arises in Russia with an idea that appeals to him. When I asked the peasants why, if they were so bitter against forced military service, forced requisitions, and the many other things of which they complained most grievously, the peasants themselves did not rise up against the Bolsheviki, they invariably answered they could not organize, that they were afraid of the spies who were everywhere, that they had no arms, and that if they were even suspected their whole village would be burned to the ground by the Communists. And more to this general effect.

priest who complained bitterly that the same peasants who had taken this energetic action concerning an insult to the Church, did nothing to defend their priests from insults. In another village, I heard the details of an attempt by Bolsheviki to force the peasants to pay the verger the same prices as they paid the priest for the various ceremonies-christenings, marriages, etc. However, the peasants had united solidly against this, and the Bolsheviki promptly gave up the attempt.

COMPLAINTS AGAINST BOLSHEVISM

S THE Bolsheviki gave up the practice of

not rise, but that they have not suffered enough to give them the incentive. By passive resistance they had practically repudiated Bolshevist rule. The peasants' passive defense of the Russian Church is a case in point.

WHERE THE CHURCH SURVIVES

DESPITE the efforts of the Communists

in deriding the Church and in exposing its shams (for unfortunately the Russian priesthood, was not above imposing on the credulity of the peasants), the peasants have steadfastly refused to oust the clergy. In some places the Communists tried to use church buildings for other purposes, but they were not able to put this through, as the people who were quiescent under all other outrages stood firm on this subject; they said that if the churches were to be closed, synagogues also should go. Though the Communists took church property, and also that of the clergy, and even insulted the priest, the peasants actively resented insults to the Church itself. The Communists evidently realized that here they were on very dangerous ground, and they finally gave up active open measures against the Church although they continued to deride religion.

A number of peasants in a village near Tchaplinka, one day recounted with great glee their treatment of a commissar who had ridden into a churchyard on his horse and there announced his opinion of the Church and churchgoers. But he did not remain long, for he was promptly pulled off his horse by the angry peasants, and after rather rough handling, was thrown over the fence. No action was ever taken against the peasants for this. But in spite of their loyalty to the Church itself as evidenced by incidents such as above, the peasant attitude toward the priests is far different from what it used to be. I remember the village

preach the principle, so did they also fail to enforce their principles of common ownership of property upon the peasants. There were requisitions but they were not general. And although the peasants are bitter against the mobilization, and requisitions, they have nevertheless, in general, never suffered the many requisitions of clothing, linen, household effects, and about everything else of value, which the townspeople have had to endure; nor have they seen at close hand the conduct and methods of the commissars.

The answer to the question, repeated with such unintermittent frequency, as to why the mujhiks do not rise and put an end to this Red Terror they dislike so thoroughly, has many factors; but after one has talked to sufficient hundreds of these peasants, the great fundamental truth gradually emerges, and in the end it appears quite plain. It is simply that in the mass they've suffered really very little. compared to the townspeople, no matter how much individuals may have suffered. Add to this, that they see comparatively little of the evils of the system (many have never seen a commissar except at rare intervals) and then, too, the extraordinary difficulties of organization against a régime which has so widespread a system of espionage, and such prompt and efficacious methods of repression-all this in addition to the fundamental difficulties of organization in a country of great distances, with no free press and no freedom of speech nor of communication and it becomes almost obvious that only the most intense suffering, which could produce a spontaneous outbreak, would cause an uprising among the peasants sufficiently serious to threaten the Soviets. As for the dissatisfaction with Bolshevism, the principal complaints against it that I heard

were that now no one could buy cloth, that the little tea there was, was no good, and that the old system of redividing the land every few years would have to go on again under the Bolshevist régime, i. e., that still the peasants should not own their own land. I found a good deal of feeling because the schools were no longer functioning, but that feeling was due largely to the fact that the peasants observed that the synagogue schools were running while their own were not.

Often I would hear outcries against the

peated over and over again, that the only people that had good land were the people who, because they owned it as proprietors, took care of it. As for the coöperative movement, they believe in it because they have seen it work in their villages, in the coöperative stores and the coöperative peasant industries which formerly gave employment to thousands of peasants during the winter months, and which have on the whole been so very successful.

A SUMMARY

Jewish. Often, too, I heard that the Bolsheviki were not so bad after all. More than one peasant pointed out that, although the Bolsheviki had robbed him of his grain and cattle, in reality the sum total of what had been taken, was less than he had been forced to pay out in taxes of one kind and another in previous years. When I asked the direct question as to what good the Bolsheviki had accomplished, almost invariably I got the flat answer that they had accomplished no good, that they had made promises and announced programmes, but had kept none of them. On the other hand, when I put the question less directly, it very often became evident that the Bolsheviki had accomplished some good. In the first place, whether he has actually been free or not, the peasant has in the last three years thought of himself as free, and just that single idea has had a great educational effect. When one is actually in Russia one sees very clearly that education is not entirely a matter of the study of books. The simple fact that during The simple fact that during the last three years the peasant has thought himself a free man, as good as his neighbor and all of his neighbors, has in itself educated him enormously beyond anything one would think possible. And all this, notwithstanding that this freedom has been far from our idea of freedom.

