fort. It’s now
+where all the Government business is carried
+on. ’Course, you have to have a permit,
+but they gave it to me and in I went.
+They give you a Guide who speaks English
+to take you through. But that was
+the only place where they furnished me one.
+Anywhere else I could mess around all over
+the place. Lenine’s Tomb—the body is just
+there in a glass case. Well, at the present
+time you can’t go in there, as they are overhauling
+or upholstering the body, or something.
+It’s just a little wooden building
+outside the Kremlin wall.</p>
+
+<p>I wanted, of course, when I went in there,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>to see Trotzky. I wanted to write about
+him and tell how he stacked up with Borah
+and Young LaFollette and Jim Reed and
+Al Smith and Sol Bloom and the New York
+Times man in there, Duranty, who has been
+there for years and is the best informed
+man in Russia on their affairs, and a fine
+congenial little fellow and a godsend to visiting
+English or Americans. Well, Duranty
+and I went to see a man about seeing
+Trotzky. A little fellow named Rothstein,
+who spoke English and used to work on a
+paper in England, he has to do with censoring
+all that goes out to the Press. I told
+him the nature of the visit to Trotzky was
+to find out just what kind of a Guy he was
+personally; that I dident want any of his
+state secrets. I just wanted to see did he
+drink, eat, sleep, laugh and act human, or
+was his whole life taken up for the betterment
+of mankind. I told him that anything
+that I wrote would not break up the pleasant
+relations that existed between our two glorious
+Nations.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rothstein informed me: “We are a
+very serious people; we do not go in for fun
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>and laughter. In running a large Country
+like this we have no time for appearing
+frivolous. We have a great work to perform
+for the betterment of mankind. We
+are sober.”</p>
+
+<p>Well, I explained to him that I dident
+hardly expect Trotzky to make any faces
+for me or to turn a few somersaults or tell
+the one about two Hebrews named Abe
+and Moe. I tole him that the man must
+have some very good human qualities, and
+on account of being in America at one time,
+he has always been of especial interest to
+us; more than anyone else in Russia since
+Lenin’s death. I wanted to tell them that
+what they needed in their Government was
+more of a sense of humor and less of a sense
+of revenge.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[Pgs 91-92]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_091" style="max-width: 61.0em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_091.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>I didn’t hardly expect Trotzky to make any faces for
+    me or to turn a few somersaults.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<br>
+
+<p>I saw that this old boy wasent so strong
+for me X-raying Trotzky. But I bet you
+if I had met him and had a chat with him,
+I would have found him a very interesting
+and human fellow, for I have never yet
+met a man that I dident like. When you
+meet people, no matter what opinion you
+might have formed about them beforehand,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[Pg 93]</span>why, after you meet them and see their
+angle and their personality, why, you can
+see a lot of good in all of them. You know
+how it is yourself. I bet you have had
+Political enemies and you would think from
+your impressions of them that they ought
+to be quartered in the zoo in the reptile
+house. Yet when you met them you could
+see their side and find they wasent so bad,
+and that you were both trying to get about
+the same thing in the long run.</p>
+
+<p>Rothstein wants me to stay over one day
+longer, and he would have me see Tchitcherin.
+He was the Prime Minister, and naturally
+would be the main one. But it was
+Trotzky I want to see if possible. These
+Prime Ministers, they are so sudden that
+before I can write you about one of them
+he may be out and be three Ministers removed
+from his old position.</p>
+
+<p>But I found out the real reason I dident
+get to see Trotzky. Trotzky is not in so
+good with the present government. It may
+seem rather funny to some to hear he is too
+conservative for them. He has his ideas
+how things should run, as he is one of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>old-timers in the party. He got so bad as
+an opposition that the Party shipped him
+away off down in the Ural’s to get him out
+of the way. But he is really strong with the
+people, and there was such a fuss raised
+over it that they had to drag him back to
+the capital again and create a job for him;
+so they made him Minister of Concessions.</p>
+
+<p>Now, on the face of it, that looks like
+a pretty soft job, for Russia certainly has
+lots of concessions to peddle out. But they
+made it so Red-Tapey that he couldent give
+out the Vodka-selling privilege at the next
+Revolution without having it passed by an
+act of the entire Soviet Council; so it really
+wasent so much of a job as it appeared on
+the letterhead. He had charge of the Army
+for a long time, and built up quite a formidable
+gang.</p>
+
+<p>The real fellow that is running the whole
+thing in there is a Bird named Stalin, a
+great big two-fisted fighting egg from away
+down in the Caucasian Mountains. He is
+the Borah of the Black Sea. He is kinder
+the Mellon and Butler combined of the Russian
+administration. He is the stage
+manager of Bolshevism right now. He don’t
+hold any great high position himself, but
+he tells the others what ones they will hold.
+He has served his term in Siberia under
+the Czar. Well, Trotzky is kinder not sitting
+at his round table at lunch. But the
+Peasants out in the county are still strong
+for Trotzky. He sees that there must be
+some changes made in the way they are running
+things. The Peasants think they have
+a kick that they are not getting enough for
+their grain, and Trotzky is sorter siding
+with them. So he is called a conservative.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[Pgs 95-97]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_095" style="max-width: 60.125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_095.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>He has served his term in Siberia under the Czar.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<br>
+
+<p>A Conservative among Communists is a
+man with a Bomb in only one hand; a Radical
+is what you would call a Two-Bomb
+Man. They have one in each hand, and
+will spit a third one at you if possible. But
+I saw and talked to lots of them in the Government;
+also met all the gang that they
+sent out from America that time with Big
+Bill Haywood—was going to see old Bill,
+but he was sick in the Hospital and I
+couldent get to see him. From what I
+heard, Bill sho would like to get back among
+the gang in Chicago. If I was Bill, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>had that opportunity of going from Russia
+to Chicago I would give it serious thought
+before I would make the change.</p>
+
+<p>Met the smartest, brightest old Bolshe
+fellow in there named George. I don’t
+know his other name, but you couldent pronounce
+it if I wrote it. He said he was one
+of the twenty-two that Judge Landis sent
+to Leavenworth to break their jump to Russia
+that time. He is a bright, smart kind
+of a Duck, but not what I would call a
+Landis rooter. Met a big nice jovial fellow
+from Chicago—forgot his name, said he run
+for President on the Socialist ticket the year
+Jimmy Cox did. I told him I could faintly
+remember Jimmy, for he happened to be
+a good friend of mine; but I couldent remember
+him. He said he runs pretty near
+every year on that Ticket—said, “I may
+run this year.” I told him there was no
+Presidential election this year unless there
+was an impeachment.</p>
+
+<p>He said, “Ain’t there? Well, mebbe it’s
+next year then; I don’t pay much ’tention
+to what years I am running and what years
+I am not.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p>
+
+<p>He was feeling pretty good about the
+whole way things were running in there, and
+was very enthusiastic about it all; he was
+strong for ’em. He had a passport back!
+I bet if you had stole that passport away
+from that old Boy you would have just had
+284 pounds’ worth of suicide on your hands.
