from Welcome Home by Lucia Berlin

"We got to Race’s house on Sunday afternoon. This is the thing I would so love to express, my awe, my complete incomprehension of a real house where birches grow that were planted when each child was born with attics and cellars and summerhouses and all the people in the town have known everyone all their lives and all their relatives and they see each other all the time and like it and speak of birth and death with this fantastic War and Peace acceptance. Aunt Fan, showing us her (lovely) house—took us into the study—a real New England paneled study and said “We don’t use it much, except for funerals, to put the coats in.”

"How lovely it was that Race brought me home—that “Sandy” came home. We are having a vacation and a rest and a honeymoon. Walk down Main St. and through these crazy flowers and grass all over—look thru boxes in the attic—with books and photos and poems by Race and have dinner in dining room with flowers and candles and butter plates and Mark picked corn from a corn field and washed it and ate it. (He is out of his HEAD!) Went to see cousin Andy and his wife Esther and Dorns, these people are TOO much— they work so hard and so easily and mulch (I love that word) and sow and reap and can and prune and graft and darn and bake and plant all their food and everything is so cyclical and ORDERED and NICE—they are all nice—with this crazy wit and an INTEREST in things, everything, and a joy from the views they see every day. I am meeting everyone. They take me in. I don’t mean they approve or accept or like me, altho they do, I think, but they take me into their War and Peace scene, to their cradles in the attic, and Jeff sleeping in Grandma Proctor’s crib that was Bobby’s crib too and it’s so nice and terrifying. I’ve never known a family." --1959 [September]Little Falls, New York

Cincinnati Club Hears Address on Bolshevism

March 6, 1920 | The Southern Lumberman

Cincinnati, Ohio, March 1—An interesting talk on Bolshevism was made before the Lumbermens’ Club of Cincinnati at its monthly dinner at the Businessmen’s Club here tonight by the Rev. Jesse Halsey, pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church of Cincinnati. Mr. Halsey was an agent of the United States department of state in Russia for eighteen months and was an eye-witness to the development in the country during the time that Lenin and Trotsky gained control. He was stationed at Murmansk, north of Archangel, for a time and visited in Petrograd and Moscow, besides traveling over a large part of Siberia.

Mr. Halsey differentiated between Bolshevism as a political and economic program as applied to Russia and the term as it is now commonly used to denote the radical spirit of unrest throughout the world. He said many people were now applying it indiscriminately to people who differed in opinion with them over political-economic questions.

As to Russian Bolshevism as exemplified under the government of Lenin and Trotsky, Mr. Halsey declared that in practice their program had been greatly modified from the ideas they had enunciated when gaining their power over Russia.

“Bolshevism as a political program has been greatly modified in Russia,” Mr. Halsey declared. “Lenin has resorted to a system of capitalism in Russia to force production. After ten months of a government of destruction he now reverted to a system of capitalism of the most reactionary character. As applied at first the principles of Bolshevism meant nothing but destruction, and whatever of a constructive nature there has been in Russia has been along lines that in theory at least the Bolshevists have most of denounced.

“The ideal six-hour workday of the Bolshevists has now degenerated into a sixteen-hour workday, with the workmen kept under a strict military discipline to force production. The government, in order to attract Russian capital to its industries has offered high rates of interest and are now offering all sorts of guarantees and high rates of interest to foreign capital to come into the country.

“The people who have suffered most under the Red Terror of the Bolshevists were the intellectual radicals who were responsible for the overthrow of the Czar. They are the ones the Bolshevists have persecuted and not the old retainers of the Czar. As a matter of fact many of these have come to the support of the Bolshevist government and the leader of the army against the Rumanians is not a general developed under Trotsky, but an old-time general of the Czar.

“The intellectual class of Russians have been weak and indifferent to the crisis through which their country has passed. The Russians have a word, ‘Nichevo,’ which described their spirit and attitude to things. It indicates a shrug of the shoulders and ‘I can’t help it, I don’t care’ spirit.

