Work in Russia: Archangel

[Report by Read Lewis.]

Archangel, Becemher ^6", 1918. Edgar Sisson,

General Director.^ Foreign Section.^

Committee on Public InforTnation.^ Washington. I have established on the basis of half support the American Sentinel, published at Archangel for the American troops in northern Russia. The paper was started and is edited and published by Capt. Roger Lewis, of the American Red Cross, formerly Associated Press representative in Petrograd, and myself. Its cost, which amounts to the equivalent of about $150 a week, is borne jointly by the Red Cross and the Committee on Public Information.

I found on my arrival here a very real need of some medium which would furnish the American forces with regular news. Everyone in Archangel feels pretty much cut off from the rest of the world, and the tropps at the front had no way of getting even such news as was available in Archangel. To keep the men in regular contact with the outside world and the important events taking place there, as well as with home news, seemed essential if their spirit and morale were to be maintained through the isolation and rigors of the long, dark winter months. The difficulties of getting together enough English type to print any kind of a paj)er and of finding typesetters were in a manner overcome and the paper was started. Shortage of paper makes it possible to print only about 2,500 to 3,000 copies a week. These are distributed to all American units and all English units. The paper thus serves in a small way as a channel of American propaganda with the English, and will, I trust, be one means of creating better feeling between the English and American forces in north Russia.

The Sentinel is carried on quite independently of my regular Russian work, to which my chief energies are devoted.

Respectfully, yours,

Read Lewis.