The Russian Campaign

THROUGHOUT the summer of 1917, while the Foreign Section was building, we sent a daily cable service to Petrograd for distribution through Vestnik, the official news association. For contact work we were forced to depend upon the activities and influences of such American organizations as the Red Cross, Young Men's Christian Association, and volunteer groups formed by the American colonies in Petrograd and Moscow for the specific purpose of "making Russia understand America."

The temporary nature of the Root mission, and the erratic activities of the various "volunteer groups," brought home to us the imperative need of a continuous educational campaign under a central control, and Mr. Sisson, detached from his duties as associate chairman, was sent to Russia with full authority to work out a complete Committee organization. He sailed on October 27th, reaching Petrograd November 25, 1917, and his report tells the story pointedly and concisely:

The Bolshevik-Proletarian revolution had begun November 7th, and the city was still under the closest Red Guard military control. I was told by the Americans on the scene that there was no possibility of any open governmental activity. This did not seem logical to me, but it necessitated a careful preliminary survey.

In a week's time I had convinced myself not only that it was possible to go ahead, but that the best way was to go ahead openly. This plan, however, required the use of the mechanical facilities wholly in the control of the Bolshevik government — telegraph agencies, printing-shops, and, to a lesser degree, distributing agencies.

As an example of the chaotic condition of affairs, the Bolsheviki had suppressed all the existing and opposing bourgeois newspapers, leaving for the chief publications in Petrograd their official newspapers, the Isvestia and the Pravda. Such other newspapers as appeared were being obliged to change their names almost with each issue, so fast did the suppressions come.

When I left the United States our cable service was supposed to be ready to begin to feed into the Russian governmental distributing organization, the Petrograd Telegraph Agency, which in Russia corresponds to the Associated Press in the United States. The revolution, however, had broken the service. Efforts to replace it had been made by the use of the wireless station at Lyons, France, the receiving station being at Moscow. The project failed because the Moscow station itself was almost immediately put out of commission. In Russia we would not have known of the effort had not a few sentences of one garbled message been picked up a few days before inefficient operators (or intent) finally wrecked the instruments at the station.

The first job, therefore, was to restore the cable service. This was done after an interchange of cables with Washington, and after finding that the Petrograd Telegraph Agency desired to have and would use the cables.

I called Arthur Bullard up from Moscow, where of his own initiative he had been acting as a volunteer in the consul's office in preparing a mail service for provincial papers, and made him the director of the Russian News Division of the Committee. I also commandeered Graham Taylor, Jr., who had been engaged on work in the German prison-camps in Russia until we went to war, and put him in charge of the Petrograd office. This was done in order to enable Mr. Bullard to return to Moscow and organize an office there.

We opened an office at 4 Gorokovaya for the receipt of cable messages, and put in a translating force. The messages, as soon as translated, were fed into the Petrograd Telegraph Agency in Petrograd and theoretically were telegraphed all over Russia, as well as released to the Petrograd newspapers. Such was the disorganization of the telegraph lines, however, that in practice we found it at once necessary to install a courier service to Moscow, and to make the larger part of the national distribution from there. In both places we also released direct as exigencies required.

In Moscow each week we assembled the cable material in pamphlet form, added to it educational mail and article material and distributed the pamphlets to the provincial press, and to organizations where we deemed it useful.

We adopted for ourselves the Russian name Amerikansky Bureau Pachata (the American Press Bureau), and attached a governmental symbol to indicate its official nature.

Both the British and the French did their publicity work as private organizations, and it was a matter of interest to me that the head of the French department came to me before I left Petrograd and said that ours was the right way. The British organization, Cosmos, was raided and closed by the Bolsheviki the last week in December. The French never put out anything openly. We were not seriously interfered with throughout the whiter.

The middle of December found our news organization in operation. One of the first impressions I had got of Petrograd was of its billboard possibilities. Every street, including the Nevsky, was papered up and down with placards and proclamations, mostly emanating from the Soviet. The first of President Wilson's Russian messages came in early December. As I feared, after reading it, the official newspapers refused to print it in full, and misused and misinterpreted such parts as they did print. Other papers also used it insufficiently, so I made up my mind to put it on the billboard. I was advised this would be regarded as a challenge by the Bolshevik government, but this view did not appear reasonable to me. I went about the matter openly, gave the job of printing to the biggest government printing establishment in Petrograd, a plant that would compare favorably with all but a few in the United States, and negotiated with a bill-poster agency to put up the message. The bill-posting man was the only person to show any fear of the outcome, but he needed the business and decided to take a chance. He played "safety first," and hired soldiers to do the pasting. The result was that fifty thousand copies of the President's message were posted one morning throughout Petrograd without any hindrance whatever. This posting was followed by a street hand distribution of three hundred thousand copies — in the street-cars, in the theaters, hotels, stores, and to the street crowds.

Similar plans were started in Moscow, but rioting broke out and prevented success. The third process of printing, the turning of the speech to pamphlet use, was done at Moscow.

The experience with this message enabled us to do the big job on the President's message of January 8th, with its statement of terms of any possible peace. We had learned the machinery. The speech began to reach us January 10th, but did not come complete until January llth. A successful maneuver enabled us to get it used in full in the Isvestia, the direct organ of the Soviets. This in itself gave a complete all-Russia circulation among the Soviets. There was liberal use of the message in nearly all of the newspapers.