“The Bolshevists gained their power by appealing to the emotions of war-worn and hungry people. They offered food, division of the land and peace to the country at a time when the people were dispirited and hungry. They have retained their power by military discipline over the people. They have disarmed all who belong to parties other than their own and having all the arms and ammunition in the country are able to effect their will without a military opposition.

“The Bolshevists are a majority party of the radicals, but do not represent a majority of the Russian people. At the best only between 20 and 30 percent of the Russian people were Bolshevists.

“Bolshevism will never conquer America,” Mr. Halsey asserted. “The long period of evolution in which our political and economic system has been developing together with the fact that the great mass of Americans are educated, is a great bulwark against any red revolution in America. In Russia there was no middle class and 85 percent of the people were illiterate. When Kerensky and his radical government took the helm, there was no background among the Russian people for his experiment. To America the development of our institutions since 1776 will prove an effective armor against Bolshevism.”

"A Snap-Shot from Russia"

The Churchman | February 16, 1918

The Rev. Jesse Halsey, who sends from Moscow “A Snap-Shot from Russia,” is pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati. He sailed from San Francisco in September with the first Y.M.C.A. contingent to go to Russia, where he was placed in charge of the supplies department of the Y. in that country. The Bolshevik General has ordered all the secretaries out of the camps, and it is probable that the Y. men are now on their way to France. In a note sent with his article, Mr. Halsey says: “I was so fortunate as to stand within ten feet of the patriarch during parts of the ceremony, thanks to the American embassy. There were only 500 admitted to the church besides the high clergy. A recent “revolution (we have them every week here) had closed the Kremlin to most people. I stood with the ‘bishops and other clergy’ and saw everything. It was four hours long, but was like going back to Constantinople in the days of Constantine. The music is tremendous, even in the smallest churches—and there are nearly 300 in Moscow alone. I have been through one battle, a week long, but got no scratches.”

For four years Mr. Halsey was with Dr. Grenfell on the coast of Labrador, where the Doctor dubbed him “the saint in overalls” owing to the unclerical uniform he wore on six days of the week while installing all the heating and lighting systems of Dr. Grenfell’s hospitals.

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A Snap-Shot From Russia

The following article published in The Churchman of February 16^th has a very local interest coming as it does from the pen of one of our own “boys.” Mr. Halsey went out to Russia last September with a party of eleven colleagues to engage in Y.M.C.A. work in Russia. He was stationed in Moscow and was priviledged to witness the ceremonies herein described.

The last message from Mr. Halsey was from Kola, where he had gone on a long sledding trip to Murmonsk, which is on the shores of the Arctic Sea, 200 miles north of Archangel.

Moscow, December 6.—On the spot where the late (and we supposed the last) Czar of all the Russias crowned himself; where many of his predecessors had stood on similar occasions; with the thirty bells of “Ivan Veliky” chiming out on the frosty, sunrise air; with the boom of the sixty-ton “ascension” bell landing diapason to the majestic choral of the choirs; in the presence of saints and angels, frescoed from the floor to the dome; before the iconostas studied with its profusion of precious stones; under the rough scaffolding, hiding the cruel scars of bombardment from the latest “revolution;” in the many-shadowed light flung down from the hundred tapered candelabrum (made from French silver picked up by the Cossacks after Napoleon’s retreat); here in the Uspensky Sbor (Cathedral of the Assumption) on the Kremlin hill in the holy city of Moscow, the new Patriarch of the Greco-Russian Church was set apart to his high office.

At the completion of the ceremony surrounded by his clergy, preceded by the holy icons, and followed by the crowd, he made a circuit of the Kremlin courtyard, dispensing his blessing and sprinkling holy water up on the bystanders, from a vessel used by many of his ancient predecessors.

