It was when famine took possession of the most fertile territories of Russia that the A.R.A. did its greatest work. In the United States of America, as in England and France, the cry for help that came out of Russia, so long cut off from human intercourse, so long hidden by closed doors behind which lay the tragedy of a great people, many men and women, shocked to their inmost soul by stories of Bolshevik atrocities, refused to listen to the voice of charity. Many were certain that any food or help sent to Russia would be used by the Communist leaders to save themselves from destruction or to support the Red Army and the Reign of Terror. In any case, as some of them said, why feed Russian peasants who have adopted the pernicious philosophy of Bolshevism, or submitted to it; and why feed Bolshevik babies who will grow up to threaten the civilised code of decent peoples? Let Russia pay the penalty of its atrocious crimes. There was no country in the world where there was a greater loathing of Bolshevism than in the United States. It was to the majority of American citizens, as it is still, the Unspeakable Thing, because it denied the rights of private property, declared war upon Capital, and conspired for the overthrow of all Governments based upon the Capitalist system. So much the more wonderful then is the charity of those people who, with that enormous prejudice in their minds, heard the voice of charity. THE RUSSIAN FAMINE I went into Russia with some of the first officials of the A.R.A. and travelled with them to the Volga region, where twenty-five million people were threatened with starvation and starving. It was Governor “Jim” of Indiana—Governor Goodrich—whose wise, temperate and humane report was a document which helped to save those millions. I read it as he had written it in a slow-going train from Kazan to Moscow on the way back from dreadful scenes, and I gave the homage of my heart to that serene-eyed man who, with one lame leg, travelled through Russia on a diet of apples, went fearlessly into typhus-stricken places, and saw all things with a great pity, sound commonsense, practical judgment, large humanity.