The Petrograd posters were up January 13th. The street distribution, again of three hundred thousand, followed a few days later. The Moscow distribution was done almost simultaneously.

On this message German distribution was essential. One million copies were printed in German. Of this quantity three hundred thousand were put across the northern line into the German line, and two hundred thousand similarly at the central and the southern front. A half-million went to German prison-camps in Russia, for the reason that these prisoners were expected soon to return to Germany.

The German distribution was done by an organization of soldiers through the help of Jerome Davis, of the Young Men's Christian Association, who had used them for package distribution. The Young Men's Christian Association as a body had nothing to do with the work. This soldiers' organization was later made a part of our own machinery, and was used with high effectiveness in the distribution of German and Hungarian versions of President Wilson's speech of February llth. It worked along the line of the German advance into Russia, and fulfilled its instructions to scatter the messages in territory about to be occupied by the German army. The head of this organization was B. Morgenstern.

Had the Germans entered Petrograd in late February they would have been greeted by posters in German, of the President's messages of January 8th and February llth. One hundred thousand copies of the former were run the middle of February to provide for this contingency.

In the last week in February we encountered our first definite Bolshevik stoppage. The colored cartoon poster, showing the arm of German force stabbing the people's hand and tramping upon the people's banner of liberty, was confiscated on the press by order of the Bolshevik government.

Why?

Smolny laughed at us when we asked it.

We asked in order to see whether Smolny would laugh.

The News Division moved into larger quarters on the Nevsky the last week in February, the week that saw the exit from Petrograd of the embassies, consulates, and the missions, including the American Embassy, the American consul, the American Military 'Mission, and the American Red Cross. The change had been planned for weeks earlier. We concluded to be found going ahead until we could go no farther. So large American flags were draped across the windows, and the division moved in.

The Film Division headquarters were on the Kazansky, half a block from the Nevsky, facing the cathedral. They were in charge of Guy Croswell Smith as director. The machine stood ready to receive new films by January 1st. The failure of Hart, of the Young Men's Christian Association, to bring through a quarter of a million feet of film intended for us kept us from saturating Russia with American films in the early winter. The second allotment of films given into the custody of Bernstein had reached Stockholm when the Finnish revolution of the last days of January closed the gates into Russia. No couriers came into Petrograd after February 1st.

Smith and I found both Hart and the Bernstein films still in Scandinavia in April.

With such films as he had on hand Mr. Smith did fine work. The "Uncle Sam Immigrant" film was put out \\ith a camouflage title, "All for Peace." The finished title would have read "All for Peace Through War," but we left it to the audiences to find that out for themselves. The biggest moving-picture theater in Petrograd ran both films, and they fed rapidly throughout the whole of Russia. We traced them from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea and far into Siberia.

I arranged for an option on a Petrograd theater, and the purpose was to lease similarly in Moscow, and after a run for advertising purposes, to turn the films into trade channels, to add incentive to circulation. It is the method to use in Russia and, in general, nearly everywhere.

In my opinion, the best individual work done in Russia for the United States was that of Arthur Bullard in writing the pamphlet, "Letters to a Russian Friend," an interpretation of the highest order of America. We published it in Russian as a Red, White, and Blue Book. Three hundred thousand copies were distributed.

The Moscow office continued the distribution of the January and February messages in the remote sections of Russia after March 1st. The total distribution of the Fourteen Points speech, including the Hungarian and German text, was more than four million. Three hundred thousand handbills containing both messages were distributed ahead of the German advance in Ukraine. The President's Baltimore speech was printed in Irkutsk, Omsk, Samara, Petrograd, Moscow, and Ekaterinburg.

A few weeks after my own departure from Russia, in the spring of 1918, it became definitely clear to me that the purpose of the Germans and of the Russian Bolsheviks was to bring about an untenable situation in Russia for all officials and citizens of Entente countries. The purpose was to limit their freedom and their activities more and more, and finally to expel them. It was my hope that all countries would see this and get their nationals out of Russia before they should be thrown out humiliatingly. But at that time the international political world could not believe that this outcome was inevitable.

I was sure, however, that within a few weeks it would be impossible to get material into European Russia. Accordingly, I took the responsibility of ordering Mr. Bullard and his American group, save one man, to remove themselves from the Bolshevik area of Russia. Our chief office at Moscow, and even the office at Petrograd, remained open, the former in charge of Read Lewis, and the latter in charge of a Russian assistant. The Moscow office was finally raided and closed by the Bolsheviks the first week in September, 1918.

It was necessary to shift the organization as a whole to a place where it could have a dependable base of supplies. Obviously, this place was Siberia, affording the opportunity for a sound and steady penetration along the line of the Siberian railroad as fast as order was restored along this railroad line. The eventual goal would be Moscow.

This whole project of transfer was successfully carried out. Two men, Malcolm Davis and William Adams Brown, worked their way out through Siberia, and in the early summer had opened new offices at Harbin and Vladivostok.