In 1721, Peter the Great suppressed the patriarchate and placed the mitre upon his own head. In its place he instituted the Holy Synod which, until the revolution of last March, was the ruling body of the Russian Church. The Metropolites of Kief, Moscow and Petrograd, and the Exarch of Georgia were ex officio members. In addition, the Czar “nominated” eight clergymen, six of them bishops and the other two, ordinarily, his private chaplains. The convener of the Synod, called the procurator, was always a layman, and appointed by the Czar. He held a portfolio as a minister of State, and directed the schools and seminaries of the Church. These, with other powers, made him the practical dictator in all ecclesiastical policies. The Czar might dismiss any member of the Synod, at will, and at his convocation each member took the following oath: “I acknowledge him (the Czar) to be the supreme judge in this spiritual assembly.”

With the fall of the old regime the Church was free to elect its own head, and for the past months, throughout the country, delegates have been selected to choose candidates for the office of patriarch. At length, these delegates, two hundred in number, selected and training to fill the position. On Sunday, November 18, in accord with Apostolic usage (Acts 1:26) lots were cast “and the lot fell upon” Tichon, Metropolitan of Moscow. On December 4 he was inducted into office.

It would require Dean Stanley’s knowledge and insight rightly to appreciate and interpret the symbolism of the majestic pageant, but even upon the untutored mind it made a strong impression. At sunrise the procession emerged from the Synod and proceeded to the cathedral, where the candidate was conducted to a raised dais near the east end. Here, surrounded by the abbots of the great monasteries, arrayed in their purple robes, the new Primate received the homages of his bishops. One by one, “glorious in their apparel,” copes rigid with gold, jewel bedight mitres, they came, bowed low and kissed the Patriarch’s hand, yielding allegiance in feudal fashion.

The Eucharist was celebrated with all the gorgeous pomp of the Greek ritual; then Anastasiu, Archbishop of Kishinef, delivered the sermon, outlining the duties of the holy office and urging the people to uphold the hands of the “Holy Father” during these troublous times.

The Patriarch was then led out before the alter by the two unsuccessful candidates and Vladimar, the senior Metropolitan, charged him with the duties of his office and presented him as a symbol of his authority, with the staff of “Peter the Wonderworker.” Recognizing the weight of the responsibility placed upon him, and asking for the prayers of the people, he would undertake to bear “this cross of responsibility even as Christ bore his,” the Patriarch said. Several of the higher clergy then came forward and presented him with valuable historical memorials of former patriarchs of the Church, and as the mitre of Nikon, appropriated by Peter two hundred years ago, sparkling with diamonds and pearls and surmounted by a jeweled cross, was placed upon his head by Vladimar, the choirs broke out in a glad Te Deum, in which the congregation heartily joined. Each worshipper had provided himself with a candle when entering and at this point in the service these thousand tapers were lighted while the Primate made his way to his throne—once that of Czar Alexis Michalovich—and from there blessed the people. In deep, resonant tones, the officiating deacon proclaimed—“Long live our Holy Father, Tichon, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia,” and with all still singing, the clergy filed out of the cathedral.

The Russian service is always impressive, especially the music, as the well-trained choirs are seconded by the congregation in the chants, which everyone seems to know. There is no instrumental accompaniment, but the unison singing of one choir, with studied pauses the leave the echoes reverberating through the recesses of the church, is taken up by a hidden choir in another part, and in his turn the priest answers back—one continuous antiphonal. This particular service “for the installation of a Patriarch” had not been heard for two centuries, but so careful was the preparation that no pauses nor discords were apparent from one end to the other.

The new Patriarch is just past sixty, of medium stature, somewhat bald, but with an ample fringe of modest proportions, quite white, frames a mouth that pictures gentleness rather than decision. He is reported as interested in church affairs solely, is not a politician and has hopes of making the Church a contributing factor in restoring stability to Russia in the present crisis.

The new Synod has just convened—December 8—and consists of the Patriarch and six members, elected for two-year terms. Thus is the spirit of democracy working in the Russian Church; it remains to be seen whether the Church, until so recently a State institution, can adjust itself to an environment permeated by extreme democratic ideals.

