The toiler. [volume] (Cleveland, Ohio) 1919-1922, 1921-08-27
AMERICANS IN RUSSIA.
By LEWIS S. GANNETT in The Nation.

supply of wood I'll him next winter.
In fact the Americfns held in Moscow
were receiving letter nourishment
than those who u returned to Mo-
scow to serve Government that
was to them p3)nise of a brighter
| future. M
How genuine we're the charges
against most of sse men | have no
means of knowink Keeley's case at
least was undouIteily mistake. He
had been given confidential industrial
| information, and he made an indiscret
agreement with representative of a
Chicago newspapH which was mis-
understood by thS Soviet authorities.
As a result Keele4 spent year in a
Moscow jail-an aactric-lit, comfort
ably equipped cellfut q Jail cell after
all; he is now required to work an
other year in Mo&ow before going
home. l got very mad about Keeley's
case until began{to reflect upon the
treatment of Russians in American
prisons. There has been nothing in
Russia to compare with Deer Island
or Detroit, or even with the raid on
the Russian Peoples House in East
Fifteenth Street, New York. Mistakes
have occurred in Moscow but as yet
nothing to compare with the Palmer
/ raids.
But neither Communists as dele
gates or officials, nor thu, men in
prison, form the real picture If Amer
lea in Moscow. All over Russia there
are returned "Americans"--we called
them Russians when they were in
America; they call them Americans in
Russia. For they brought back with
them surge and an energy that Rus
sia sorely needs and that is genuinely
American. They had lost the terrible
patience of the Russian; they had
learned something from the very
mechanism of American civilization
which they are so glad to escape. One
of the great efforts of the Govern
ment today is to canalize the return
ing emigrants and to utilize their
energy and resources.
| Industrial depression sent thousands
Of Russian Americans back to Rus
sia. In four months, December, 1920,
to March, 1921, $1,000 poured in
through Libau alone. Then the from
tier was closed. twas impossible to
care for the thoEsands or even to
control the undesirable elements that
slipped in. SOME hundreds brought
their Ameriean-r,. ~ home brew and
distilling apparatus to Libau with
them. Some were, despite American
| prohibition, habitual drunks. Russia
is. by the way, a country of real pro-
hibition. did not see an even slightly
intoxicated person in an entire month
in Moscow.) There were no houses
available to lodge them, there was no
food for them, there was no system
Of putting them to work. They all
wanted to see their families at once
and were soon lost, dispersed. Some OF
them came with high ideas of Russia
as a land of magnificent realizations
where bread and honey flowed fol-
the workers, and we're grievously dis
appointed.
Today Russian Americans are ad.
mitted only in cooperative groups
While | was in Moscow group Of
| 70 arrived-41 builders and theii
families, bringing with them Their
own food, and tools and equipment fol-
a $4,000 shop. They have been as
signed to a factory in the Donetz Goa
basin, where they will make doors
windows, shingles, ETC., and will built
light wooden miners houses OF the
American type. Another group Of III
= consisted of 120 tailors with theil
families; they brought with them the
complete equipment for a shop OF 6Q'
men. A tool-making cooperative
brought all the machinery for die
casting, which had never been done il
Russia before. Martens cabled per
mission while l was there to a New
York State agricultural cooperative
group of fifty men, including carpent
ers, blacksmiths, etc, who had $50,
900, and wanted to know wha'
; machinery to purchase.
There are three million Russians IL
America. Many of them, after th'
persecution Of the last ten years, wan
: to return. If only a quarter millior
returned, and if each brought $4O'
worth Of tools, that would be th'
equivalent of $1OO,00O,ooo imported
into Russia. Moreover. workers re
turning to Russia henceforth will b.
required to bring with them a foot
, supply adequate for two years
Present famine conditions permit nj
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