The Greeneville daily sun. (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1918-1920, 1919-05-17
Russian President
Struck Kansas Oil

Nicholas Techaikovsky, white-haired
president of the North Russian Re-
public, was blowing on the Kansas
prairies just AZ years ago.
At Cedar Vale, near Independ-
ence, Kan, he and twelve fellow
countrymen owned and worked two
farms during 1875 to 1877. They
constituted little "Free" communis-
tic community. Their neighbors
probably spoke of them as "those
Russian immigrants.
One of the farms is today the site
of rich oil well. Tehaikovsky and
his friends began the well and dis
covered traces of oil. But they
didn't know what it was. AS it spoil
ed the water, they abandoned the
hole.
Later Tchaiskovsky spent year
visiting shaker" and other religious
settlements in New York. He worked
two years as a laborer in the Roches
Ship Yards at Chester, near Phila-
delphia.
His kindly eye shining and his face
aglow with reminiscences-that is,
that small triangle of it that showed
above his wonderful white shaggy
beard-the aged president, now one
of the great influences of Russia
told of those days of peace out there
with his wife and baby daughter
when the Sunfower State was still
young.
II broke 80 acres of sod all alone
one spring." he said "We went to
Cedar Vale from New York. There
were thirteen of US, both men nd wo-
men. We owned everything in COM
mon-land, horss cattle implements.
''Now there is a rich oil we'll in our
front yard. remember when we
dug that we'll. About 20 to 80 feet
down we reached layer of queer
smelling clay. We didn't know what
it was. The water was no good, of
course, so we didn't finish the hole.
Now | know what we struck was oil. !"
Of the situation in Russia, he said ::
within two months after Petro-
grad and Moscow are captured, or
der could be restored completely in
Russia and a constituent assembly
elected representing all Russia.
"The Bolsheviki are simply a Wig
orous minority who by virtue of their
control of food supply and military
dictatorship are able to prevail over
the unarmed majority, Once the
food control is wrested from them
their influence is gone. Bolshevism is
now new political philosophy which
has saturated the minds of the Rus
sian people. The bulk of the Russian
people would be very glad 0 rid them
selves of it if they had the means.
"Petrograd could be taken in less
than two months if the Allies sent
between 10000 and 10000 addition
al troops to North Russia.
Capture of Moscow would require
and enveloping operation of much
larger scale for which from two to
three thousand dditional troops
should be sent"
Tchaikovsky predicted that unless
checked militarily, Bolshevism will
certainly spread over all of southern
Europe and perhaps northern Eu-
rope. whether it will reach Eng
land and France, | don't know. Per-
haps not"
On piece of paper he penciled a
rough map of North Russia, embrac-
ing the provinces of Archangel, Wat
ka, Olonetz, Yuroslavl, and Kostro-
ma IOCdl populdtioH VI dpoue ~
100000. Of this, only Archangel
1926, 900 inhabitants) remains in the
provisional governments control,
The Bolsheviks have occupied the
other provinces.
The present zone of operations
roughly resembles right-angled tri-
angle, its apex at the town of Arch
angel, its perpendicular the Archan-
gel-VoIogda railroad with Vologda
at the angle) its hypotenuse the
Dvina river as far as Vitka, and its
base the Petrograd- Siberian railroad,
running through Viatka, and Volog-
da.
The present front is about one
third the way down both legs of the
triangle from Archangel, along what
is now the boundaries of Archangel
Drnvincp