"You must believe in Russia:" The Military Service of Reverend Jesse Halsey, Part 1

During WWI, Reverend Jesse Halsey served abroad doing "War Work" as a chaplain, ministering to servicemen “whatever, whenever, and wherever." In my research I've found one account, published in 1940, of his war work written by another YMCA secretary, Ethan T. Colton. The book is called "Forty Years With Russians." My great-grandfather served in Russia at the direct behest of President Wilson, whose student Jesse had been while they were both at Princeton. Apparently, the two had a great affinity for one another for, as one of Jesse's students told me, "They swapped dictionaries." My great-grandfather was granted an indefinite leave of absence, with full salary and expenses, by the trustees of his church in Cincinnati in order to take up work with YMCA. He said, "My church took care of my family, kept my job all during the war—I was gone a year or more—and welcomed me home. They had loaned me to the government without expense and I have always been proud of them." 

For more than 12 months in 1917-1918, Halsey served in Moscow with the YMCA, as American Consul in Murmansk, as a Chaplain in British Navy in the Arctic Circle, and as a representative of American Red Cross. Halsey recalled that President Wilson had directed him to search for a diplomatic contact at Murmansk inside the chaos of the 1918 Russian Civil War. He also spoke frequently of the suffering of the common people in Russia, even the soldiers, saying they were "thinly fed borscht." And "They carried spoons in their boot tops." 

As Colton recounts, “Spaces are wide in European Russia. At its northern extremity, well within the Arctic Circle, Jesse Halsey began activities in Murmansk among the American, British, and Russian crews of the cruisers lying there. Charles Hedden came to reinforce him. Together they fulfilled with distinction not only their appointed mission but that of rendering unofficial government services that drew high tribute from the American consular, military, and naval representatives.” In the forward to the book, General Secretary of the YMCA War Work Council John R. Mott writes, in 1940: “You may not understand Russia, but you must believe in Russia.”

En route back to Washington to advise Wilson, my great-grandfather was briefly stationed at the Eagle Hut, a center operated by the Y.M.C.A. in London for servicemen on furlough. One night he climbed up the observation tower on the base and found a solitary soldier there. Halsey asked the soldier why he was in the watch tower rather than down carousing with the other boys? The soldier said, “My damn mother.” Halsey told him: “One of the things that’s absolutely necessary in life is to have damned mothers who help you understand what you need to be.”

"Forty Years With Russians"

“Spaces are wide in European Russia. At its northern extremity, well within the Arctic Circle, Jesse Halsey began activities in Murmansk among the American, British, and Russian crews of the cruisers lying there. Charles Hedden came to reinforce him. Together they fulfilled with distinction not only their appointed mission but that of rendering unofficial government services that drew high tribute from the American consular, military, and naval representatives.” --"Forty Years With Russians" by Ethan T. Colton

ALL SOULS Acts 27:37

This is much that I love in this 1934 sermon written by my great-grandfather, Reverend Jesse Halsey, and much which still seems so relevant 82 years later. But these lines in particular strike me as  important: "Serious thought has been forced upon us and as we revamp our plans for the future, in the Spirit of Christ, regardless of what our traditional religious prejudices have indicated, we ought to go forward with our main reliance on the Ethical Gospel of our Lord. There is salvation in no other Name; and that, in the barest terms, He said, was to love God with heart, soul, and mind--and one's neighbor as one’s self."

Jesse Halsey, Sir Grenfell, Charles Halsey, c. 1930 | Peconic Bay

ALL SOULS Acts 27:37

“And we were in all in the ship two hundred, threescore and sixteen souls."

The ship in which Paul sailed toward Rome can be taken as a cross-section of society—then or now. The capitalistic owner and galley slaves. Sailors and land lubbers. Prisoners and police. Soldiers and civilians. A minister of the gospel, a writer, a physician—all sorts and conditions of men.