+The funny part about it among these American
+ones you meet over there visiting, they
+are all so nice and friendly and enthusiastic
+about it, and believe in it away above
+our form of government; but they all go
+back over home. It just looks to me like
+Communism is such a happy-family affair,
+that not a Communist wants to stay where
+it is practiced. It’s the only thing they
+want you to have but keep none themselves.
+Well, this continuous Presidential Candidate
+was a mighty nice fellow, and I would
+like to see him get into the finals some day,
+even if he don’t win.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="V">
+    V
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Now I know you want to know what
+about it, and how is it working, and what
+is it. Well, I am giving it as much study
+as a Bird like me could give serious study
+to anything. Before coming in here, I read
+everything. I read so many of that fellow
+Marx’s books that I don’t want even to see
+the Marx Brothers, as clever as they are.
+I have come to the conclusion that the reason
+there is so many books on Socialism is
+because it’s the only thing in the world that
+you can’t explain easy. It’s absolutely impossible
+for any Socialist to say anything
+in a few words. You say, “Is it light or
+dark?” and it takes him two volumes to
+answer Yes or No; and then I know there
+is a catch in it somewhere. It’s like a long
+Theatrical Contract. If one of them tells
+beyond the Salary and the amount of weeks
+you are to work, why, you might just as
+well light a cigarette with it. More words
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span>ain’t good for anything in the world only to
+bring on more argument.</p>
+
+<p>If Socialists worked as much as they
+talked, they would be the most prosperous
+style of Government in the World. But the
+thing is they don’t know anything about it
+themselves. There is not two of them in
+the world with the same idea of what it is.
+They say, “All we want is somebody to
+come in and see with an open mind.” Well,
+if ever a Guy went into Russia with an open
+mind it was me. It was not only open but
+it verged on being empty. Lord, if 130,000,000
+people that never had it any too
+soft in their lives are trying to work out a
+way to better their condition, why, it ain’t
+for a yap like me to come along and tell
+them that they are all wrong.</p>
+
+<p>You know, I dident have to go to Russia
+to find comedy or chaos in Governments.
+If I was looking for governments that
+wasent just exactly hitting on all six, why,
+I left one and went through a dozen more
+going to Russia, so anybody better not start
+heaving too many rocks at Russia’s government—I
+don’t care which country you come
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span>from—till you have looked your own over.</p>
+
+<p>Liberty don’t work as good in practice
+as it does in Speech. You got to figure that
+bunch of fellows are playing with the biggest
+Toy in the world. They are like a poor
+old Farmer or Rancher out home in Oklahoma
+that has a bunch of Kids, and they
+have never had anything to play with in
+their lives but an old hound pup; and then
+Dad strikes Oil, is paid a big bonus, and
+wanting to do something for his Gang, goes
+to Tulsa and gets them all the mechanical
+toys of every description in the world and
+hands them to them to play with. Well,
+that is what somebody has slipped these
+soviet fellows. They have had an electric
+train thrust into their hands and they had
+never pulled the string on even a jumping
+jack before, and they are naturally going to
+have a lot of short circuits and burned fingers
+before they get the thing started.
+Cæsar and Nero and that bunch of boys
+that got credit for steam-roller measures
+through the Roman senate were playing
+county politics compared to these Babies.
+The whole Roman Empire, in its balmiest
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>days—and it had some balmy days—that
+little Minor-League Empire would have
+got so lost in Russia that Columbus, De
+Soto and Lewis Clark couldent have found
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Now handing this bunch of fellows Russia
+would just be like Judge Gary coming
+backstage at the Follies and saying, “Here,
+Will, you and the Girls take over the Steel
+Corporation and run it.” Now you have
+to have some kind of training to handle
+something big or else you have to do a lot
+of practicing on it after you get it, which is
+generally pretty expensive. Most of these
+fellows were on little Communist Newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>Now America has withstood some pretty
+rough handling at times, but I sure would
+hate to see it fall under the management
+of a troop of our Dissatisfied Newspaper
+men. Put it in the hands of an old hardheaded
+Farmer or a small-town Merchant,
+but deliver it from Editors. They would
+have more Theories how to run us than the
+Communists. So you got to give these fellows
+a little bit of the benefit of the doubt.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span>They are practicing and are trying to do
+the best they can, but unfortunately they
+are practicing on 130,000,000 people that
+have to remain the horrible example till these
+Guys find out themselves just what it’s all
+about.</p>
+
+<p>’Course, it won’t be such a terrible disgrace—on
+them—if they don’t make it, for
+there is Nations with men trained from
+childhood in government that looks like they
+were getting practiced on. It’s just tough
+on the people, that’s all. It’s no disgrace
+not to be able to run a country nowadays,
+but it is a disgrace to keep on trying when
+you know you can’t. ’Course, things look
+pretty bad there. You see, this is ’26 and
+the war started in ’14. That means twelve
+years that trains, street cars, Public Buildings,
+and in fact everything, has not had a
+thing done to it since the day the Czar’s
+forces marched off to fight Germany; no
+painting, no streets fixed up to amount to
+anything. Most of the streets are, however,
+kept clean. You see a great deal of poverty
+among the people along the streets, a
+great many ragged little children begging.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>’Course, you can see these things in lots of
+cities besides Russian ones, but it’s worse
+in there.</p>
+
+<p>I never saw a pair of silk stockings on a
+single lady on the street. Everything is
+very expensive. Most all the manufactured
+things have to be imported, as their factories,
+very few of them are operating. The
+Factories are there, but the machinery is
+all rusted and spoiled in all these years of
+no usage; and they have to get in new machinery;
+and it costs a lot of money to re-equip
+all those. Food things shouldent be
+so high, for they raise everything in the
+world up there; but it seems to cost them
+a lot to handle it through the stores. They
+have these coöperative stores; in fact everything
+is supposed to belong to the government,
+but they are changing now and allowing
+private ownership and cutting prices
+over each other.</p>
+
+<p>You see, the Communism that they
+started out with, the idea that everybody
+would get the same and have the same—Lord,
+that dident work at all. That has all
+been changed—the idea that the fellow that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span>was managing the bank was to get no more
+than the man that swept it out. That talked
+well to a crowd, but they got no more of
+that now than we have. I don’t suppose
+there is two men in Russia getting exactly
+the same salary. They get what they can
+get, and where they can get it. When the
+government runs anything, as they do practically
+everything over there, there is always
+about twice or three times as many
+working in the place as would be found in
+private enterprises.</p>
+
+<p>During these hard times they have had
+so much dishonesty among the people working
+where they could get their hands on
+any money that it takes about two to watch
+one, and then four others to watch those
+two. There is also an awful lot of unemployment.</p>
+
+<p>Taxes are very high. They have succeeded
+in stabilizing their money—that is,
+inside the Soviet Union. The Ruble is
+worth 50 cents, which is the par value of it.