Meantime Mr. Bullard, accompanied by Mr. George Bakeman, Mr. Otto Glaman, and Mr. Taylor, secured passage from Archangel to Halifax and about July 1st reached the United States. This nucleus was at once equipped for the remainder of the journey around the world. The additional staff, made up of newspaper men, translators, teachers, moving-picture experts, and office helpers, included Dr. Joshua Rosett, Franklin Clarkin, Edwin Schoonmaker, Robert Winters, George Bothwell, Sid Evans, Prof. William Russell, William Games, Lem A. Dever, Phil Norton, Dennis J. Haggerty, and H. Y. Barnes. Seven hundred and fifty thousand feet of the best moving-picture film were sent, together with high-powered projecting machines. Four weeks after he set foot on American soil Mr. Bullard was sailing with the first contingent from a Pacific port.1

Too great credit cannot be given to the representatives of the Committee who stayed with the work from bitter first to bitter last, enduring every hardship, running every risk, and called upon at every turn to fight overwhelming difficulties. Arthur Bullard, in full charge after Mr. Sisson's departure, not only gave a full measure of devotion and ability, but also his health. It is not possible in this brief space to print the full record of effort and accomplishment, but the following summaries will serve to convey some idea of the campaign carried forward entirely by individual courage and initiative. Mr. Read Lewis was in charge of the work in Moscow and Petrograd until the offices were closed by the Soviet, and despite civil war, governmental opposition, and his inability to receive our cable and mail services he fought on. To quote:

1 Mr. Sisson's report on the German-Bolshevik conspiracy is a separate publication of the Committee on Public Information.

During July and August the principal work of the Russian Press Division was the publication and distribution of the American Bulletin. This sixteen-page pamphlet, designed for the general reading public, was issued weekly and distributed free of charge to a mailing-list of forty thousand names. The bulletin contained the cable news despatches, so long as they were received, and articles and paragraphs descriptive of the different phases of American life. The bulletin mailing-list included all newspapers and publications, eight hundred co-operative unions and their more than ten thousand constituent societies, thousands of schools and libraries, all the Soviet and government institutions of the country, trade unions, teachers' associations, the old zemstvos, commercial and manufacturing associations, many business houses and individuals. The building up of this mailing-list was a matter of continuous and careful work. Our attempt was to reach not only the sources of public opinion, but at least some part of the people themselves. Not a day went by without at least one letter from a provincial Soviet, or one of its departments, expressing interest in our work, forwarding names of local organizations, and requesting sometimes as many as fifty copies of each issue for its use. Thus, despite the territory impossible to reach on account of civil war, we were distributing fifty thousand copies of each issue of the bulletin.

In addition to the American Bulletin the bureau also issued during the summer a translation of "How the War Came to America," and a pamphlet collecting several of the speeches of President Wilson, principally those of January 8th on terms of general peace, of February llth replying to the Central Powers, and of April 7th at Baltimore. Of each of these two pamphlets one hundred thousand copies had been printed and were being distributed. We continued to print and distribute the very successful "Letters of an American Friend." Of this four hundred thousand copies had been printed and distributed and a new order was on the press. In the form of leaflets we issued and distributed both the President's Red Cross speech of May 18th in New York and his speech of June llth to the Mexican editors. Four million copies, indeed, of the speech of January 8th were distributed throughout the country and at the front. Copies of it for posting had been sent to all railroad stations in Russia. In default of a greater variety of literature for general distribution we printed of the last several issues of the bulletin a second fifty thousand for distribution outside of its regular mailing-list. To pamphlets like "Letters of an American Friend" and the speeches of President Wilson, the bureau aimed to give a far more general distribution than to the weekly bulletin. Copies of such pamphlets were of course sent to the bulletin mailing-list. In Addition the bureau maintained a staff of eleven couriers and messengers for the work of distribution. Two, for example, devoted their entire time to daily distribution at the railroad stations in Moscow; two more to distribution at the factories and co-operative societies in the Moscow district. A special effort was made to reach personally with our literature each of the many congresses and conferences with their delegates from different parts of the country. To these meetings and conventions our messengers carried subscription lists and in this way were able to add to the bulletin mailing-list. The rest of our courier staff were employed in making regular trips to the provinces. The complete breakdown of the transportation system in Russia made it essential, if we were consistently to reach the provincial cities and districts with our literature, that we should have our own system of distribution. The trips for our provincial messengers were carefully planned, each man being given a list of the organizations, factories, persons, etc., to which he was to distribute literature in the several cities which he was to visit. Nearly all men engaged in this department of our work were members of the Society of Escaped Prisoners — that is, they had been common soldiers in the Russian army and subsequently prisoners in Germany, from which they had escaped.

Through its department of distribution the bureau had thus distributed, during the month from July 15th to August 15th, 10,112 pieces of literature at congresses and conventions; 51,600 at railroad stations in Moscow; 55,951 at factories, to works committees and trade unions; 38,007 to co-operative societies and shops in Moscow and vicinity; and 167,950 in the provinces by the bureau's couriers. This, in addition to a small miscellaneous distribution at the offices of the committee in Petrograd and Moscow and in addition to the distribution of the bulletin by post, made the total distribution for the month 479,333.