The Morro Castle disaster apparently is not the first time when sailors showed the “white feather.” Under pretext of putting out an anchor, the sailors on the SS “Castor and Pollux” sought to escape in the one remaining lifeboat. Paul’s word to the Centurion, “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved,” is a good word for each individual and group in our divided society, today. Each needs the other. It is impossible for the nation to come to its best or to go forward in any marked way, without the contribution that each group can make. There must be some common denominator.

This is equally true for all groups. The Catholic has something to add to our national life. We deeply sympathize with his insistence that religion enter into the education of children and if, by constitutional means, he can secure public funds, as good citizens and believers in democracy, I suppose, we will submit. On the other hand, we will make a vigorous fight to prevent this very thing, believing that our best contribution will be in support of a non-sectarian school system. The trouble with this situation is that most Protestants are anti-Catholic rather than pro-Protestant. For traditional and real causes they will fight Catholics, but when it comes to a positive support of their own churches, they are sadly lacking. Witness the attendance at worship in this church this morning, or in any other Protestant church in the city, unless it happens to be some anniversary or special occasion. A Protestantism that represents only animus toward other groups is entirely beside the point and unworthy.

I am ashamed to make any reference to my next point. It seems so obvious that denominational bounds within Protestantism are outgrown and “out-moded,” and yet we are farther away from any kind of coherent church unity than we were when I began my ministry, twenty-five years ago. The “world” outside, that incidentally contains many discerning people of good will, has little sympathy with our “unhealthy divisions.” They are a crying shame to heaven.

The first step toward a larger unity has been made in the Federal Council, which has had widely representative and capable leadership. No man today speaks with more spiritual authority and keen intelligence than Bishop McConnell, who speaks in our city next Sunday night. He has been one of the guiding spirits of the Federal Council.

The report on the steel situation fifteen years ago, violently opposed at the time, is now recognized as a masterly document that solved a problem in the field of labor that the government in Washington had failed to adjust. This report is an ample vindication of the Council and of future efforts in that direction from the same source, provided they be guided by the principle, which I would call Bishop McConnell’s “Principle of Prophesy,” which briefly is this: On the basis of the best information available, unprejudiced and gathered by experts from all sources, let the Church, in the name of justice and good will, indicate to economic and industrial groups the just policy, and you will have a prophetic voice speaking in no uncertain tones along lines that can be profitably followed. Put human interests ahead of property interests, with all the sanity and knowledge available! Apply the basic principles of the Gospel and the Church can still exercise its prophetic function. That endowment of power in other days came upon individuals, and that may happen again. But, more likely, it is destined in the future to speak through the combined intelligence of the Group.

Yes, we need each other. The Pacifist, in this present evil world, still needs the Militarist. Somewhere, between the two extremes, the public course must be charted. There are too many dangers for complete disarmament. On the other hand, all the enthusiasm of the sincere lovers of peace, all the good sense of statesmen, is needed to prevent the recurrence of war. It is an open question whether war ever accomplished any good commensurate with its awful cost. Nine-tenths of all our present day poverty, moral and economic alike, the world around, can be charged up to the Great War. On this I feel strongly and would defend the right of any lover of peace, no matter how extreme, to have his say. But I am enough of a realist to know that in order to make substantial progress, any program, whether it be promoted by churchmen or politicians, must give the assurance of national security to citizens of my country in order to gain their support, tacit or enthusiastic. But more of this next Sunday, which happens to be Armistice Day.

In the present county elections the ugly form of Nazism rears its head. We owe a great debt to our Jewish citizens. In this city they are among our most intelligent and generous philanthropists. This has been true for nearly a century. In the religious field, they have been given a surprising number of outstanding leaders in our city. Culturally and economically they have been a great asset. In the last decade they have proved stalwart supporters, and furnished striking leadership for, the desperate political situation of this municipality. But, I predict that the election next Tuesday will temporarily eliminate some of our most useful public servants simply because they are Jews, for an over-seas hatred, due to historical and racial reasons, finds a strong reflection in “Zinzinnati.” “My beloved brethren, these things ought not so to be” . . . . “Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.”

