John Stevens, head of the railroad commission sent to Russia from the United States, has shown the Russian government how to increase its transportation facilities sixty per cent. In a report made public in mid-August Mr. Stevens said that the chief cause of the railroad crisis was bad management. Locomotives traveled 2,800 versts a month when they could be made to travel 5,000 versts. A verst is about three-quarters of a mile. Twice as much freight as was being hauled could be carried, said Mr. Stevens. Freight cars were constantly being sent out only half loaded. Mr. Stevens recommended government dictatorship of all railroads, both publicly and privately owned. That was rather naïve, considering that the government was powerless to control, much less to dictate to, any department of activity in the empire. A little earlier Mr. Nekrassoff, then Minister of Ways and Communications, issued a circular in which he outlined his plan for coping with the railroad crisis. He advised turning the entire railroad system over to the workmen, the engineers, firemen, conductors and machinists. A shriek of protest went up from the engineering profession and a howl of laughter arose from the press of Russia. But the fact of the matter is that the railroads were and are still, for all practical purposes, in the hands of the working people, and so is every other industry in Russia. One of the great dreams of the socialists and philosophical anarchists is of the day when the worker shall own his tools, as they put it, when all industry shall be owned by the people who operate the machines, and all profits shall be shared by them. It really is a great dream, and will probably be realized in some measure some day. But not now. The human race is not yet educated to such a Utopia. The strongest proof that the capitalistic system is not yet ready to pass is the well-known fact that the secret ambition of almost every human being in every walk of life is to become a capitalist, large or small. This has just been proved on an enormous scale in Russia. The workers have seized the factories, shops, department stores and offices, and in no instance of which I could learn, and I searched diligently, have they used their great opportunity wisely or unselfishly for the common good. They have used it to get all the money possible out of the employers and to render back the minimum of service.