I found, too, that although the peasants were fundamentally opposed to Communism, they believed strongly in a sort of modified Socialism, or a coöperative system. This feeling against the one and for the other was based simply on their experience with both-an experience which, as a matter of fact, has been rather extensive. Their ideas about Communism they summed up, by saying that everyone knew that when land was owned in common it meant simply that nobody really took care of any of it; and any one could see, they re

with the Bolsheviki, in a few words, is to this effect:

1. The Bolsheviki have drafted a comparatively small number of peasants for their armies.

2. They have commandeered produce and property from the peasants.

On the other hand:

1. The peasants have, under the Bolsheviki, maintained the individual ownership of the land which they took when the Revolution broke out.

2. They have in large measure resisted all the communistic practices of the Bolsheviki and entirely repudiated the communistic theories.

3. They have kept the Church from Bolshevist destruction.

4. They have produced local leaders, but as yet none with either the personality or programme to grow into a national leader.

5. Their most effective organization on which to build either an economic or political structure are the coöperative societies.

From all this it is plain that were the antiBolsheviki in the cities to rise against Bolshevism, the peasant would either help or be neutral. Bolshevism is not the main question to the peasant. Who has the control of the central government is not the main question to him. The main question is that he now has land of his own, that he is economically a free man, and that he has with this freedom gained a confidence which will make it impossible for any government to oppress him as he used to be oppressed. The Bolsheviki may come and go and their successors in government likewise, but whoever is in the saddle will have to accept the new position which the mujhik has wrought for himself in the Revolution. He has become a free man, and in the course of time a self-governing, prosperous nation can be made of free men.

N THE early part of January, 1914, Colonel House wrote Page, asking whether he would consider favorably an offer to enter President Wilson's Cabinet, as Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. David F. Houston, who was then most acceptably filling that position, was also an authority on banking and finance; the plan was to make him governor of the new Federal Reserve Board, then in process of formation, and to transfer Page to the vacant place in the Cabinet. The proposal was not carried through, but Page's reply took the form of a review of his ambassadorship up to date, of his vexations, his embarrassments, his successes, and especially of the very important task which still lay before him. There were

certain reasons, it will appear, why he would have liked to leave London; and there was one impelling reason why he preferred to stay. From the day of his arrival in England, Page had been humiliated, and his work had been constantly impeded, by the almost studied neglect with which Washington treated its diplomatic service. The fact that the American Government provided no official residence for its Ambassador, and no adequate financial allowance for maintaining the office, had made his position almost an intolerable one. All Page's predecessors for twenty-five years had been rich men who could advance the cost of the Embassy from their own private purses; to meet these expenses, however, Page had been obliged to encroach on the savings of a

. . .Of course I am open to the criticism of having taken the place at all. But I was both uninformed and misinformed about the cost as well as about the frightful handicap of having no Embassy. It's a kind of scandal in London and it has its serious effect. Everybody talks about it all the time: "Will you explain to me why it is that your great Government has no Embassy: it's very odd!" "What a frugal Government you have!" "It's a damned mean outfit, your American Government." The King keeps lecturing me. Mrs. Page collapses many an evening when she gets to her room. "If they'd only quit talking about it!" The other Ambassadors, now that we're coming to know them fairly well, commiserate us. It's a constant humiliation. Of course this aspect of it doesn't worry me much-I've got hardened to it. But it is a good deal of a real handicap, and it adds that much dead weight that a man must overcome; and it greatly lessens the respect in which our Government and its Ambassador are held. If I had known this fully in advance, I would not have had the courage to come here. Now, of course, I've got used to it, have discounted it, and can "bull" it through-could "bull" it through if I could afford to pay the bill. But I wouldn't advise any friend of mine to come here and face this humiliation without realizing precisely what it means-wholly apart, of course, from the cost of it. .

My dear House, on the present basis much of the diplomatic business is sheer humbugrich men with ambitious women playing the game of social display-never for a day setting forth the aims and ideals of the American Republic. It will always be so till we have our own Embassies and an established position in consequence. Without a home or a house or a fixed background, every man has to establish his own position for himself; and unless he be unusual, this throws him clean out of the way of giving emphasis to the right things.

