This report was made in confidence to the President, and even at the late date of the present writing, all requests to examine it have been denied by the State Department, on the grounds that "Divulgence is incompatible with the public interests." But shortly afterwards, Mr. Root gave out an interview, which purported to express the views of the delegation: that they had come back with faith in Russia; faith in Russian qualities of character that are essential tests of competency and self government; faith in the purpose, the persistence and the power of the Russian people to keep themselves free. Many American bankers, believing in Mr. Root, manifested kindred faith by the exchange of good American dollars for Russian rubles, despite the fact that the Russian government was hopelessly bankrupt and was showing an operating deficit of milliards of rubles. General Scott visited the Russian front and witnessed the offensive which resulted in the taking of Kovel and Lemberg. He conferred with Generals Brussiloff, Korniloff, and Erdeli and their staffs, and reported to the American Secretary of War that Russia would stay in the war "if given even a part of the aid she asks." Three months before the debacle, the Secretary of State, Mr. Lansing, assured the American people that Russia was stronger than she had been for some time, both from the government point of view and the military point of view. The government point of view? The outstanding feature of the Russian Government "point of view" has always been the venal disposition of the High Command; the shameful, heartless, conscienceless corruption of persons in authority. Everyone knew this who knew Imperial Russia. At the trial of General Sukhomlinov, Minister for War, General Yanushkevitch, former Chief of Russian General Staff, testified that in the retreat from Galicia, during the summer of 1915, there was only one rifle for every ten soldiers. The soldiers in the rear had to wait until their comrades on the firing line were killed so that they might have their rifles. The Russians had no shells, and the Germans knowing this, set their guns two thousand yards off and shot down one helpless regiment after the other. Many other examples of pitiful defenselessness could be cited at a time when the Allies loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to Russia for arms and military equipment, and Russia had these munitions, but far back of the front lines.