+The Chervonetz, or sort of a little pocket
+Chevrolet, is worth just about five dollars,
+and compares with the English pound.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span>Right after the Revolution, when they were
+operating their money like a lot of these
+Countries over here do, on just a Printing-Press
+basis, why, they had bootleg money-makers,
+just like they do over home with—alleged—booze.
+If you needed any
+money, you would go to your Currency
+Bootlegger and buy it. Each one claimed
+to make Nothing but Prewar stuff. Now
+they got it stabilized, but it’s up so high
+nobody can get any of it.</p>
+
+<p>I asked an official of their Foreign Office
+how they maintained it at standard, and he
+said: “We balance our budget. We estimate
+how much will come in during the year
+and don’t spend any more than that. We
+make our exports and imports balance, and
+that is one reason we cannot bring in as
+many things as we would like to.”</p>
+
+<p>But another very prominent man who
+had been in there off and on for years, doing
+a big business in there, said: “They
+originally started out with a bunch of Gold
+that they inherited from the original Government,
+and what they had confiscated
+from various ones during and after the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>Revolution, and they took that to England
+and borrowed its equivalent in money
+on a loan against the gold. Well, they took
+this money and come back home and issued
+more currency against what they had
+brought from England, saying, ‘It’s all
+backed by our gold reserve.’ They would
+issue another batch against the last one, just
+pyramiding, all backed up by this original
+that was in hock to England. But anyhow,
+they have kept it steady, and you don’t
+have to read the papers every day to see
+what you have.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course, anyone going in will ask, “Is
+it working? Is everybody happy?” Well,
+they are not. Over 90 per cent of the population
+in Russia are farmers, and live out
+in the country and Villages. The Revolution
+was to get the Peasant the land. They
+took all the land and everything that the
+rich or even fairly prosperous had away
+from them, and it’s owned by the Government.
+They give it to the Peasant, but it’s
+only his as long as he lives on it and tends
+it. He can’t trade it off or sell it. The real
+deed to the land is held by the Government.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span></p>
+
+<p>’Course, that beat the old way of being
+under the thumb of the Landlord. But
+now that the Peasant owns it, he has to pay
+the taxes on it. Before, it was the Landlord
+had to pay them. So the difference in
+what he pays the Government and what
+he paid the Landlord is so little that he
+can’t hardly see where he comes in to be
+much better off.</p>
+
+<p>But that is not the real and the serious
+trouble there. It is this: The Government
+tells the farmer what he shall get for his
+products—based, of course, on the market
+value at that time. Well, he is not kicking
+so much on that as he is on this: When he
+sells his grain, he can’t take the money and
+go buy what he needs. He can’t buy his
+plows and his wagons and his harness and
+many other things that has to be made by
+a factory. They cost him more than his
+grain brought him; and if he did happen to
+have enough, then the things are not to be
+found to buy. They have to import most
+of them and the cost to the farmer is tremendous.
+So what does the old Farmer
+do? He won’t sell them the stuff.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Russian Peasant may be Illiterate,
+but he is not what you would call Dumb.
+He knows something about this Guy Marx’s
+theories himself. He knows what’s the use
+raising anything if you can’t trade it or sell
+it for what you want. So he is just raising
+for his own use. And living on what he
+raises. If he does raise more, when they
+say, “You have so much wheat here; you
+must sell that,” he illiterately replies, “No,
+I eat that. My family very big bread eaters,
+eat lots of wheat. I have none for sale.”</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he hides it; but, anyhow, he is
+not selling it, and that has got the whole
+Communistic Party about cuckoo right at
+this minute. Their problem is to satisfy
+him. They have to get him some stuff in
+there cheaper than they can afford to, or
+make it, or pay more for his grain than they
+can get for it in outside world markets.
+Somebody is going to lose some money on
+the thing, and it ain’t going to be old Mr.
+Peasant. He can set and live on just exactly
+what he raises. But the old Boys in
+town has got to get enough nourishment
+from what the farmer raises to make those
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span>brotherhood-of-man speeches on. The old
+farmer just grinds his extra up into Vodka,
+lays in a lot of wood and hibernates for the
+winter.</p>
+
+<p>If you got that Vodka for a companion
+you got a mighty ally on your side when it
+comes to forgetting your troubles. The old
+Peasant has gone through many of these
+same winters. He knows it’s not going to
+make much difference with him who is in.
+You see, there is only 600,000 Communists
+in the whole of Russia, and they are ruling
+over the other 130,000,000. So this 600,000
+has got to figure out some way to sorter
+half satisfy this small minority.</p>
+
+<p>Look over home the Pheasants out in the
+West and Middle West are either hollering
+for higher prices for their grain or
+cheaper prices for flivver parts, phonograph
+records, Crystal sets, cheaper movie admission
+and Government instruction in Black-bottom
+dance steps. So, you see, Russia’s
+problem is about our problem, only Russians
+can get along without all these necessities.
+They can live on what they raise, and drink
+the surplus and enjoy it. But you have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>got to supply our Pheasants with these essentials,
+for they can vote and the Russians
+can’t—they can vote, but they can’t get them
+counted.</p>
+
+<p>So, after all, the world is just about the
+same whether it be on the banks of the Vulgar
+or the Potomac. So we are not in a
+position hardly to blame the Communists
+for not finding a solution when we pay 600
+men $10,000 apiece a year and they can’t
+find out.</p>
+
+<p>So, as I said before, I dident have to
+go to Russia to find humor in Government.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">
+    VI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>We will start in looking the towns over.
+This is the town they used to call St. Petersburg.
+Then when the war come along with
+Germany and they got afraid Germany
+would capture it, they changed its name to
+Petrograd so it would fool the Germans and
+they wouldent know what town they were
+capturing. Well, that worked fine. Germany
+couldent find it, and just when the
+Czar and all his board of strategy was gloating
+over their clever ruse, why, a fellow
+named Lenin found out where it was, and
+he had never had a town named after him;
+in fact, they had always kept him moving
+so fast that he couldent tell whether the
+town was named after him or before him.</p>
+
+<p>Well, he said, “If I take this town, will
+you name it after me?”</p>
+
+<p>They replied in the affirmative. So he
+found it and took it, and now it is named
+Leningrad. I found it; so if you hear
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>of it being called Rogerskofsxzy, why, that
+will be partly in my honor.</p>
+
+<p>From what I could gather from the old-time
+residents there, it used to be quite a
+place; kind of a cross between Hollywood,
+California, St. Louis and Chicago. It had
+the drab night life of Hollywood, the color,
+dash and brilliance of St. Louis and the
+pistol and rifle fire of Chicago. It is situated
+at the mouth of the Neva River; and
+when I say the mouth of the Neva I am
+wrong. I mean the mouths of the Neva.
+It’s plural, and it’s also singular that it
+should have so many mouths, but it has. It
+just can’t make up its mind how to get out
+of Russia and empty in the Gulf of Finland.
