of Southern gentlemen whose voice is soft and placid when he is quiet, but like that of a bellowing bull when he is aroused-he added to the natural loquacity of a Virginia birth the expressive vocabulary of a Western railroad man. The vigorous and impulsive Colonel has pounded the table in many languages clearing up international disputes which had reached an impasse, utterly unsolvable by the parties themselves without our disinterested intervention, and has been no small factor in keeping the wheels going around for he is still in Austria as the Government's Technical Advisor in Transportation.

Having in mind our trouble at Trieste and our desire to secure a route through Germany from Hamburg into the heart of central Europe by train and canal, Hoover found the opportunity of arranging it with the Germans. He had sold them some two hundred odd millions of dollars worth of American food for gold in hand paid, but made a condition for transportation across Germany of our food-stuffs. We used Hamburg as a base port, thence up the Elbe through the canals and across the border of Bohemia at Schandau. There we established, another Interallied Commission consisting of one of our transportation men, Major Burke, of Boston, one German, and one Czechoslovak. Thus we ensured ourselves against being tied up by international troubles, relieved the congestion at Trieste, and improved our deliveries. As time went on our men were spotted in the seaports, important railway centres, along boundary lines, and at national capitals, all hooked up to the central Vienna office by private wire, both telephone and telegraph. The wires hummed, for we had no time to write letters-the movements of everything were too fast, but every morning at his desk in Paris, Hoover knew to the ton the amount of foodstuffs imported or which we had bought in that great territory during the preceding day; he knew exactly what the starving people would get at five o'clock in the morning who lined up as early as four o'clock the evening before, and who fought at times like beasts for their places in those lines.

With our close knit and comprehensive organization well in hand, I at once lashed out for the commodity surpluses of each country, despatched an expedition to the Ukraine in southern Russia, and took stock in each of the several countries of the commodities which might be exchanged: potatoes in the twenty

five thousand ton lot, steel bridges, furniture by train loads, gasolene, oil, sugar, salt, pigs, arms, munitions, but principally wheat and maize.

Meanwhile we had been working over problems of finance. They were as badly complicated as those already referred to along other lines. Inter-state jealousies were so bitter that practically all financial relations had been broken off; more than that the various currencies of the several states had a depreciated and often uncertain value, and no state would receive the money of another on any terms. It must suffice in this space to say that there was a complete break-down of international exchange; yet, because there were commodities in every state useful to some other state, it was absolutely necessary to arrange some method by which exchanges could be effected. I resorted to the most primitive financial system of history-barter and trade. To take care of balances of credit I established clearing houses in Vienna and Zagreb and, with incredible difficulty finally managed to effect satisfactory bases of exchange on balances, so that in the end the tremendous business that we were shortly doing was conducted in an orderly fashion and every debt and obligation was eventually paid up.

Simple as it sounds to say that barter and trade was the basis for the conduct of the bulk of our business, it was astonishing and at times disheartening to encounter the difficulties we did. The plain fact was that all the economic machinery of the whole area was smashed. Again, a concrete example may serve to show the involved nature of our transactions.

I

RESTAMPED MONEY

moving at once by trucks. But for the large transaction I had in mind it became necessary to arrange a more complex deal: our first stumbling block was the absolute refusal of Serbia to accept payment for the grain in Austrian currency-between fifty and one hundred million kronen-because Serbia wanted no more of that money within her borders than she had. To meet this objection the American Relief Administration took over fifty million kronen from the Austro-Hungarian bank at Zagreb, sent it to Jugo-Slavia by a special train under the care of American officers-they were corporals and sergeants, by the way, but they wore the American uniform, so that, in practice, they were as imposing as generals-and delivered it to the Jugo-Slavs for stamping with their official Jugo-Slav imprint. Once stamped this money was turned over to an Austrian purchasing agent, who paid for the wheat.

and

In the meantime the Jugo-Slavs and the Austrians had gotten into one of their periodic bitter feuds over a boundary matter and military operations had started on both sides. But we could not permit one war, more or less, to interfere with the feeding of the starving: despite furious diplomatic interchanges we told both sides that we were going through with that wheat. It developed at this point that the Serbs needed salt; in a manner of speaking we coerced them with salt. Against all these obstacles train movements were started and food moved and the starving were fed. Over 80,000 tons of foodstuffs were transported in this transaction; 82,000 tons were purchased and ready to move, and cattle, pigs, and 3,000 head of horses were sent forward. The horses, I am compelled to say, were shipped and killed for meat. And, as though we had not difficulties enough, many of our stock trains were stopped and military inspectors of three or four states took turn and turn about, at the various borders, in commandeering horses for their military needs. It was only with the greatest effort that we succeeded in checking this insolence, but eventually the horses arrived.

BOLSHEVISM AT THE RAMPARTS

unnecessarily persistent in his thankless task; but it must be remembered that he was looking beyond the momentary needs of these countries that he was feeding and succoring Balkanized central Europe only as an incident to the fight he was making to throw back the red wave of Bolshevism that, all this time, was threatening the puny and chaotic states. And even despite his efforts, and ours in the field, Bolshevism did, in the end, get a foothold, and the battle became a hand-to-hand conflict instead of a long distance economic war of prevention. Bolshevism stormed the ramparts at last, and we closed in for the death grapple!