Now I ask you, as I ask myself, what are the forces that cohere? What are the things that bind us together? This multitude of all sorts, who travel in the same ship of state. [With us, as of old, there are prisoners, and the problems of the under-world and the gangsters are forced home upon us every day. What have we to offset this and the hundred other ills that afflict us?

This was a food ship, in which St. Paul traveled, carrying to Rome the wheat for the daily dole. Our relief situation is nothing new. Make it acute enough however, and you have the seeds of revolution sprouting fast.]

I should say that very likely in American life the thing that most nearly binds us together into anything like a common unity is the Public School, which is worthy of our support in the present or any other tax levy; not for the mere learning of the Three R’s, but enough money available for adequate equipment and a well-paid teaching staff that has had access to all the educational and cultural advantages of our time, that they may pass these on, consciously and unconsciously, to our children. Not a stereotyped, inflexible system that teaches by rote the ‘Law of the Twelve Tables’ or an interpretation of the Constitution sanctioned by the Sons of the Revolution—or the Daughters, but an intelligent, constructive educational policy that teaches the value of all that is good in the past and yet recognizes the inevitability of change. Over every public school might be written into the motto: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

Organizations like the Boy Scouts, the Red Cross, the present non-sectarian policies of the Y.W. and Y.M.C.A; these, and any other groups for young people or adults, that give them a cross-section of the community, that force people of all sorts and conditions to mix and to mingle—as they must have done on the little ship that sailed to Rome, these “two hundred, three score and sixteen souls,” learning to dislike each other and, in emergencies, to admire each other and depend upon each other for mutual help and support; all the things in our common life that acquaint us with each other, our strong cohesive forces.

And, the religion of Christ, by all means, ought to be one of these unifying factors. If Protestantism has been divisive, let us change its character. Paul said that Christ came to break down “a middle wall of partition” and that without this the Cross of Christ would become of no effect. Whatever the first century Christians may have done in this regard (there are the marks and wounds of strife in the Book of Acts), whatever they may have done or failed to do, our present interpretation of Christianity in Protestant circles is far from “breaking down” any walls. We have as many prejudices as have our Catholic neighbors, only theirs take a different form. Their united front and policy, of opposition to all who do not agree with them in theory, of course, is the very antithesis of the Gospel. Let it be a lesson to us.

Like these ancient mariners, we have thrown overboard much of the tackling of the ship. There is not much water between our keel and the rocks. Shipwreck may be ahead. If all abide in the ship, if there is a unified purpose of good will, all will come safe to land, though it may be on broken pieces of the ship.

No one is wise enough to predict the future. There are certain great and abiding principles that ought, however, to direct our life, individual and social. These have been defied; that is our trouble today. Old-fashioned honesty, a simple faith in action; these have been largely lacking in the setup of the last twenty years. We have become too sophisticated. There are many new helps to navigation, thanks to Lord Kelvin and a hundred others, but none of them can afford to neglect the stars. Like these ancient sailors, “we have cast our anchors out of the stern and long for the day.” Serious thought has been forced upon us and as we revamp our plans for the future, in the Spirit of Christ, regardless of what our traditional religious prejudices have indicated, we ought to go forward with our main reliance on the Ethical Gospel of our Lord. There is salvation in no other Name; and that, in the barest terms, He said, was to love God with heart, soul, and mind--and one's neighbor as one’s self.

We need a new infusion of the fear of the Lord, reverence for the Highest and Best, a new appreciation of good will and brotherhood, a baptism of the spirit of love that suffers long and is kind, that never fails and cannot fail.

In a neighboring factory, one day last week, an emery wheel “let go,” as they say, and flying off into space, worked havoc. Something in the conglomerate composition of the carborundum was not able to stand the stress, and break-up resulted. This is a picture, to many contemporary minds, of our civilization. It is flying to pieces. On the other hand, there are many whose picture is much more moderate. Forces of disintegration are undoubtedly at work, they say, and for better or for worse, changes have come and are coming; but the essential fabric is sound. The emery wheel still revolves and has cutting quality, though its spindle may be slightly eccentric.