+Nurmi is the capital of Finland.</p>
+
+<p>The ground is very low under Leningrad;
+in fact, it’s the only town in the world whose
+altitude is just exactly 0. There is towns
+that are above sea level, and there is towns
+that are below sea level; but Leningrad
+couldent make up her mind which she wanted
+to be, so she just split the difference.</p>
+
+<p>You have to move twice a day in Leningrad—at
+low tide you live downstairs and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span>at high tide you move back upstairs. It’s
+built on poles driven into the mud and clams.
+Peter the Great settled it, but that is not
+why he was called Peter the Great. He lost
+an election bet—the other side spent too
+much money—and he either had to build a
+town in some odd place or roll a wheelbarrow
+around the living room, so he decided
+on the former. He got even with all
+the other Czars, for he put a Joker in the
+19th Amendment of their Constitution, so
+they would have to live there. Like our old-time
+Presidents used to have to live in
+Washington in the Summertime. Winter
+starts the first week in July and ends the
+last week in June. Spring, Summer and
+Fall are not what you would call long, but
+they are comfortable—all three days are
+very pleasant. But with all its flatness, it’s
+much the most beautiful City in Russia.
+The streets are all laid out straight and
+cross at right angles. It has some wonderful
+buildings and marvelous Churches.</p>
+
+<p>It was the Capital of the Country when
+the Bolshevikis got it, but was so close to
+the Gulf that they got afraid somebody
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span>would come up there with a big Battleship
+and drop a few shots among the assembled
+Senators. You know, Communists like to
+throw things themselves at various Governments
+and prominent people, but they don’t
+like the idea of being on the receiving end of
+anything in the nature of a bomb.</p>
+
+<p>The city is much more modern and European
+than Moscow. Moscow has more of
+the Far East in its appearance, with all of
+its Mosque-like domes to all the Churches.
+It’s really ancient, while Leningrad has been
+made to order. The main street is the
+Nevskii Prospekt. The Soviets have
+changed the name to the 25th of October.
+That’s the date of a Revolution. They
+changed the old names on everything that
+was connected with the Czar’s régime.</p>
+
+<p>Now when these people took everything
+over and run everybody out that had anything,
+they took most of the Palaces and
+big places that belonged to the rich and made
+Museums and Schools and Clubs and Public
+buildings. Of course, they have not been
+able to keep them up in very good shape,
+but you can see what they must have been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>when the old Gang were going good.
+’Course the main one most everybody is interested
+in is the Czar’s Palace, or the
+Winter Palace. It fronts out on a great
+big square, composed of big old worn Cobblestones.</p>
+
+<p>It was formerly called Palace Square, and
+is the one you have seen in most pictures
+showing the Czar’s Armies and Revolutionary
+scenes; in fact, just about everything
+of any importance that wanted to happen
+in Russia for hundreds of years back had
+to wait for their turn to happen on this
+square. And it was in it that the present
+Government captured it from the Royal
+régime. It’s now called Uritzsky Square.
+He was a Socialist that was killed here.
+They, as I say, always name things after
+the last man killed there on their side. If
+you get killed on the side that don’t win,
+you don’t get the place named after you;
+but if you do win, why, you can die knowing
+you had a square named after you, provided
+you are the last one killed. You must
+always be careful about that—pick your time
+to get shot. Get these names: The Garden
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span>of the Toilers another square is called; then
+there is the Square of the Victims of the
+Revolution. One of their bridges is called
+the Bridge of Equality.</p>
+
+<p>This Palace was practically the constant
+home of the Czars. It is now a Museum.
+Part of it is given over to what is called the
+Revolutionary Museum—more about that
+later. The Palace has seven hundred rooms.
+If a young Czar ever forgot the number of
+his room, he would be an old Czar before he
+found it. The Apartments of Nicholas I,
+Alexander the II and Nicholas II are shown
+as they were as historical memorials, including
+all the big rooms of State.</p>
+
+<p>Then you come to the Apartments of the
+late Czar and Family. It almost looks as
+if they had left it that morning. All their
+personal photographs of people we are
+familiar with in these times, with personal
+writing on them, are there—a great many
+photos taken with King Edward, and enlargements
+from what must have been snapshots
+of various groups of the family. The
+whole thing looked like the rooms in any
+wealthy man’s home with a family—that is,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span>one that has always been wealthy. Everything
+was modern and up-to-date. No big
+Gold furniture; all things that you could
+use in a home today and not attract any
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>They had a Telephone connection, with a
+little switch thing on it that they could connect
+with the Opera and hear everything.</p>
+
+<p>They had even the Children’s colored
+Easter eggs, and dozens of pictures of them
+on their Ponies and in sleighs. Pictures in
+all kinds of little silver and some just ordinary
+cheap frames.</p>
+
+<p>In the Czarina’s bedroom the ceiling and
+the Tapestries are covered with some sort
+of blue floral design. Her devoutly religious
+nature shows very plainly by the fact that
+the rooms are full of Icons and many images
+of Saints. There were lots of little personal
+keepsakes that had been given by friends.
+In the drawing-room is some Louie the 14th
+furniture given them as a wedding present
+by King Edward. The Czar’s rooms is just
+about what you would see in a Gentleman’s
+Apartment today only a great many Japanese
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span>things—gifts received on a visit of his
+to the Far Fast.</p>
+
+<p>It looked like these folks, when they got
+away from the pomp and parade of appearing
+in public, tried to live like human beings.
+It was so simple and modest that I doubt
+if any Oil millionaire or a Moving Picture
+Star would have lived in it without having
+it redone.</p>
+
+<p>There is one thing that this Soviet outfit
+has certainly done, and that is go in strong
+for Museums. I think there is some 700
+museums in the various Cities and towns.
+They are trying to develop Art, and they
+have some of the most wonderful art treasures
+in the world. You see, they not only
+have the State but all the private collections
+of all the rich nobility that have had it
+handed down in families for dozens of generations.</p>
+
+<p>Now I don’t know just how far that Art
+thing is going to get them. I am not so
+strong on art myself as a commodity. I
+think most countries have kinder overestimated
+the importance of our Artists and
+underestimated the importance of people
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>that did something to help provide Corn
+Bread and Bacon and cheapen the things we
+had to have. Athens, Greece, was mangy
+with Art. Now they ain’t eating regular.