It is obvious, of course, that if we could have supplied to and had published by the Russian newspapers the same or material equivalent to that which we ourselves printed and distributed, we should have employed a far more economical and extensive method of publication and distribution. The publication of our own pamphlets, and especially of our weekly paper, however, seemed essential, not only because of the utter demoralization of the Russian press, but as a concrete evidence and expression of America's policy of friendship and helpful co-operation with the Russian people. Following the assassination of Ambassador Mirbach early in July, all of the bourgeois press was permanently closed, and until I left Moscow, August 28, 1918, none but a few Bolshevik newspapers appeared.

All through July and part of August, while the Russian press was fuming at Anglo-French imperialists, never a word was said about America, although it was well known that we were also parties with England and France to the treaty with the Murmansk Soviet. The different attitude which the Russian newspapers and government have taken toward America, as distinguished from the other allies, has been due not only to what America is, but also, I believe, to our propaganda, and the efforts we have made to make America understood. It has been due to the fact that our propaganda was distinguished from that of the English and French, has aimed at reaching the broad masses of the Russian people. We have tried to make friends with the people themselves. That we have at least in a small measure succeeded is attested by many letters of appreciation received from simple people, often from scarcely literate peasants and working-men.

As soon as Mr. Lewis reached Stockholm in September, 1918, he was ordered to Archangel and remained on duty there until the late winter of 1919, a notable contribution of citizen service.

Malcolm Davis and William Adams Brown opened telegraph and wireless -receiving offices at Vladivostok and Harbin in June, 1918. Arthur Bullard and the staff of reinforcements joined them in the late summer. The organization was approaching the top of its stride in February, 1919, when its demobilization order came. All the staff recognized the inevitability of the ending of the work and understood the reasons for it, yet there was not a member of the organization who did not feel that it came at a most unfortunate time, considered from the point of view of Siberia and of Russian relationship generally. Other nations were developing energetic propaganda campaigns, and the American engineers were finally taking up the task of railroad reorganization and the American Red Cross extending its relief activities. These considerations, together with the fact that it was a critical time in the discussion of Russian-Allied relations, made the withdrawal of the American Information Bureau regrettable. That this was not merely the feeling of men engaged in the work, but that it was a view shared by impartial representatives of the government of the United States of America as well as by Russians and by representatives of some of the other Allies, is evidenced by the messages to Washington of Ambassador Morris, who was in Vladivostok on a special mission from Tokio, from Consul- General Harris and all his consular staff, by the telegram of Motosada Zuomoto, head of the Japanese Information Bureau, and by letters from Russians, all urging the continuance of the work, if possible.

Mr. Davis and Mr. Brown originally left Moscow for a survey of Siberia in March, 1918. To quote from the report of Mr. Davis:

We found the press under the strict control of the Bolshevik regime. No papers with a political color were being published in any town visited except the official Bolshevik organ and one or two others of the most radical Socialist revolutionary tendencies. In general, there was less freedom for the press in Siberia under the Bolshevik regime than in Petrograd and Moscow under the same regime. The separate peace had just been concluded between the German government and the "Russian Federated Socialistic Soviet Republic."

We proceeded on the same policy which had won a measure of success in Moscow and Petrograd, since we were under orders to attempt to continue publicity in Bolshevik Russia and Siberia. It had been decided not to attack Bolshevism or discuss political questions in Russia directly, and to get across as much information as possible about the principles of democratic government, the aims of America and the Allies, the war organization of America and the growing supremacy of the Allied arms, the actions of the German government in Russia and other occupied territories and spheres of influence, and as much general news and special-article material as possible about political and social conditions and ideas in the United States. This work was regarded as tending to strengthen every sane democratic movement existing in the country, to give information that might serve as a basis for working out new problems of government in the country, and to create as much of friendly feeling and understanding as possible among the common people in Russia.

We met with varying attitudes on the part of the editors and of the leaders of the Soviets or councils which were iii charge of affairs everywhere. While frankly antagonistic to America as a "capitalists' country," they had no objection to our carrying on a campaign of information so long as they were sure they knew what we were doing and that we were not doing anything directly against Bolshevist organization.

We had at this time the war anniversary speech of President Wilson, and this we had printed as a wall poster, in fifty thousand copies, for posting in and around Omsk and for mail distribution. The circulation was carried out, after our departure, by a Russian assistant whom we engaged, under the supervision of American Consul Thomson. An additional ten thousand copies of this poster were later sent to Vice-Consul Thomas in Krasnoyarsk for display and distribution there. We also arranged at once for the distribution of about fifteen thousand copies each of Mr. Bullard's pamphlet "Letters of an American Friend," which had been very successful, and also of the weekly American Bulletin from the Moscow office.

Going on to Krasnoyarsk, we stayed long enough to form an impression of all the editors and Soviet leaders there, and to engage a local Russian representative, who was to work in contact with the American vice-consul. We also arranged for the circulation of material through the co-operative unions; and for the regular forwarding of telegraphic news and printed literature from the central offices in Moscow. In order to circulate copies of the President's speeches at all, we had to get the official permission of the Irkutsk commissars, who were determining entirely what should be published in the city at the time. We went to call on Yanson, the commissar for foreign affairs of the Siberian administration, which was located in Irkutsk. He was at first absolutely opposed to publication of anything representing an American or Allied point of view.

"You know," said the commissar, "we regard all established governments with antagonism, for we aim at a world-wide revolution which will overthrow the power of the capitalists everywhere."

" Do you mean," asked we, " that you recognize no difference between such a government as the government of the United States of America and the Prussian military government of Germany?"

