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Show jEPORT ON THE b ; V ' I White IALLMEXT SEVENTEEN ' opera closes we are 'fbevond words and long for ffe'are to leave early in the . gut the handsome vice-4ris vice-4ris Arm. After we have fln-v fln-v the banquet here at the opera, "..ust see the operetta theater e a special PrSram has been :.jred for us. ".' open air theater is packed , balcony with a crowd about tenths Russian and one-tenth i'i Thev are sing.ng an ana "Maritza," immensely popular : ;e Soviet Union. A juggler fol- - and then the grand finale: cho-' cho-' .iris prance out in costumes ! to our honor-red and white id trunks, and blue, star-span-brassieres. Hopefully they sing Issian translation of "There'll V Hot Time in the Old Town To- ""alk 'or a while with the little mayor, next to me at the But the vice-premier is talk- - It is his broad-shouldered driv--energy which has caught the ,ries hurled from European ia and planted them in the des-.irtiich des-.irtiich has put millions to work "ling rivers, building industries Starving out the new Russia. r Is sure of himself, of the driv-; driv-; lower of this Bolshevik system i)t the new world it is opening SBiong ancient Oriental tribes. :i telling us that he is glad L id this chance to show the new ;ja to Mr. Johnston and to the rican press. I liked him and jrovince. en the fat little Tass corre-' corre-' lent came up. He was pretty '1 and his German was sketchier usual. TVir wissen das Sie " a in Finland," he said, "aber ist ein kleine Sache nur" (here -laps his fingers) a little, little T!and is now forgiven of me. Be-?ri Be-?ri it was long ago that I was in -M, and now they will trust oo be objective. hank him for this compliment jjjheir trust, assuring him that jJslon for Finns is now buried a t rivers of Soviet champagne, ;'last I can be objective. " t here we leave them. Kirilov meed they may go by train to ira and Samarkand tomorrow, we fly on this morning to Ash- d, the last Russian town on the 'K'ta border. S reporters and all the Tash-'s! Tash-'s! Russians come down to the air-to air-to see us off. In the car I ride H'Nona. As we drive down a jvard (Tashkent is very well D she tells us that near by f 'cottage of her mother and fall fa-ll a retired engineer. They live i i pension of 1,000 roubles a M which in peacetime is de-put de-put now is too little. But for-'y for-'y they own their house. Yes, J II! u now own a house in Russia P you like, either rent or sell ae profit. Of course, its land J.'!' to the state. II they ever 10 it lor a government store or ment, they pay you only the house. But now you can from the government with-iinllerest with-iinllerest as much as 10,000 rou-i:ich rou-i:ich will build a fair house, yJ, and you have ten years iocM or dentist, who, of p8. works in a state hospital, 1 ve a private practice after and charge what he likes-i" likes-i" "he peasants may sell their ' "I the coUective's vegetables 1 Pv.r.1Ce' after government .pght wnat itneeds at tte l( '"However, the doctor must Of ", pHvate Practice not at SEE, but hi own h. "u" Provide his own instru- has' 1Ute the others, 2W section, but the new S'rell iS dutifully laid out the center is an "mo H an oasls of 8reen i" h ' dust which bIows t hi, h? ', And 10 the park, un-! un-! of R i Sun' 18 writable A ts h6Vik statues- mostly ' lonVnfl'Ways Btriding aIon8 iZ at with his ear fl ttuel U,ewArctlc Cirele. It V nd 6 Want t0 get a h "and rcue him. 4 that Mscow, we have les, , en hls name is men-""'levelv,, men-""'levelv,, less do the Russians turnip ' feet over-l.5althou6hhispopu. over-l.5althou6hhispopu. iVth?TrJ ls most interest-A interest-A bu " ched Navai wome ts? Trman giru traftsm "and 8 more deU-,S:dou,r,nshlP- They are ft C !uHnjl natlve cos- & m ? ,l0Vely hand-ham- "Sju4blrat beside e)fcoia u tteir fingers and i l Pas, ,.thread and tie ts. but ?rKUEh work fe- J700 anrf fPPen t0 return to I'jtog nnrt flnd them relaxed, U'sd th? CackUn8-"N0lrfF4gItis CackUn8-"N0lrfF4gItis that the Commu-vtAU Commu-vtAU riche who, to demonstrate their loyalty, pay staggering stag-gering prices for this beautifully woven junk, may convince the Turkoman craftsmen that Marx's bushy beard or Stalin's shaggy eyebrows eye-brows are things of more breathtaking breath-taking beauty than their ancient native na-tive patterns. The day closes with a 12-mile trip through the blistering desert to the "horse factory." These desert nomads, nom-ads, like the Arabs and the men of our own Southwest, have always been proud of their mounts. They are shrewd traders and breeders of horseflesh. In the Stirling heat of my hotel room, the good-natured chambermaid chamber-maid suggests by gestures that I would sleep better if we pulled my cot onto the balcony. The sun rises early. I look down on a courtyard of squalid tenements, windows open and Russians sleeping everywhere, sometimes under shelter but often stretched out on the ground. The yard itself is filled with blonde, blue-eyed, blue-eyed, flatnosed Slav babies two, three, four and five-year-olds toddling tod-dling around, some wearing shirts and some not, beginning their early morning play before the sun is too hot. And I marvel at this