+Rome had nothing to recommend it but art
+and broken columns till Mussolini come
+along and made ’em all throw their paintbrushes
+in the Tiber and go to work at something
+productive.</p>
+
+<p>So, after looking over Russia, I believe
+there is a hundred things I could think of
+to improve them with besides Art. Russians
+need meat right now worse than they
+do naked Statues. The thing about all these
+Museums is, when you have gone through
+one of them you have gone through all of
+them. You take the Hermitage in Leningrad—which,
+by the way, is one of the most
+famous museums in the World; it’s right
+next to the Czar’s Palace and had an entrance
+from the Palace. You take it and
+the Louvre and the Metropolitan in New
+York, and the big ones in Rome and London—they
+give the ordinary man just about
+all the art he can digest in one lifetime.</p>
+
+<p>Russia don’t need to develop so many men
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span>who can paint or sculpture a beautiful, well-rounded
+human body. What they need is
+somebody that can provide the wherewith
+to fill out that well-rounded body. Los Angeles
+got the right idea. Instead of having
+seven hundred Museums, they got seven
+thousand filling stations. If you got a big
+family, art is all right for one son to indulge
+in; but you want to have the other 12 to
+bring home some revenue and feed him and
+humor him. It should only be indulged in
+by every 13th member of a family, and then
+only after unanimous consent and sacrifice
+of the other 12.</p>
+
+<p>Now we go into the Red Museum, which
+is part of the Palace. Oh, Baby, talk about
+a Chamber of Horrors! Huber’s Museum
+and Madam Tussaud’s waxworks would be
+children’s nurseries in comparison to this
+blood-and-thunder outfit. It was founded
+in 1921 and everything in it is connected
+with revolutions; not only Russian Revolutions
+but anybody else that happened to have
+had a good bloody Revolution and had any
+old Guns or Bombs or skulls or anything
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span>that would make particular decorative atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>On account of its short life, they make
+apologies for the small amount of material.
+But I couldent see any need too. It looked
+to me like they had done pretty well, and
+the only way they could get any more horrors
+in there would be to get some more
+people killed. So I think in the Revolutionary
+Museum line they can well report
+Progress. They can just load up the old
+Bombs they got there now and blow up half
+of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>As you enter, there will be a wax-size figure
+of an old boy with a Bomb drawn back
+just ready to shy it at a Czar out on a
+Balcony. Then there are big loud-colored
+paintings all over the walls that look like
+Movie Lithographs, showing Cossacks
+charging Women and Children and cutting
+them down. There are dozens of photographs
+and oil paintings of any Red that
+ever got his man; court-room trials; every
+Pistol or saber that ever dropped a Czar or
+a Capitalist in his tracks. One sees all the
+episodes of the Dekabrists’ trial. They
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>were the ones to originate the idea of not
+letting the Czars sleep too well. It contains
+all the scenery and props in connection
+with the murder of Alexander II.
+Rows of special show cases contain bombs
+to fit any hand.</p>
+
+<p>Rooms were made up to represent cells
+where revolutionists have been confined;
+room after room of somebody either being
+killed or somebody getting ready to kill
+somebody else. One room is devoted to
+Lenin, called Lenin’s Corner, where all
+kinds of material in his private and political
+life is exhibited.</p>
+
+<p>Now we went through there on a Sunday
+morning, and we couldent hardly wedge our
+way through. The man with us was an
+Englishman, but spoke good Russian, and
+he described to us what was going on. It
+was Teachers taking young children through
+and stopping and lecturing to them: “Here
+is Kzolxsvlozxusz. He had the best record
+of any of the late bomb heavers. It’s
+through him you are enjoying this wonderful
+liberty that you are having today.”</p>
+
+<p>Of all the Museums, this Revolutionary
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span>one was the one that they were centering
+the attention of the smaller ones on. You
+did not see nearly as many looking at the
+beautiful paintings by the old masters as
+you did looking at the old guns that had
+their notches in the handles.</p>
+
+<p>It seems the whole idea of Communism, or
+whatever they want to call it, is based on
+propaganda and blood. Their whole life
+and thought is to convince somebody else.
+It looks to me like if a thing is so good and
+is working so fine for you, you would kind
+of want to keep it to yourself. I would be
+afraid to let anybody in on it, and that generally
+seems to be about the usual brand of
+human nature everywhere. But the Communist
+has so many good things he just
+wants you to join in and help him use some
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>They start at the cradle with them in
+Russia. They have a great many schools in
+Russia, which seem intended not so much to
+eliminate illiteracy as they are to teach
+propaganda. Political propaganda starts
+with their A B C’s. Their statistics prove
+that they are now operating many more
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>schools than in prewar days. There is no
+such thing as a private school allowed in
+Russia. They have agricultural schools for
+the peasant children in some places. They
+have craft schools which give professional
+education in different branches to over one
+hundred thousand people annually. There
+are 24 universities. The number of High
+School students is given as 160,000.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[Pgs 127-129]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_127" style="max-width: 60.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_127.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>They start at the cradle with them in Russia.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<br>
+
+<p>They are trying to foster art and culture,
+but all of it is of the Revolutionary type.
+If it is a painting, the main character has
+one foot on a capitalist’s neck and is punching
+another capitalist in the jaw. But the
+main thing that dominates this whole thing
+is to spread propaganda. Talk about some
+of our states guarding what their school-books
+contain—these children never get a
+chance to read anything only about how
+terrible everything is but Communism.</p>
+
+<p>You can’t go to a bookstore and buy any
+book you want. Every book that is sold in
+Russia has to be O. K.’d by the Soviet party.
+You can’t buy outside newspapers, and
+every paper printed in Russia is under the
+supervision of the government. So you
+have got to learn their angle or you don’t
+learn anything—there is nothing else for
+you to form an opinion about.</p>
+
+<p>They have quite a few community playgrounds
+and there is bunches of them out
+there practicing all kinds of games. But
+they don’t allow competition between different
+teams in Athaletic events. They
+don’t have big intersectional games between
+different clubs or schools; they claim that is
+against true communism; that if you defeat
+your fellow man it might make him
+think he was not as good as you, and they
+don’t want to leave that impression. If that
+was the way we looked at it over home,
+imagine how poor Harvard would feel.
+They would be so low down socially that
+they would be practically vacant.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pgs 130-132]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">
+    VII
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Now while I am on this Athaletic stuff I
+better kinder call you over to one side and
+tip you off to a little bit of the life that is
+really very interesting, in fact kinder exciting,
+and to an outsider makes life worth
+while in Moscow. The river runs right
+through the town and, contrary to the general
+notion and looks of some of them, why,
+they do bathe—that is, some of them do;
+and when I say they bathe, I mean they
+bathe together. They don’t let race, creed
+or sex interfere with them. And what I
+mean—they bathe right. They just wade
+in what you would call the Nude, or altogether.
+No one-piece bathing suits to
+hamper their movements.</p>
+
+<p>If there is a bathing suit in Russia, somebody
+is using it for an overcoat. Why, there
+is only two pair of trunks in Russia, and
+they were being mended the weeks I was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[Pg 133]</span>there. Well, when I saw that I just sit
+right down and cabled my old friend Mr.
+Ziegfeld: “Don’t bring Follies to Russia.
+You would starve to death here.” But you
+know the way they do it there—don’t seem
+to be so much what we used to years ago
+call—what was that word? Oh, yes, “Immoral.”
+Well, they just walk down there
+on the bank of the river and everybody skins
+off their clothes. They don’t have much.