"Absolutely none," replied the commissar. "America is one financial imperialism and Germany is another. Both systematically exploit the working-class and the people. So far as we are concerned they are one and the same; and we are against them both!"

We pointed out to him that the address which we proposed to publish and to circulate in and around Irkutsk was an official utterance of the Chief Executive of our nation, that it represented the point of view of the government of one of the great Powers both with regard to the issues of the war in general and with regard to Russia, and that as such it should be published as news, not as propaganda. We got the necessary rubber-stamped permission to circulate the copies of the address on the strength of this argument, and proceeded to plaster the town with copies of the address.

In the course of doing the work in Siberia we got constant evidence of friendly feeling for America and confidence in her intentions on the part of the common people not allied with the Bolsheviks. These people were completely suppressed for the time being, however, and they could not make their point of view effective, since the Bolsheviks had all the guns. They did take our material and circulate it. We got such expressions of feeling from the railroad men along the Trans-Siberian line, and from the students, members of professional unions, and co-operative society workers in cities where we stopped. This feeling was also evidenced in an incident which occurred after we left Irkutsk. We had left all our printed material and special-article material with the American consul, asking him to give it as much circulation as possible, since we were ordered out of the region. He gave the material to a representative of an American firm in Irkutsk. There the material was displayed on a counter, and in a very short time it was all gone. The consul afterward related to us how people would come in and ask for copies and also for permission to circulate them among their friends. Representatives of the railroad workers' unions also came in and asked for permission to reprint at their own cost some of the material about America, for distribution among their members.

Having discharged their task completely, Mr. Davis and Mr. Brown were now faced with the problem of getting out of Bolshevik Siberia. Three days' travel by train and then a boat trip up the Selenga River brought them to the border, where they slipped across, after which Ford automobiles carried them through Mongolia and across the Gobi Desert. Peking was reached on May 31st, where they received instructions to proceed to Harbin, Manchuria, on the line of the Chinese Eastern Railway, managed by a Russian directorate and forming an important link on the Trans-Siberian line from the west to Vladivostok. The city of Harbin at that time formed what might be called the external political capital of Russia, having as residents influential members of the Russian business and political groups most strongly opposed to the Bolshevik regime. It therefore offered a very fertile field for publicity, combining in its population the elements above mentioned with the Russian workers in the large railroad repair-shops of the Chinese Eastern Railway.

Purchasing a few office supplies in Peking, and assembling all available material, Mr. Davis and Mr. Brown started for Harbin on June 10th, arriving two days later. Mr. Davis's report continues as follows:

The state of public opinion in Harbin and in the general section around it and reached by its newspapers was very uncertain. The German advance on the western front was still in full progress, and the fresh forces of the American army had not yet been thrown into action. The submarine campaign was continuing, and the facts of American shipbuilding were not known as they needed to be known in this part of the world. The Allies had not yet adopted a policy of active aid to loyal Russians against the Bolsheviks and German-Magyar ex-prisoner forces, so no one knew what would be the issue of the political situation in Siberia and Russia. Consequently, there were a great many people who were listening to the incessant German propaganda that the Russian Bolshevik revolution had destroyed the last chance of the Allies to win, that the entrance of America into the war was too late to save the situation, that at least the Allies would be forced to a compromise peace in which Germany would gain the main advantages or else that Germany would actually win the decisive victory in the war and thus dominate the international situation. In Russian circles there were many who believed that a monarchy supported by an alliance with the Prussian monarchy would be the best thing for Russia; and there were many others who believed that any force which could bring order in Russia would be beneficial, and who, consequently, were ready to turn to Germany for that result.

We had arranged before leaving Peking for the forwarding from the American Legation there of the daily news cable service of the Committee on Public Information from Washington. We also found in the American consulate's care some cases of motion-picture films, about sixty different films in all, some of them in duplicate and triplicate. There were also some books and pamphlets from America about American conditions and war organization, sent by the Committee in Washington. The Committee had also sent to the American consul, Mr. Moser, the sum of five thousand dollars to finance a campaign of publicity in and around Harbin, and Mr. Moser, working under great pressure in the complicated situation in Harbin, had engaged H. Curtis Vezey, formerly editor of The Russian Daily News in Petrograd, to act as publicity agent. We retained Mr. Vezey as an assistant, moved into the temporary office which he had engaged, and started to work at the job of changing public opinion regarding the war.

We began to flood the newspapers with telegrams, translated ready into Russian and furnished free, regarding the numbers of American troops being transported each month to France, the numbers of new ships being built for the battle-fleet and merchant marine, amounts of Liberty Loans and other subscriptions for the war, amounts of foodstuffs shipped to the Allies, and refutations of rumors about paralyzing strikes in the United States and proofs of the unity of the people in the effort against the Central Empires. Fortunately, the newspapers were either friendly to the Allies or open-minded; and further, they were comparatively poor and had no good telegraph news service. The appearance of the free American service was a boon to them and they printed nearly every line of news that we gave to them.