The scene shifts from Vienna, whence all our activities were directed and from where they continued to be carried on, as regards food and the economic rehabilitation, during the succeeding weeks, to Budapest. Hungary had been a half-hearted adherent of the Prussian cause from the first; one of the men who brought about her final surrender and withdrawal was Count Michael Karolyi, a Hungarian aristocrat and a man of great wealth, cultured, traveled, and as proud and commanding a figure as there was in all central Europe. Karolyi, when Hungary could fight no longer and fell prostrate under the feet of the French, had spoken in behalf of his beloved land; he had been heard patiently because it was a well-known fact that he had always been anti-German. The Allies, through the French, assured Karolyi and the Hungarian people that, if he were put at the head of the Government, he would be given the moral support of the Allies and the proud Magyars would be enabled to save their national life. Boundaries were fixed after long arguments-Hungary lost much territory, but she retained enough to make existence possible.

Karolyi was chosen first President of the Hungarian Republic. Hungarian Republic. His people believed in him; their hearts began to beat again. with hope for the future. But their jealous and pugnacious neighbors began almost at once to slight and insult them. Jugo-Slavia crowded in from the south; on the north the Czechs made unwarranted advances; from the

attempting to restore these very peoples to a place where their governments could function, where they could get work and earn money for food, and where that food could be delivered to them. It was trying work. At this distance it may seem that Mr. Hoover was

the

crossing the boundary line laid down Paris conference, and moving westward into rich Hungarian territory. Karolyi's power began to wane at once. He pleaded with his people for tolerance and patience, he appealed frantically to Paris for help-for the fulfillment

third category coincided largely with the mass of stupid and illiterates, and included furthermore the class of tramps, slackers, and goodfor-nothings.

The "Committees of the Village Poor," drawn exclusively from the third category, set to work with a will, dispossessed the rich, and distributed their goods amongst themselves, a portion going to the Government. The middle peasants at first sided with the poor in despoiling the rich, until it was their turn to be despoiled, when they became enemies of the Bolshevist system. The extraordinary phenomenon was eventually witnessed of the rich peasants being driven into the Bolshevist camp, because, the tables being turned, Bolshevist policy afforded them an opportunity of revenging themselves on those who had become rich at their expense. The imposition of a war tax at the end of 1918, however, finally alienated the sympathies of the entire peasantry, for the rich "poor" would not pay poor" would not pay because they were technically poor, while the poor "rich" could not pay because they had nothing left. This was the end of Communism in the villages. Chaos reigned, the Committees were dissolved by the Government and replaced by new Soviets, while the latter, packed with Communist nominees, ceased to be "Soviets," becoming mere committees of the Communist Party. In view of peasant

could be completely suppressed. The most marked effect of the forced closing down of private business houses has been merely to transfer trade from the stores and shops to the sidewalks, streets, and market-places. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people daily turn out into the streets to dispose of wares in exchange for money or food, or to buy up food and goods, especially jewelry and other valuables, for purposes; of speculation. While the workers in the factories were starving I have purchased on the marketplaces of Moscow the finest white flour, butter, sugar, eggs, tea, and even candy. Sellers and buyers alike are denounced by the Government as "counter-revolutionaries" and "enemies of the people," and periodically the marketplaces are raided by armed bands who seize the goods and arrest a few dozens of the thousands of traders. None the less this private commerce has continued on such a scale that only a small percentage of the "sackcarriers" (as private traders are called, carrying their goods in sacks) are arrested daily at the stations. The majority storm the platforms en masse regularly every morning, and despite their speculative prices they are regarded as heroes and benefactors by the harassed citizens.

SUPPRESSING THE COOPERATIVES

IN SUPPRESSING the coöperative organ

of socialization of the land, but the peasantry would still have broken into open revolt against what was called "Commissarocracy" (that is, the tyranny of local Commissars) were it not that the fear of the restoration of their newly acquired land to the landlords who supported Kolchak, Denikin, and Wrangel made them passively acquiesce in the present administration and even actively oppose the militarist counter-revolution.

Meanwhile, the chief measure of Bolshevist administration designed to establish Communism in the towns was the suppression of private trading. This took two forms: (1) the prohibition of trading by individual dealers, either wholesale or retail; and (2) the suppression of the coöperative organizations. The former measure has never succeeded. Private illicit trading, often carried on under conditions of extreme difficulty and even danger, continue in the teeth of the Bolshevist authorities to this day, and on such a scale that, although armed force is employed against it, it never

continue

with greater success. As little appears to be known on this side of the Atlantic regarding the Russian coöperatives, and as they are destined to play a conspicuous part in the reconstruction of Russia, I will dwell for a moment on their origin and development.

At the commencement of the Bolshevist régime there existed three distinct branches of coöperative organizations in Russia: the Coöperative Union of Consumers, the Credit Cooperative, and the Coöperative Union of Producers, all acting in close harmony with one another. The first of these originated just over twenty years ago with a capital of 800 roubles, representing 800 members, each contributing one rouble. In 1914 this union. numbered 319,479 members, with a yearly turnover of more than ten million roubles, while a phenomenal growth during the war left it in 1917 with a membership of 10,269,757 with a turnover of more than two hundred million roubles. About fifty million people,