+Underwear is about as scattering there as
+bathing suits.</p>
+
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp45" id="i_131" style="max-width: 120.0em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_131.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      <p>If there is a bathing suit in Russia, somebody is using
+    it for an overcoat.</p>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+
+<br>
+
+<p>Now if it hadent been for this bathing
+existing I would have got out and seen a
+lot more places in Russia than I did. But
+I want to state positively that while I did
+not get to see all of Russia, I got to see all
+of some Russians.</p>
+
+<p>We must hide ourselves away and see what
+else we can learn from the Muscovite Empire
+that America may profit by besides
+Negligee Bathing. Oh, yes, Aeroplanes!
+It just seems like I can’t write without drawing
+attention to the amount of flying that is
+being done in Europe. Now take Russia.
+Here is Russia, so poor that they don’t even
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>know where their next Revolution is coming
+from, and get this—what just one
+Society did to help their country out in the
+way of Aviation; a thing that they know is
+absolutely necessary. They enlisted two
+million members and got in contributions
+seven Million Rubles—that, in sensible
+money, is $3,000,000—organized 20 air
+clubs, set up over a thousand aeronautical
+Libraries and distributed millions of pamphlets
+of propaganda all on flying, opened
+up landing fields, bought 130 fighting planes
+and presented the government with seven
+equipped Air squadrons. Now this was all
+in addition to establishing Civil and Commercial
+routes.</p>
+
+<p>This was not the Government. It was
+just one Society; and there is two others
+almost as big that have accomplished as
+much. And here is New York City, the
+second biggest city in the world, that hasent
+even got a place to land. You have to
+go halfway to Montauk Point and then
+drive back two hours in an Auto to get to
+New York after you get out of a Plane.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span>And here is the humor of it—you can make
+a landing field on half the ground it takes
+to make a Golf course on.</p>
+
+<p>So just look what those poor Russians
+are doing, and they are so poor they havent
+got a Golf Course to their back. That, by
+the way, is one thing that makes me sometimes
+think they will eventually pull
+through. Mind you, all these Commercial
+Air lines in Russia and all over Europe
+are subsidized by their Governments. Of
+course, at home the minute we holler for a
+subsidy for ships to keep our Flag on the
+ocean, why, up jumps some cocklebur Congressman
+and objects: “Where do you come
+in to give some Airplane Co. help, or some
+Steamship line? You don’t do a thing for
+the Cafeteria Owners, and they are just as
+good Americans as anybody ever broke a
+tray of dishes for. What about the Farmer?
+Why don’t you give him a subsidy? No,
+sir-ree, I am agin helping anybody till you
+help my constituents.”</p>
+
+<p>The subsidy to give most of our people is
+to take their spedomoter away from them
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span>and give them an Alarm Clock. If America
+don’t look out they will be caught in the
+next war with nothing but a Niblick and a
+Putter. Putting is all right, but it keeps
+you too close to the ground to be of much
+use in the real war of the future.</p>
+
+<p>And if you think there ain’t going to be
+no Next War you better see some of these
+Nations drilling and preparing, and they
+are not the people that will go to work and
+learn a trade that they are not going to
+work at. The next war you don’t want to
+Look Out; you want to Look Up. When
+you look up and see a cloud during the next
+war to end wars, don’t you be starting to
+admire its silvery lining till you find out
+how many Junkers and Fokkers are hiding
+behind it.</p>
+
+<p>’Course, these are only tips, and you
+needent play them unless you want too; but
+as that is what I am doing over here, why,
+I am giving you this for all it is worth. I
+am like the old Rooster when he brought out
+the Ostrich egg and showed it to all the hens
+and said, “I am not criticizing, but I just
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span>want you to know what others are doing.”
+Now that’s an old Gag, but it has to be an
+old Gag to get over with you fellows. In
+talking and writing to Politicians you have
+to be like a Country preacher. You have to
+illustrate everything you want to drive home
+with a simple story that all of them can
+understand. So I just want you-all to know
+what even Russia is doing. Everybody is
+using their air for something besides
+speeches but us.</p>
+
+<p>Now while we are on wars, you might
+like to know about Russia’s Army. They
+are without a doubt the seediest-looking
+layout I ever saw in my life. They look
+about like a Chamber of Commerce in Evening
+clothes lined up to meet Queen Marie.
+Their uniforms are made out of a very
+heavy grade of calico. They have what
+used to be a red stripe down the leg. Then
+their pants are stuck in those big old heavy,
+clumsy boots. So the pants, I imagine, are
+really just union suits if the Guy had his
+boots off. They are not drafted. They have
+some kind of an arrangement by which they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span>make them think it is an honor to belong
+to the Red Army. It is composed of men
+and boys at first that cannot read or write.
+They get, so they told me, the most low and
+ignorant they have; then they teach them
+after they get them in. But he is taught
+along their lines—they don’t want enybody
+that has his own ideas. So they do away
+with illiteracy. The Soviet Literature says
+they teach them culture.</p>
+
+<p>Well, I wouldent go as far as to claim
+that if I was them. But “culture” is their
+main word over there. Everything is supposed
+to improve their culture. Well, if it
+is improving their culture, why, culture must
+have started at a mighty low ebb originally.</p>
+
+<p>The Red Army is instructed politically,
+as they figure, I guess, that in a war, if the
+worst comes to the worst, why, the Red
+Army can shoot a few Proletariat truths at
+the enemy, lay down a barrage of “Everybody
+should divide up equal even if he ain’t
+got anything.” The present standing of the
+Army is admitted to be 600,000. But there
+is millions of the workers that are receiving
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span>Military training in addition to the army.</p>
+
+<p>’Course, you take those ignorant old Boys
+and give them some real training and they
+are going to be kinder hard to clean. War
+is a relief to them anyway.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">
+    VIII
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Now the main question that I know
+strikes you is, Has Russia changed much
+and is it better off? Say, that is the one
+answer you can go and bet on. Russia
+hasent changed one bit. It’s just Russia as
+it has been for hundreds of years and will
+be for the next hundreds of years. A hundred
+million people are out in the Country
+and small Villages, and are living just the
+same lives they lived under the Czar, and
+their existence wouldent be changed even
+if the Prohibition, the Populist, the Farmer-Labor
+or even the Democrats run Russia.
+It wouldent be nothing but Russia. People
+don’t change under Governments; the Governments
+change, but the people remain the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>Look at us! What does it matter who is
+in any four years? You got to get out and
+hustle for it or you don’t get it, no matter
+what Government is in. And there is a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span>country with over 90 per cent of their population
+Peasants, and they have to make a
+living from the soil. They work hard, don’t
+have much; some years a little more than
+others; have to pay their taxes or their rent
+money as in the old days. Now the taxes
+are just as much as the rent share was in
+the old days with the landlords. So what
+difference does it make to them what kind
+of Government it is? In fact, they claim
+that they are not as well off now, because
+in these times they can’t buy the things they
+want, like they used to be able to do, as they
+are not to be had.</p>
+
+<p>This eighty or ninety million are no more
+Communists than you are; they don’t know
+what it’s all about. The country is run by
+the Communist Party, which has less than
+600,000, and they rule this 130,000,000.