We also began to translate special articles on American national institutions and organizations, on labor conditions and the labor movement, and the reasons why labor was supporting the government in the war and would continue to support it, on various aspects of the life of the people in America, political, social, economic, tending to show what advantages they already have and what powers they have to change conditions constantly for the better, all intended to show the reasons for American unity and loyalty. Many of these articles were also printed, despite the comparatively small size of Russian newspapers. The changed tone of editorial utterances regarding the war showed the cumulative effect of the propaganda. All utterances by the President were also translated and sent to the papers, and they were invariably published and commented on.

During all of this period our assistant, Mr. Vezey, whom we employed on a part-time arrangement, was publishing our news in English in his Russian Daily News, Occasionally, when especially important news arrived, an evening telegraph bulletin in Russian was gotten out by The Russian Daily News and sold on the streets, which made a very useful and effective form of quick-action publicity.

We sorted our motion-picture films into programs and arranged for a week of American official motion pictures in one of the Harbin theaters for the benefit of the Russian Red Cross. The pictures which we had were mainly military and industrial, with a few travel pictures of America and some weekly news review films. We had the excellent film, "The Remaking of a Nation," and also much other film showing army-training in the United States. We divided the films off into programs as well balanced as possible; and then covered the town with advertisements 26 389 and distributed handbills for the week's program, which we entitled "America for the Allies."

The pictures were well attended by mixed audiences and made a considerable impression. Those showing the efficient drilling of the new army of America and the power of the battle-fleet, however, seemed to impress them most of all. The impression which we were trying to make constantly was that America was with the Allies, and for them, heart and soul, and that she was throwing into the fight every bit of strength and resource that she could make effective, a fact which was making the ultimate triumph of the Allied arms sure. The pictures also served as an excellent prelude to the news which we were able to give shortly afterward about the first victorious American drive at Chateau-Thierry, and the turning of the tide of battle which developed into victory.

The pictures had English flash titles, so we arranged to show them with a lecturer, who explained each picture in Russian and who answered any questions about it from the audience. After finishing the showings in Harbin, the pictures were sent out along the line of the Chinese Eastern Railroad in Manchuria to the Russian theaters in Tsitsikar, Hailar, and Manchuria Station. On their return they were sent to the office which had by that time been opened in Vladivostok to have Russian titles put in.

When we first arrived in Harbin the lines to Vladivostok and to Siberia were, of course, closed. The Bolsheviks were still in control and fighting between them and Semenov was going on along the line between Manchuria Station and Chita. The Harbin newspapers, however, were the only ones in Russian in Manchuria, and were sent to every Russian community. Consequently, by placing material in these papers we were reaching all Russian newspaper readers. The Harbin papers were also sent through whenever possible, by various individual ways, to Vladivostok, to Habarovsk, to Blagovestchensk, and to Chita; and there they were read and often reprinted by the editors of local papers. In this way, consequently, we were reaching as much of the Siberian field as possible at the moment. Wrhen a paper was established at Manchuria Station, we started sending our telegrams and special articles there; and when another was started in Sakhalin, just across the river in Manchuria from Blagovestchensk, we began sending material there.

The President's speech at Mount Vernon, which we printed in a pamphlet to the number of ten thousand copies in Harbin, in addition to securing publication in the newspapers, was distributed in Harbin and through Manchuria in these various ways.

The American proclamation of August 3d, regarding Russia, caused a very animated discussion in the Harbin press. We printed twenty thousand copies of the statement and distributed them as well as possible in Harbin and Manchuria, sending some to Sakhalin for Blagovestchensk, and some to Vladivostok. In this distribution, the American Railroad Mission was very helpful. We also had selections from the announcement made into plates for projection on the moving-picture screen and showed them in two motion-picture theaters. From the large number of photographs sent us from Washington by the Committee, twenty-five were selected, and after some difficulty we arranged to have cuts made of them and have them printed in the form of post-cards for sale in railroad stations and stationery stores.

The triumph of the Czechoslovaks in the summer opened up the Siberian Railroad, first from Harbin to Vladivostok, and afterward through to the Urals, giving the Committee a chance for general Siberian work. For some time Admiral Knight, commander of the cruiser Brooklyn off Vladivostok, had been receiving the Committee's wireless reports and giving them to the American consulate for distribution, so that the field was not entirely virgin. Mr. Brown, going from Harbin to Vladivostok with motion pictures, opened the campaign with successful showings of our films, and Mr. Davis, following him, established the usual Committee office. A staff was picked up on the ground and authorized translations of the daily news service as well as the special articles contained in the Poole service commenced to flow steadily into the press. Printing arrangements were made for the pamphlet, "Letters of an American Friend," and a daily bulletin in English was issued for the information of the Allied consulates and officials. This bulletin also went to the French Red Cross for translation for the French troops and was also put into Russian for courier transmission to papers not reached by wire. Mr. Carl Kranz, given authority to secure offices and an office force, did his work so well that when Mr. Bullard and his party arrived in Vladivostok he found a publicity machine of such smoothness and power that he was enabled instantly to make Vladivostok his headquarters, turning Harbin into a subsidiary.

A film campaign that reached from the theaters to the schools, the churches, and the homes was at once begun, and these exhibitions were a powerful factor in our appeal to the Siberian masses. Some of the difficulties under which the Committee labored are set forth in the following memorandum filed by G. S. Both well, technical director of the Motion Picture Division:

The building we worked in is like most other buildings in Vladivostok. It has neither water-supply nor sewerage systems, as this is almost unknown in this place. In order to turn out any quantity of these titles we found it necessary to have running water, and at an expense of twenty-five thousand rubles we put in a water-supply and sewerage system which meets all requirements of the city laws. However, after this system was completed and all arrangements had been agreed upon, the city authorities refused to turn water on and kept us three weeks or more without running water.