No one but the extreme Tory believes that the machinery of our social and political life is in anything like perfect alignment. To begin with, there are no end of personal and party differences. The President last week very pointedly told the bankers that their group did not agree among themselves. There is certainly a divided counsel in the administration itself. No one can predict whether it will swing right or left. Take any church group, and it is hard to find a dozen people who absolutely agree about any one thing.

Four ministers sat at lunch last Friday. After rather vigorously criticizing the President, one of them pointed out that if they four were committed with the destiny and policy of their own denomination, they could not agree among themselves, not only in details of administration, but on some points of, what their fathers would have considered, basic theology.

Everywhere you find it:

Catholic versus Protestant

Jew versus Gentile

Democrat versus Republican

Charter versus Organization

Blacks versus Whites

Capital versus Labor

The haves versus the have-nots

Conservative versus Radical

Pacifist versus Militarists

The list could easily be doubled. It looks like a football schedule, only in this game there is generally less sportsmanship than is manifest on the intercollegiate gridiron. What is it, then, that holds our conglomerate society together? With all the causes of faction and division, what is it that makes the whole cohere? There must be something in the life of our body politics, for in spite of all the disruptive forces, in peace and in war, the nation, for over one hundred and fifty years, has held together.

It is encouraging to note, in the first place, that these divisions are nothing new. The present agitation in political circles, induced by Catholic interest in public school money, is a mere echo of the thunders of the “Know-Nothing” agitations of sixty years ago. We will always have some “Klansmen” with us. Likely, all that we can ask is that they go unmasked.

The newer and more accurate historians of our Revolutionary War indicate very clearly that sentiment in the colonies was anything but unified. John Adams says that in Massachusetts, likely the most patriotic colony, nearly forty-five percent of the people were opposed to the Revolution. (Curiously enough, the loyal people in those days were those that supported the king. In this case, as often, the revolutionist of one period becomes the patriot of another.)

“Tovashi Hadley” by Jesse Halse

Pop Hadley | Russia, 1918

Then there was “Pop” Hadley, as we called him, a New York Tribune reporter that nothing could down. [Ed note: Howard Hadley, political writer for the New York Tribune] (Pop years ago got out the first publicity on the Route now marked Federal Highway 1from Canada to Florida. It was his idea. He came from the Canadian Border.) During our practical internment while street fighting was going on in Moscow [1917], he found a Russian printer who had some Roman characters in his cases, and set up a long jargon of hog-Russian and printed it on a strip of paper a yard long—it was a “Proposk” or permit or passport as you choose. A dozen of us signed it—he illuminated it with bright seals and impressive sealing wax and gave them out occasionally, here and there, as he traveled. As the red guards couldn’t read and Proposk looked highly official, it was often the open sesame to gates otherwise closed. More than one bedraggled traveler used this paper to get him across Siberia [Ed note: see photo of JH’s bogus passport.]

Hadley on one occasion found himself in Odessa. The Bolsheviks were in full control after hard fighting with the Whites. Pop who always carried his camera, was taking pictures. The Red Guard interfered; his passport didn’t work this time and they hailed him before the Commityet at the Narody Dom (City Hall). He was accused of espionage and condemned to be shot. After sentence was passed and the firing squad drawn up outside, he casually remarked to the Commissar that this was a curious procedure hard for an American to understand. And then went on to say, very leisurely, that with the “greatest experiment in all history” under way they should publicize the thing to the world. That’s the way they do it in America.” It didn’t take long; the Bolos got the point, and within ten minutes Pop was made official photographer and chief propoganda agent for the Odessa Soviet.

Excerpt about the Bolsheviks from a story by Isaac F. Marcosson about British Lord Northcliffe in the Saturday Evening Post, June 7, 1919:


“Perhaps the following incident will help to convince carpers that the Bolshevik armies have nothing above the neck but some species of bone or ivory:

Toward the middle of December 1918, a little man answering to the name of John D. Wolls was brought to American Headquarters in Vladivostok by a military escort. An American officer in Harbin had examined his passport and his naturalization papers, and had taken violent exception to the them—first because he didn’t see how anybody could travel on a passport like the one Wolls possessed, and second because the naturalization papers had been tampered with, the date of naturalization having been erased. So the American officer had shipped him in to headquarters under military escort.