+They are allowed to elect men to send to
+the various councils of the Soviet. But get
+this—you see, the Communist strength is
+among the Industrial workers in the Cities;
+but they give him a Representative in the
+Government for what we will say is one
+for every 100 voters. But the Farmers or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span>Peasants get only one for every 1,000 voters.
+That’s not the exact Representation, but it is
+the correct proportion.</p>
+
+<p>So where does your equality come in?
+They do that to sorter help overbalance the
+great majority of the Peasant vote. Russia
+under the Czar was very little different from
+what it is today; for instead of one Czar,
+why, there is at least a thousand now. Any
+of the big men in the Party holds practically
+Czaristic powers. Siberia is still working.
+It’s just as cold on you to be sent there
+under the Soviets as it was under the Czar.
+The only way you can tell a Member of the
+Party from an ordinary Russian is the
+Soviet man will be in a car. They are all
+supposed to only receive $112 a month, which
+is supposed to be the salary of all Communists
+that do work for the Government.
+Well, some of them must be pretty good
+managers to get along as well as they do on
+that.</p>
+
+<p>There is as much class distinction in Russia
+today as there is in Charleston, South
+Carolina. Why, I went to the races there,
+and the grand stand had all the men of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span>Party, and over in the center field stood the
+mob in the sun. Well, there was Bourgeois
+and Proletariat distinction for you.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the queer thing to an outsider:
+They had the Revolution to run out the
+rich, and now the only one that can get in
+there is either some rich man or some of
+his Representatives that say they want to
+invest there.</p>
+
+<p>They are very strict about who they let
+in, and yet any rich fellow they would meet
+at the line and escort them in. You see, it
+dident take them long to learn that somebody
+has got to pay the wages or they won’t
+have anything to divide up.</p>
+
+<p>You see, that is where Mussolini has outsmarted
+the Bolsheviks. They have spent
+all the money they could rake and scrape on
+Propaganda in other Countries, and here
+they were in Russia with the biggest and
+richest Country in the World to work with.
+They should have spent every cent of all
+this on just working and improving Russia,
+and getting it so it looked like something.
+That was what Mussolini had done. All his
+Propaganda has not cost him a nickel. He
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>kept every nickel in Italy and put everybody
+to work, and now you go in and see
+it, and he don’t have to spread any propaganda
+for your sake. He says look at it and
+see how things are. That’s his advertisement.
+And just think, he is in a poor Country,
+where they have few natural resources.
+You turn that Wop loose in Russia for a
+few years, with all their vast unearthed
+wealth, and he would really pull a Napoleon
+on the World.</p>
+
+<p>Now his plan is what the Communists
+should have done. They have always
+wanted Communism. Now they have it,
+and they have it in the finest Country there
+is; so if they don’t make a go of it, their
+plan must be wrong, and they will have nobody
+to blame but themselves. They have
+certainly had opportunity knocking at their
+door. What should they care about what
+Communism is doing in Chicago or London?
+Fix up Moscow and show the world what
+can be done under Communism and then
+let people come there and see, and they will
+get all the converts they need and never
+spend a dime on Propaganda. Instead of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>hiring a man to spread propaganda, hire
+him to spread some paint and soap and
+water around. Turn some of those museums
+into Bathhouses. Never mind showing us
+what Ivanof and Serof did. Show us what
+Annette Kellermann did. Never mind
+bearing down so much on culture; bear down
+on Industry.</p>
+
+<p>You see, here is what makes it look
+kinder bad—these fellows took over a Country
+that was already a going concern; that
+dident have a cent of debt—that is, they repudiated
+all Russia’s debts, as they claimed
+they had nothing to do with the contracting
+of them. Now the biggest expense of any
+country is its interest on its national debt.
+They confiscated everything, paid nobody
+for anything, have everything that the entire
+Country possessed. They claimed they
+dident want any salary for doing it, so that
+should have eliminated another big expense.
+They were supposed to be working for just
+the love of saving their fellow man.</p>
+
+<p>Now if you can’t take one that’s handed
+to you like that, what chance have you got
+with it when there is nothing more to cop
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span>from anyone, and paying interest on a big
+indebtedness? You see, they confiscated
+Trains, Factories, Public Buildings and
+everything. Now those are wearing out and
+have to be repaired and rebuilt. What are
+they going to do? Nobody has anything
+else free for ’em. So, just offhand to an unobserving
+bonehead, it don’t look like they
+have manipulated their affairs any too
+good.</p>
+
+<p>These other so-called Capitalistic Nations
+after the war have kept up repairs and
+debts, and still look better off than Russia.
+Russia hasent paid it out in big salaries.
+Nobody has ever received in the way of
+working wages more than a mere living.
+But they changed their scheme around a
+dozen times since they been in, and they
+are liable to change it a dozen more, because
+none of them ain’t what you would exactly
+call a-hitting just right. They have been
+messing with Russia for nearly nine years.
+It’s a good thing that the 90,000,000 are
+not organized or there would be a change
+there overnight.</p>
+
+<p>Communism will never get anywhere till
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span>they get that basic idea of Propaganda out
+of their head and replace it with some work.
+If they plowed as much as they Propagandered
+they would be richer than the Principality
+of Monaco. The trouble is they
+all got their theory’s out of a book instead
+of any of them ever going to work and practicing
+them. I read the same books these
+Birds learned from, and that’s the books of
+that guy Marx. Why, he was like one of
+these efficiency experts. He could explain
+to you how you could save a million dollars
+and he couldent save enough himself to
+eat on.</p>
+
+<p>I read his life history. He never did a tap
+of work only write Propaganda, according
+to his own history. He couldent even make
+his own writings pay, much less his theories.
+He wrote for the dissatisfied, and the dissatisfied
+is the fellow who don’t want to do any
+manual labor. He always wants to figure
+out where he and his friends can get something
+for nothing. They even suggest somebody
+dividing with them. You could take
+those 600,000 Communists over in Russia
+and take 600,000 rich Americans and you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span>could put them all together and make the
+Americans divide up with them equally,
+and in six months the 600,000 Communists
+wouldent have a thing left but some long
+hair and a scheme to try to get back the
+half that the Americans was smart enough
+to take from them. While the Russians
+would be practicing their book theories, the
+Americans would be practicing just the ones
+that they know would work. If you have
+never been smart enough to make it yourself,
+you wouldent be smart enough to hang
+onto it after you got it.</p>
+
+<p>I hate to keep dragging Mussolini in this,
+but it was his being in the Communist Party
+for all those years that he found out just
+which ones of their Theories were wrong.