We found it necessary to establish a machine-shop, and as the Russian government had many lathes lying on the wharves rusting and fast becoming worthless, we tried to requisition one. We were switched from one party to another by the Russian authorities until we were fighting-mad and at last pinned them down to facts. We were informed that if we deposited sixteen thousand rubles in a bank a commission would let us know how much they would charge us for a lathe worth at the most fifty dollars. Despite these obstacles, for the past month we have been turning out about twenty-five hundred feet of completed titles each day, quite a number of still pictures, and some motion pictures, both negative and positive.

About the middle of October we received our shipment of machines and film that we brought to Japan and the Japanese held up when we reshipped from Kobe to Vladivostok. This is a long story, and it is not possible to exactly place the responsibility.

However, after we received this film we made many attempts to get distribution and found it most discouraging. The picture-houses would not use these pictures without Russian titles and graciously offered to show them for us if we would insert good Russian titles and pay them for exhibiting first-class American films.

We then got the Vladivostok Zemstvo (Russian self-government for local districts) interested, with fine results. They agreed to take our industrial and educational pictures throughout Siberia and show them in the towns and villages if we would supply the complete outfit, consisting of generator, motion-picture machine, etc., which we gladly did, and the results were most satisfactory. The first show was for the agricultural districts and the reports were simply great. The village commune is common all over Siberia, and these people in many instances want to buy tractors and other farming implements collectively. They ask no end of questions and beg for farming instructors from America. We now handle all the educational work through the Vladivostok Zemstvo with gratifying success. Our Russian titles are real Russian and they like them.

Mr. Glaman had the same obstacles to overcome in the matter of printing. It was difficult to find presses, and the shortage of paper compelled him to buy old stock in Shanghai and Japan. The same difficulties were encountered by the publication department, directed editorially by Malcolm Davis and Graham Taylor, and under the business management of Mr. Glaman. Despite every discouragement, the work went on, as the following list of publications will show:

The Friendly Word. — A weekly magazine; 14 issues totaling 288 pages and 522,350 copies. Some of this material was drawn from the cable service of the Committee on Public Information, particularly the texts of the notes exchanged between the various nations leading up to the armistice, and the speeches of President Wilson. The main portion of the material was received from the Foreign Press Bureau and included many articles and news notes which were used in full, others which were shortened or condensed, and others which were used as the basis for the preparation of material adapted to meet space conditions or the interest of the Siberian public. All of the illustrations appearing in The Friendly Word are from half-tones or photographs which were sent by the Foreign Press Bureau.

The remaining portion of the material used in The Friendly Word was almost wholly written by members of the staff of the Russian Division. This included various editorial notes and articles; the articles on American Activity in Siberia, by Arthur Bullard; the series of articles by Prof. W. F. Russell on the Development of Education in America; a series of four articles on the League of Nations, by E. D. Schoonmaker, and a series of four articles on health — Typhus, Tuberculosis, Milk, and Infant Feeding — by Dr. Joshua Rosett.

This distribution was greatly facilitated by the generous co-operation of the Czechoslovak authorities in permitting the shipment of bundles of copies in the weekly mail-car operated by the Czechoslovaks on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

From each of the offices of the Committee copies were sent, as far as possible, to individual addresses. The mailing-lists included governmental and local officials, libraries, reading-rooms, universities and schools, officers and members of zemstvos, co-operative societies and peasant unions, persons who wrote letters expressing interest and requesting copies, etc. In many cases organizations such as zemstvos, co-operative societies, peasant unions, teachers' organizations, literary societies, and commercial and industrial bodies took an active interest in distributing copies to their members.

Letters of an American Friend. — Of this pamphlet of 24 pages, written by Arthur Bullard, director of the Russian Division, expressing the friendly interest of America in the democratic progress of the Russian people and explaining the principles of American democracy, there were published 150,000 copies.

American Activity in Siberia. — This pamphlet of 8 pages, containing a reprint of an article by Arthur Bullard, director of the Russian Division, which originally appeared in The Friendly Word, was published in an edition of 100,000 copies.

America and Peace. — This pamphlet of 16 pages, compiled by M. W. Davis, containing, with an introduction, the texts*of notes exchanged between the various nations in the negotiations leading up to the armistice, and passages from President Wilson's speeches bearing on peace, was published in an edition of 100,550.

The German Plot to Control Russia. — This pamphlet of 16 pages, by M. W. Davis, after consultation with Mr. Bullard, containing the substance of the documents in the Sisson report made public by the Committee on Public Information to show the character of German activity in Russia, was published in an edition of 100,000 copies.

Typhus handbill. — This handbill, containing a reprint of an article in The Friendly Word, designed to give information in popular form concerning ways whereby each individual and family could help combat the epidemic of typhus in Siberia, was printed in an edition of 24,000.

