And on one of these walls, was inscribed a date and this sentence: “Nicolai died last night--he missed freedom by fourteen hours after waiting twenty-two years,” and the date scrawled near it, represented the date on which the prisons of Siberia had been opened under the Kerensky régime. Just imagine waiting twenty-two years in such environment for the overthrow of the Czar, and then missing freedom by fourteen hours! If you had, would you dare tell a former Siberian convict to be more gentle in dealing with those who upheld the system of the old régime? And would you be too ready to accept somebody’s word that a new dictator who wanted to set himself up to rule Russia would not restore the old prison system? When Washington or London or Paris is puzzled about Russia and what course to pursue with that country, I would like to take a group of the diplomats to such a Siberian prison as I saw and let them spend a single night in it with the doors locked and not quite sure how many years it would be before somebody bade them come out into the light of day. I believe they would appreciate better the doubts and suspicions of the Russian people about government in the making. I wished to make a note of what was on the wall of that cell, but it was too cold to unbutton my coat and get out pencil and note book. I read it over and over--I can still see it in my mind’s eye. It was seventy-two below zero that morning, and I was willing enough to walk out and get into my drosky and go about my business. And I thought of Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin and a lot of people who had done something for human liberties--and mine. Chita was the place to which the group of revolutionists known as “The Decembrists” had been sent, back about 1840. And an old man in Chita who had spent years as an exile, had a collection of branding irons and other implements of torture used on convicts in a private museum. Among other things were figurines of convicts made by convicts, complete in every detail, even to the leg chains and the convict clothing. These figurines, including the chains, had been moulded out of convict bread! And in Chita I saw “Damskaya Oolitsia,” or “The Street of the Dames.” This consisted of two rows of log houses near the railroad tracks, which had been built by the wives of the Decembrist exiles for habitations, these gentlewomen having followed their husbands into exile and having been granted the right to build a street for themselves.