+Communists have some good ideas, of course;
+but they got a lot that sound better than they
+work. So Mussolini has just used the good
+ones in Italy and thrown out all the others
+and replaced them with his own. So he
+really has Communism to thank for his success
+in learning what not to do. If this
+Stalin turns out to be a kind of a Mussolini,
+why, they may pull out; but somebody has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>got to handle that troop with a knout. They
+say Russia is supposed, by their law, to be
+run by everybody. Well, it looks it.</p>
+
+<p>You know a Communist’s whole Life
+work is based on complaint of how everything
+is being done. Well, when they are
+running everything themselves, why, that
+takes away their chief industry. They have
+nobody to blame it on. Even if he is satisfied
+with it, why, he is miserable because he
+has nothing to complain about. Same way
+with strikes and Revolutions. They would
+just rather stir up a strike somewhere than
+eat. So, naturally, in Russia with themselves,
+they feel rather restrained, for they
+are totally unable to indulge in their old
+favorite sport of going on strike and jumping
+up on a box and inviting all the boys
+out with them. You know, that is their
+whole life, and that is why I don’t believe
+they will ever be satisfied to run their own
+country, especially if everything runs
+smooth. You make one satisfied and he is
+no longer a Communist. So if they ever
+get their country running good they will
+defeat their own cause.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now, mind you, I may be wrong about
+these people, for you can never tell about a
+Russian. They all may be just having the
+best time in the World over there and enjoying
+it all fine. You know, that is one
+thing about the Russian—he thrives on adversity.
+He is never as happy in his life as
+when he is miserable. So he may just be
+setting pretty, for he is certainly miserable.
+It may be just the land for a Comrade to
+want to hibernate in.</p>
+
+<p>Some days in there it would really look to
+me like they were trying to do something,
+and were going to get somewhere; and the
+next day you would see stuff that would
+make you think, “What has all these millions
+of innocent, peace-loving people done
+that through no fault of their own they
+should be thrown into a mess like this, with
+no immediate prospects of relief?” So I am
+going to be honest with you—I don’t know
+whether to kiss ’em or kill ’em.</p>
+
+<p>But now we are going to get down to the
+real thing as to whether they can really last
+or not, and that is religion. The Russians,
+I guess from what little I have read, were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span>about the most whole-hearted religious people
+anywhere. They are at heart just big,
+simple, kind-hearted, God-fearing people.
+Practically all of them were devout members
+of the Russian Orthodox Church. Some
+of the most wonderful Churches in the
+World are in Russia. Now here is something
+that everybody don’t know—that the
+basic foundation of the Communist Party
+is to be a nonbeliever—in other words, they
+are all Atheists.</p>
+
+<p>You can’t belong to the Party and belong
+to any Church, no matter what Church.
+All the Jewish members of the Party have
+to be nonbelievers. Before you can get into
+the Party, it takes a couple of years or
+more, and this Atheist test is the one that is
+hardest. They try to lead these Russians
+to believe that all their troubles all these
+years have been directly traceable to their
+religion; that if they throw over their devout
+religion everything will be all right.
+They point out that the Czar and all those
+that oppressed them were members of that
+Church, and that if a God existed, why
+hadent He done something to help them?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p>
+
+<p>Now nobody is making any Alibi for the
+Czar or any of his old Gang, for from what
+I could learn in Russia from everybody I
+talked with, not only the Bolsheviks but
+others on the other side, who had been in
+there for years, the Czar was pretty small
+Potatoes. He wasent intentionally bad, but
+he was just weak. They all seemed to think
+the Czarina had quite a bit of backbone,
+and if he had had her nerve Russia might
+have had a different story today. ’Course,
+you have to admit that fanatical religion
+driven to a certain point is almost as bad as
+none at all, but not quite.</p>
+
+<p>Now they will tell you that the worship
+of Leninism is their religion. Lenin
+preached Revolution, Blood and Murder in
+everything I ever read of his. Now they
+may dig ’em up a religion out of that, but
+it’s too soon after his death really to tell
+just how great he was. History has to ramble
+along a good many years after a man
+puts some policies into effect till you can
+tell just how they turned out.</p>
+
+<p>Why, some fellow may come along in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span>Russia at any time with a whole new set of
+plans that beat Lenin’s all to pieces, and
+he would be the Big Man. So where would
+all your Lenin worship be then? You
+know, there is a lot of big men die, but most
+of them are not so big that they won’t all
+be buried. Now Lenin may come through
+right on through the ages, but at the present
+time they are kinder forcing him on the
+people. The Government has erected more
+Statues and Busts to Lenin than there is
+flivvers in America. Everywhere you go—every
+room in every public building has a
+bust of Lenin. They make the children
+speak of him as Uncle Lenin. Now it’s
+always best to let the people pick out their
+own Hero. Don’t try to force one on them;
+it’s liable to have the opposite effect sometimes.</p>
+
+<p>Mind you, you can’t condemn everybody
+just because they started a Revolution. We
+grabbed what little batch of liberty we used
+to have through a revolution, and lots of
+other Nations have revolutions to thank today.
+But I don’t think anyone that just
+made a business of proposing them for a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span>steady diet would be the one to pray to
+and try and live like.</p>
+
+<p>We all know a lot of things that would
+be good for our Country, but we wouldent
+want to go so far as propose that everybody
+start shooting each other till we got
+them. A fellow shouldent have to kill anybody
+just to prove they are right.</p>
+
+<p>I can’t understand by what reckoning
+they think everybody connected with running
+the Country should be a nonbeliever.
+Just what quality does that add to Government?
+I don’t care what you believe in,
+but you certainly got a right to that belief,
+and you shouldent have to give it up to take
+part in the Government of your Native
+Land. If the Bolsheviks say that religion
+was holding the people back from progress,
+why, let it hold them back. Progress ain’t
+selling that high. If it is, it ain’t worth it.
+Do anything in this world but monkey with
+somebody else’s religion. What reasoning
+of conceit makes anyone think theirs is
+right? These present religions are liable to
+knock on the door up above and find that
+there is not a Soul been admitted that ever
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span>saw an Automobile or a train. You may be
+told:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, no; you so-called educated people
+thought you knew so much, and lived so
+much better down there, and tried to make
+all others believe in yours instead of their
+own religion. They were the ones that were
+right. Yet they dident try to impose theirs
+on you. I am sorry. Good day.”</p>
+
+<p>It’s better to let people die ignorant and
+poor, believing in what they have always
+believed in, than to die prosperous and
+smart, half believing in something new and
+doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>There never was a nation founded and
+maintained without some kind of belief in
+something. Nobody knows what the outcome
+in Russia will be or how long this
+Government will last. But if they do get
+by for quite a while on everything else, they
+picked the only one thing I know of to
+suppress that is absolutely necessary to run
+a Country on, and that is Religion. Never
+mind what kind; but it’s got to be something
+or you will fail at the finish.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p>
+
+<p>P.S. Now I have told you all about
+Russia, but the best way I can describe
+Russia to you is, Russian men wear their
+shirts hanging outside their pants. WELL
+ANY NATION THAT DON’T KNOW
+ENOUGH TO STICK THEIR SHIRT
+TAIL IN WILL NEVER GET ANYWHERE.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Notes</b></p>
+
+<p>Some words appear to be purposely misspelled; these have not
+been changed.</p>
+
+<p>Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.</p>
+
+<p>Illustrations have been moved to appropriate paragraph breaks.</p>
+
+<p>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
+public domain.</p>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77828 ***</div>
+</body>
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