teeming, fertile, fer-tile, hard-working, long-suffering, indestructible race, which now spawns down here in this irrigated valley as it does under the Arctic Circle. Properly we think of Russia's Rus-sia's empire as a relatively empty place. There is still elbow room for this generation but what of the next? When the collective farms are so full of people that they can no longer feed themselves or the factories what then? The problem is not one for our times, since today to-day Russia, like England and America, Amer-ica, is one of the "have" nations, with a comfortable share of the world's earth and raw materials. Today these well-fed, blonde Slav babies play in the desert sun, reveling like all babies, in the dust of the courtyard, just under the mountains which divide the Soviet Union from Persia. At the airport we say good-by to our good friends Nesterov and Kirilov, Kiri-lov, and to Nick, who has so faithfully faith-fully watched over us and our contacts. con-tacts. But we were not quite through with the Soviets. At the Teheran airport they told us that the Russian Ambassador was tendering us a final dinner. Our final Soviet dinner was in the Soviet Embassy dacha a few kilometers kil-ometers out of Teheran. The boiled Sears, Roebuck suits had not altered al-tered but our viewpoint had; after Moscow they now seemed smartly dressed. The dinner was European soup to fish to entree to salad to dessert to coffee, with brandy at the end for toasts. The Russian Ambassador got up and said there were good reasons why Russia in the past had been suspicious of foreigners. Even today, to-day, he said, there were reasons. There was, for instance, in Switzerland, Switzer-land, the Bank of International Settlements. Set-tlements. An American was a member mem-ber of its board, and also a German. All during the war this bank' had continued to do business. Therefore, There-fore, he said, the Soviet Union had good reason to be careful of foreigners. for-eigners. When the Soviet Ambassador sat down, Joyce was on his feet. For weeks we had been smothered both by hospitality and the ever-present attentions of the NKVD; now was his golden moment. Fixing our host with a glittering eye, he said: "Mr. Ambassador, sometimes we have our suspicions, too. When Mr. White, here, was in Moscow, he stayed at the Hotel Metropole. His room was o the second floor. On the third floor," here Joyce paused, smiled, then continued gently, "were the Japanese." Japa-nese." Presently it was time to go home. We said good-by and went. This ends my report on the Russians Rus-sians and here are my conclusions. I should add that these, as well as the general viewpoint of this book, are entirely my own, and not to be charged against my good friend Eric Johnston. Any close relations with the Soviet Union are fraught with considerable danger to us until American reporters report-ers get the same freedom to travel about Russia, talk to the people unmolested un-molested by spies, and report to their homeland with that same freedom free-dom from political censorship that Soviet representatives enjoy here, and that American reporters enjoy en-joy in England and other free countries. coun-tries. This must also apply to European Euro-pean or Asiatic territory occupied by or affiliated with the Soviet Union. Un-ion. Correspondents abroad are the ears and eyes of our Democracy. If we are to help build up Russia, our people are entitled to complete reports from press representatives of their own choosing on what we are helping to build. We should remember that Russia is entitled to a Europe which is not hostile to her. We should also remember re-member that while American aid in building back her destroyed industries indus-tries is highly desirable to Russia, it is not indispensable. She will not swap it for what she considers her security in the new world. She is, however, in a mood to accept ac-cept decent compromises. But if, as our armies are in Europe while this settlement is being worked out, we find we can't get everything we want, we would be childishly' stupid to get mad, pick up our toys and go home. If we decide it is wise to do business busi-ness with the Russians, we can trust them to keep their end of any financial finan-cial bargain. They are a proud people, and can be counted on to pay on the nose before the tenth of the month. But any business deals should depend de-pend on their aims in Europe and Asia. We should extend no credit to Russia until it becomes much clearer than it now is that her ultimate ulti-mate intentions are peaceable. I think these intentions will turn out to be friendly. However, if we move our armies out of Europe before be-fore the continent is stabilized, and if disorder, bloodshed and riots then ensue, the Russians will move into any such political vacuum. After all, they are not stupid. Russia for the present needs no more territory, but badly needs several decades of peace. She is, however, still plagued with suspicions of the capitalist capi-talist world, and needs to be dealt with on a basis of delicately balanced bal-anced firmness and friendliness. To date, the Roosevelt Administration has done an excellent job of this, in an unbelievably difficult situation. situa-tion. (THE END) |