That was in December. In June I met this editor in Archangel. His home and printing plant had long been in the hands of the Bolsheviki. There was pathetic sadness in his face as he told me of the universal hopelessness of the people. I boomed the League of Nations. It would cure the wrongs, it would become the guide and instrument of salvation. But there was no response of hope. "We have lost Mr. Wilson and there is no hope. But after we are all killed off in this mad and hopeless struggle, Russia will rise out of the ruins and show the way of real democracy." *IX* *AMERICA EXIT* When it was openly announced that the American troops were to be withdrawn from North Russia the Bolshevik propaganda took every possible advantage of it, claiming that President Wilson was now their friend and America would soon recognize their government. A certain type of Englishman also made use of the opportunity to call the attention of the Russians to the fact that their much praised American friends were now leaving them to the mercy of the Bolsheviki except for the greater friendship of England for Russia. England would not desert Russia. We felt great uncertainty at this time. Not a man of us had one authorized word of explanation to make. Our government was silent. Our enemies were noisy. But the Russian peasant never wavered a hair’s-breadth in his faith in the friendship of America. If the Americans were going home then that was the best thing to do. If the English were staying then perhaps that was not the best thing to do. And when the departure took place and the Yankees packed up their old kit-bags for home they were given the warmest good-bys and God-bless-yous in Russian, and there was no indication of resentment at being left in a bad predicament. I stood on the bank of the Emtsa River when three platoons of Company K embarked on a barge and waved their farewells to the theater of war. I was the only American left behind. On the river bank nearly the entire population of Yemetskoye were assembled, dressed in their best clothes and giving every possible evidence of their regard and esteem for these boys. As the barge swung down the river with the soldiers singing "Keep the home fires burning," I saw many a handkerchief wiping tears away on the river bank, and the head man of the Zemstvo Upravda, who stood beside me all dressed up in a white shirt, had tears in his eyes too as he grasped my hand and said again as he had said repeatedly before: "Amerikanski dobrey."