Returning home I heard a man in the Twentieth Century Limited explaining some of the virtues of Bolshevism. He had never been in Siberia. Our train was moving nearly sixty miles an hour, and we were clean and comfortable, plenty of food at hand. As this man talked, I smiled in remembrance of an engineer in Siberia who had demanded a bottle of vodka before he would haul our train any farther--and when he got it, proceeded to get drunk and let his train almost run away during the night as it descended a steep grade in the Khingan Mountain range. I wondered if the passenger in the Twentieth Century, who extolled the virtues of Bolshevism, would have been willing to ride in the Twentieth Century any longer if our engineer had suddenly stopped and demanded a bottle of whiskey before he proceeded. That would have been Bolshevism in fact. It was easy to theorize in safety with a sober engineer at the throttle. A Bolshevist at the throttle of government may make a good engineer, to hear our boudoir Bolshevists talk. I observe a strange reluctance on their part to go to Russia where Bolshevism is running things. To me, the horror of the peasant in Siberia, was the realization that his children and grandchildren had little hope to be better off. I do not mean that the old régime will come back with all its terrors; but no matter what form of government may flourish in Petrograd, it will be many years before the leaven of the most enlightened rule can penetrate the minds of these people and bring to the surface such good qualities as are deeply imbedded in their brains, sealed up under layers of ignorance, superstition, and submission. They believe we are not there to help them, but to protect our own investments. We are losing their confidence every day that we remain in Siberia without doing something constructive, in which they have understanding. If we want to do welfare work, do it, but without an expedition on the ground; if we want to use our troops in cleaning up the Bolshevists, get into action. They will understand either activity by itself but they cannot understand military occupation without action, and they cannot understand relief work carried on under inactive bayonets. We have talked too much about our friendship for Russia, and done little or nothing to aid the country in reëstablishing itself with a government. Whatever assurance we may give Kolchak, or other leaders, that we will back them up, we will gain little unless our actions win the confidence of the peasant masses, and the so-called “workers.” I group them together.