As for our position, I think I don't fool myself. The job at the Foreign Office is easy because there is no real trouble between us,

and because Sir Edward Grey is pretty nearly an ideal man to get on with. I think he likes me, too, because, of course, I'm straightforward and frank with him, and he likes the things we stand for. Outside this official part of the job, of course, we're commonplace-a successful commonplace, I hope. But that's all. We don't know how to try to be anything but what we naturally are. I dare say we are laughed at here and there about this and that. Sometimes I hear criticisms, now and then more or less serious ones. Much of it comes of our greenness; some of it from the very nature of the situation: Those who expect to find us brilliant are, of course, disappointed. Nor are we smart, and the smart set (both American and English) find us uninteresting. But we drive ahead and keep a philosophical temper and simply do the best we can, and, you may be sure, a good deal of it. It is laborious. For instance, I've made two trips lately to speak before important bodies, one at Leeds, the other at Newcastle, at both of which, in different ways, I have tried to explain the President's principle in dealing with Central American turbulent states-and, incidentally, the American ideals of Government. The audiences see it, approve it, applaud it. The newspaper editorial writers never quite go the length-it involves a denial of the divine right of the British Empire; at least they fear so. The fewest possible Englishmen really understand our governmental aims and ideals. I have delivered unnumbered and innumerable little speeches, directly or indirectly, about them; and they seem to like them. But it would take an army of oratorical ambassadors a life-time to get the idea into the heads of them all. In some ways they are incredibly far back in medievalism-incredibly.

If I have to leave in the fall or in December, it will be said and thought that I've failed, unless there be some reason that can be made public. I should be perfectly willing to tell the reasonthe failure of the Government to make it financially possible. I've nothing to concealonly definite amounts. I'd never say what it has cost-only that it costs more than I or anybody but a rich man can afford. If then, or in the meantime, the President should wish me to serve elsewhere, that would, of course, be a sufficient reason for my going.

Now another matter, with which I shall not bother the President-he has enough to bear on that score. It was announced in one of the

London papers the other day that Mr. Bryan would deliver a lecture here, and probably in each of the principal European capitals, on Peace. Now, God restrain me from saying, much more from doing, anything rash. But if I've got to go home at all, I'd rather go before he comes. It'll take years for the American Ambassadors to recover what they'll lose if he carries out this plan. They now laugh at him here. Only the President's great personality saves the situation in foreign relations. Of course the public here doesn't know how utterly unorganized the State Department ishow we can't get answers to important questions, and how they publish most secret despatches or allow them to leak out. But "bad breaks" like this occur. Mr. Stewart, of the 100-Years'-Peace-Committee,1 came here a week ago, with a letter from Bryan to the Prime Minister! Stewart told me that this 100year business gave a chance to bind the nations together that ought not to be missed. Hence Bryan had asked him to take up the relations of the countries with the Prime Minister! Bryan sent a telegram to Stewart to be read at a big 100-year meeting here. As for the personal indignity to me I overlook that. I don't think he means it. But if he doesn't mean it, what does he mean? That's what the Prime Minister asks himself. Fortunately Mr. Asquith and I get along mighty well. He met Bryan once, and he told me with a smile that he regarded him as "a peculiar product of your country." But the Secretary is always doing things like this. He dashes off letters of introduction to people asking me

to present them to Mr. Asquith, Mr. Lloyd

George, etc.

if he comes; and (I confess) I'd rather be gone. No member of another government ever came here and lectured. T. R. did it as a private citizen, and even then split the heavens asunder.1 Most Englishmen will regard it as a piece of effrontery. Of course, I'm not in the least concerned about mere matters of taste. It's only the bigger effects that I have in mind in queering our Government in their eyes. He must be kept at home on the Mexican problem, or some other.

Yours faithfully, WALTER H. PAGE.

P. S. But, by George, it's a fine game! This Government and ours are standing together all right, especially since the President has taken hold of our foreign relations himself. With such a man at the helm at home, we can do whatever we wish to do with the English, as I've often told you. (But it raises doubts every time the shoe-string necktie, broadbrimmed black hat, oratorical, old-time, River Platte kind of note is heard.) We've come a long way in a year-a very joyful long way, full of progress and real understanding; there's no doubt about that. A year ago they knew very well the failure that had saddled them with the tolls trouble and the failure of arbitration, and an unknown President had just come in. Presently an unknown Ambassador arrived. Mexico got worse; would we not recognize Huerta? They send Carden. We had nothing to say about the tolls-simply asked for time. They were very friendly; but our slang phrase fits the situation "nothin' doin'.' ently they began to see some plan in Mexico; They declined San Francisco.2 Then pres

they began to see our attitude on the tolls; they began to understand our attitude toward concessions and governments run for profit; they began dimly to see that Carden was a misfit; Cowdray got out of Colombia and ate (for the time at least) out of my Mexican hand; the tariff bill passed; the currency bill; the President loomed up; even the Ambassador, they said, really believed what he preached; he wasn't merely making pretty, friendly speeches. -Now, when we get this tolls job done, we've got 'em where we can do any proper and reasonable thing we want. It's been a great three

The reference is to President Roosevelt's speech at the Guildhall in June, 1910.

2This refers to the declination of the British Government to be represented at the San Francisco world exhibition. held in 1915.