Development of Education in the United States. — This .booklet of 64 pages, containing a reprint of the 14 educational articles by Prof. W. F. Russell of the State University of Iowa which were originally published in The Friendly Word, was printed in an edition of 50,000 and, in accordance with instructions from the main office of the Committee in Washington, the entire edition, issued just prior to the termination of the Committee's work in Siberia, was turned over to the American consul in Vladivostok for distribution under the supervision of the various consular officers in Siberia.

Speeches of President Wilson. — This booklet of 48 pages was published in an edition of 100,000 copies, 7,000 on a good quality of paper for distribution to libraries, reading-rooms, schools, universities, and officials, and 93,000 on cheap paper for popular distribution.

It is . regrettable indeed that there is not space for publication of the entire report by Mr. Davis on the Siberian work, but his closing chapters pay some deserved tributes and contain some very valuable observations. To quote:

The scope of this report does not give opportunity to include the reports of the individual field men in Chita, Irkutsk, Omsk, Ekaterinburg, and Chelyabinsk, which contain much interesting detail. They worked loyally and hard in the service, with a spirit of co-operation which made the whole relationship a pleasure. Special notice is due to the service of W. A. Brown, Jr., who had the hardest physical conditions to face. He traveled on freight-cars and crowded third and fourth-class cars constantly, and never complained of hardship if a piece of work could be done. He went to Perm as soon as possible after its capture from the Bolsheviks, and had literature dropped across their lines from airplanes.

The daily telegraph news service was extended to reach nearly all Siberian papers through an agreement with the Russian Telegraph Agency at Omsk, reached through R. E. Winters, our representative there.

In addition, our bulletins in English were sent by American headquarters at Vladivostok to Chita and relayed by our man there to the other field men, so that each would have the service in full. The field men also received weekly packages by mail, with special articles already translated for the press, and full sets of the bulletin accompanying a regular service letter.

Early in January Otto T. Glaman, business manager, and I started out for a tour of the field to get in touch with the men in the several offices and to co-ordinate their activities further if necessary. We traveled in a freight-car, which had been made over into an office car, with a sleeping compartment and a kitchen and a brakeman's compartment, specially for this purpose by the American Railway Mission. We also had a smaller freight-car as trailer, with a stock of literature and of fuel and food supplies for ourselves and the field men.

In Irkutsk we received the demobilization orders, and from there on the original purpose of the trip was automatically changed. We went to Omsk, where we took Brown from Ekaterinburg, and Winters from Omsk, office manager, on board with us and started back for Vladivostok on March 2d. Bakeman, the Irkutsk manager, returned in a consulate car, and Clarkin, from Chita, with us.

To estimate the results and the consequent value of a campaign of public information which could not be completed is both difficult and problematical. Nevertheless, I am confident in saying that all of the men engaged in the work, and also men in other official American services, felt at the close that the effort had justified itself and been worth while.

The telegraph news service alone, reaching one hundred and fifty Siberian papers by our arrangement with the Russian Telegraph Agency in Omsk, was a great influence.

When the division was ordered to demobilize, the friendly attitude of other American agencies, and especially the cordial co-operation of the headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces and of the consulate general and branch consulates, were evidence that useful work had been accomplished. This evidence was reinforced by many expressions from Russians, samples of whose letters are given at the end of the report.

Summing up the results of the work, I should say that the most valuable effect was the creation of a new sense of acquaintance with America and with the spirit of the American people. As one Siberian editor wrote, " I think that I am not mistaken when I say that, owing to the activities of the representatives of the American Press Bureau, democratic America will never again become a strange country of industrial kings to the population of Siberia."

This establishment of a knowledge of the life and character of the rank and file of the American people, and of the broad range of their interests and activities, together with a sense of mutual sympathetic interest in common ideals and aspirations, is the most important achievement of the Siberian Department. The circulation of our material on the organization and growth of a modern democracy, with its creative principles of constructive change and development, may also do much to clear up the confusion existing in many Russian minds challenged for the first time with the problem of working out their own difficulties. All the evidence is that the work has laid a basis of friendly interest which will remain for future relations of co-operative good will.

Coupled with this broader result and contributing to it are certain very specific things which the Siberian Department did. By circulating broadcast information about American war organization and activity, it helped to convince the public mind in Siberia of the potential power of America and its promise of victory during the critical days when the issue of the war was still in doubt in 1918. By circulating information about the American peace program and the League of Nations proposal, embodied in the addresses of President Wilson, it helped to establish confidence in the genuine disinterested sincerity of America as a nation and as a democracy in matters of international policy. By circulating information regarding the American policy concerning Russia, it served to create confidence in America as a country not seeking for internal control in Russia and Siberia and truly interested in free and fair play for Russians in the settlement of their own affairs. The circulation of information regarding the activities of American relief agencies, such as the American Red Cross, the American Railway Mission, and the American War Trade Board, as well as regarding the interest taken by Americans at home in Russian affairs and the progress of the Russian people in their struggle for a better order under free institutions, has at the same time kept alive the sense of American friendship and sympathy. Circulation of information regarding American methods of agriculture and industry and regarding the life of the American farmer and the efforts for betterment of the conditions of life of the worker, regarding the activities of the American government in the interest of the people, and regarding the powers and opportunities which the people of the United States have for changing and perfecting their institutions, have both corrected many false impressions of America and tended to develop new standards in Russian minds for their own national life and system of government.