At American Headquarters Wolls ultimately reached Capt. Bayard Rives, who among other Intelligence duties had charge of passport control for all the Allies. Captain Rives demanded his papers: and while Wolls was undoing several layers of garments and fishing for them Captain Rives asked him how far he had come. Wolls replied that he had come from Petrograd. This gave Captain Rives pause; in fact, it gave him several pauses—several large, full-grown pauses—for the distance from Petrograd to Vladivostok is 5,842 miles; and Bolshevik forces between Petrograd and the Urals were as thick as are black flies in the Maine woods in June; and it was as easy for a person to pass through them as for a St. Bernard dog to pass through a mouse hole. While Captain Rives was attempting to quiet the unrest which Wolls’s statement caused him Wolls finally succeeded in digging out his passport. He handed it to Captain Rives, who examined it carefully and then excused himself and repaired to the office of Colonel James Wilson, the chief surgeon of the Siberian Expeditionary Forces to have his tongue examined and his pulse noted. And considering the document which had got Wolls through the Bolshevik lines, Captain Rives could scarcely be blamed for wondering whether his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. This is the passport that Wolls produced:

THIS PASSPORT

Entitles

John D. Wolls

To 1 week’s board at "Do Svidanya" Camp, "SI Chas" beach, Upper Chatequgay Lake-in-the-Adirondacks, United States of America, and a seat near the fireplace the while you tell what little you actually know about Russia.”

GOOD for ONE first-class coupe in the Wagon-Lits from WHERESOEVER—YOUARESKI

to

MOSCOW

provided you can get into it and hold it against all comes, “Catch-as-catch-can,” “Jiu-Jitsu,” “Collar-and-Eyebrow,” and “Russo-Roumanian” style of wresting.

GOOD for one first-class passage by any and all payola, steams, e tok dahlia, from

MOSCOW

to

LYON MOUNTAIN, N.Y.

the usual routine for travelers having first been complied with.

SPECIAL NOTICE: --In case you are wrecked, lost, arrested, or in extreme peril or dire distress of any nature on land or sea, you are hereby authorized and empowered, having uttered your regular prayers, to offer up a prayer to either Allah, Buddha, Confucius, Krishna, Mohammad, Shinto, Vishnu, Zende, Vesta, Yogi or Brigham Young, or to all of them, or to any other powers that have helped struggling souls in diverse lands a-down the ages, to the end that they may, --perchance,--tip up the koovchin of salvation and let a little drizzle down upon you. Any port in a storm!

P.S. Bring your Trans-Siberian Hymnals with you. Camp song: “And WHEN I Die, Don’t Bury Me At All, “ e tok dahlia.

ODESSA, Feb. 20, 1918.

HOWARD D. HADLY

Oclin Visocoki Koezezgodent of the Ancient, International Legion of “Si Chassers.”

NOTE: --NOT GOOD unless countersigned at Moscow by Crawford Wheeler, Perwi Advocate and Exemplifier of the short-notat-hour workday: Bayard H. Christy, Chief Prophet of the Worshippers of the Rising Sun and by the Rev. Jesse Halsey, Choroski Commissar, Cook and Bottle-Washer and Supreme Head in Russia of the Sons of Labrador.

This billyet will not be honored by said Hadley aforesaid after Oct. 26, 1972.

EMERGENCY COUPON!

If all railways in Russia become blocked this coupon entitles you to hoof it across lots to either Suez, Calcutta, Singapore, Ceylon, Cape Town, Vladivostok, Port Arthur, Archangel, or Jerusalem, and authority is hereby granted to commandeer such horses, oxen, camels, elephants, ostriches and reindeer as may be required.