Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1932-06-23

tives can't do that. They have to get
it elsewhere and if they get it they
pay So a pound for il. They can't pay
that much, as their wages run about
$40 a month and everything else
they have to buy is proportionately
high Eggs are twenty-five cents a
piece.
Russian people wear clothes
which no American would wear to
work. Clothes the people had when
the revolution occurred are about
gone and they can't buy more. They
wear anything they car patch to-
gether and in the north they suffer
terribly from the cold.
1T is not unusual for fifteen per-
sons to live in one room. We lived
in four rooms upstairs. Under US in
a Ia x IL room there lived an old
woman, her son, the sons wife, their
baby a servant girl, a girl who
worked in a restaurant and a man
border. They ate and slept in this
one They slept on the floor in
their clothes, of course. Few think
of DOMINIC night attire.
One cannot describe the living
conditions The people live worse
than do cur livestock = and smell
worse. Depression. There isn't q ia
miIy in my ceunty. which lives on a
standard as low as the better Rus
sian worker.
mo enc is permitted to aceumul-
ate money. Even the leaders don't
they don't have too because they
get everything they want when they
want it anyway.
Last winter people started saw
ing small change. This was in silver
and consequently was worth some
thing at least outside the borders of
the country. The paper money is
worthless. Therefore people tried to
save small change for use where
they able to get out of Russia. Small
change became SO scarce that stores
couldn't operate.
Then the communists got busy.
Any nan found with the equivalent
of 81 or $3 in small change was inn
nfedlately shot. Dozens were killed.
There IS no privacy in Russia
Most trains, except those on the
main lines used by visitors, have
four person compartments. An Am
erican friend Of inc and his wife bot
railroad tickets, boarded the train
and just as they were making pre-
parations to retire for the night,
two big Russians stepped IN to share
their bed with them.
MY friends, of course, went back
to their hotel, but Russian women
tolerate such things because they
must These compartments are open
at the end ojening on the aisle. Most
berths consist only of wooden bench
eS.
Its all a rotten mess
Prison labor is not confined to
the northern districts MIR. Powell
said. II have seen it many times in
Industries other than the humber
industry south OF SClikamsk and /
have seen thousands of prison labor
ers going through Solikamsk TO
lumber camps located just north Of
sixty degrees latitude"
Solikamsk is located probably
fifty miles south of sixty degrees
Latitude The Treasury Department
has ruled that lumber produced
north of sixty degrees is in the con-
vict labor district Mr. Powell has
not een lumber produced by convict
labor south of sixty degrees, but he
base plenty to say about a govern
ment that use sconvicts' of the type
Russia does in any part Of the coun-
try.
Around Solikamsk and farther
south Mr.. Powell has seen prison La
Dor used in the salt brine and soda
isdustry. in railroad building. street
building and other construction
work.
The prison labor system in Russia
is one Of the most heaItless systems
imaginable, according to Mr. Pow
ell. The "convicts" are not convicts
in our sense of the Nord. and even
if they were, their treatment could
not be justified.