Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1920-02-27
CEASE FIRING TO
 MOURN THE DEATH ! OF JACK LONDON
Littles Tells How Russian sIdOlized United States
 ! Novelist
BY RICHARD HENRY LITTLE. 4Erorn thu Cbicauo Trihupa I


 Paris, Feb. 26.-When I landed am6ng the Russians in their camps in the woods along Lake Peipus, l braced myself for another painful siege regarding President Wilson. In ssix months in Germany I had not heard much except "Meester Weelson ees leear!" All Germany reverberated with that phrase. In the hotel lobbies, in the restaurants, in side streets, in crowded railroad carriages, everywhere, the Teutons said, "Meester Weelson ees leear!"
 l. didn't think the Russians felt toward President Wilson just as the Germans did, but I had grown so accustomed to being welcomed with an anti Wilson barrage that 1 could hardly conceive of anything else. But the Russians seldom attacked MT. Wilson.
 Didn't Know Him.
 The fact is a good many of them perhaps the majority, did not know who Mir. Wilson was. A good many assured me that President Roose- welt was the friend of Russia, and wanted to know if he was going to send troops to fight the Reds. They were quite positive he was still president.
 wasn't long left in doubt as to who the Russians considered the .sYakclunnen." For the life of me IScoqldn't figure out for while just who 'Yakclunnen was, although I ea- gerly agreed that he was the great est American of them all. Then they n f,aa oI and tattered volumes, and l realized they were talking of Jack London.
 Idolized by Russians.
 Never was an author so idolized as Jack London is among the Russians. Apparently all his works have been translated into Russian, and I foupd them everywhere. Officers passed them around from one to another, and often I have seen little groups of soldiers sitting in the woods, while the man who could read was doing so aloud to the eager delight of the awestruck group around him. At every mess the officers wanted me to tell them all I knew about Jack London.
 l wanted to talk about Lenine and Trotzky, but they wanted to talk about "Yakclunnen." I told them about the beginning of my acquaint- ance with Jack London at Chemuplo out in Kores, and how we bought a saloon and ran it for two hours with the doors locked and ourselves for the only customers, taking turns as bartender, and finally giving the sa- loon away to poor blind man.
 Stunned by News.
 IA :. Al I 4 Russians that Jack LoRdon was dead I didn't have the heart. But one night at mess in little cottage during the advance on Petrograd, said that Jack London was dead. said it to break up the party, be- cause the Reds were commencing to get range on that cottage and the officers were more than usually rab- i'd to know everything I had said to Jack London and what he had said to me, and how he. looked and acted, sud the tiniest details regarding him.
 IFcouldn't stand it any longer, and lage 1 knew of, which was out of the fire zone, so finally I said:
 "Well. anyhow, it doesn't matter now. Jack London is dead"
 There followed a tremendous si- lence. Then three-inch shrapne! screamed spitefully just over the roof, but nobody paid any attentio. to it-except me. Jack London was dead. Every officer sat as if stunned. He had died months, even years, before, but buried in the woods of northwest Russia, cut off from the world and harried by the Reds, they had never heard it. In spite of all their troubles and the comrades they had had killed by their side that very day. those men sat overcome by the news that Jack London was dead.
 There were tears in their eyes as they begged me to tell them how he