perhaps some bitter disappointments—“Let me do it. I’ll manage all this.
Let me know when you need anything.” But, instead, I merely stated my
attitude and said, “Here are the two alternatives. You want this; I
think the other is better. Neither of us can tell which is right. If you
choose your own way I’ll help you as long as you do it well, providing
you stop as soon as you know it is wrong and go back and pick up the
other. If experience teaches you a greater wisdom, you can call it
square.”
At Peddie Institute, Stuart was paying more attention to sports than
studies. It was easy for him to be an athlete. But he also had a logical
mind and a quick ability for co-ordinating hand and brain. When he was
ready for college he entered Sheffield Scientific School of Yale
University. His imagination was soon captured by archaeology and
medicine, but his course was already set.
Meanwhile Grant, who had been inclined to hero-worship his older
brother, had also gone to Peddie. His athletics left little opportunity
for bringing out his artistic talents, and he agreed to take his last
two years at Westminster School in Simsbury, Connecticut, where he was
encouraged to develop along his own lines. In his sophomore year at
Princeton, he still had no idea of what he wanted to do with his life.
Although he had a leaning towards diplomacy, which would include
training in law, I explained to him that, since the family had no
political influence, it might lead to being a small politician.
And so I made out a list of as many occupations known to man as I could
think of, and sent them to him, telling him to mark off with a blue
pencil those which he was perfectly sure did not appeal to him, and
check with red those for which he felt some predilection. Out
immediately went piano-mover, waiter, floorwalker, bank manager,
bookkeeper, and some fifty others.
Six months later, I returned him the red-checked list for further
perusal. Now his preferences were much more definite. Research,
journalism, editorial work, diplomacy were again red, but almost
everything else marked headed him for a scientific career.
The decision made, Grant began his pre-medical course.
After Stuart graduated from Yale he moved downtown to Wall Street and
continued in a broker’s office all during the depression. But, in this
money making atmosphere, his attitude was changing. He had concluded
that serving humanity was a higher fulfillment than profiting at
humanity’s expense, and medicine seemed the career which he also liked
best. Having found out, he had the courage to start back at the
beginning to accomplish it. We made a compact for him to go as far as he
could and test whether his interest kept up. First he had to acquire
sufficient chemistry and biology, going to Columbia University in the
daytime for the former, to New York University in the evening for the
latter, preparing his lessons until three in the morning.
The next year he passed his entrance examinations.
Following the legislative near-victory in the winter of 1934, I resolved
to go to Russia to see for myself what was happening in the greatest
social experiment of our age. With keen anticipation I looked forward to
discovering whether the Marxian philosophy, dramatized and realized and
based on an economic ideology, did not have to accept some of the
philosophy of Malthus.
Grant, then about to enter his final year at Cornell Medical School, was
eager to investigate the progress of medicine in the Soviet Union, and
made up his mind to come along. I was taking also my secretary, Florence
Rose, efficient, competent in any capacity, whether field organizing or
in the office. Though but recently enlisted in the movement, she had
come more with the attitude of the early days, not for what she could
get out of it, but for what she could give to its furtherance. Her
talents and enthusiasm, when added to her cheerfulness, made her a rare
combination; always gleeful and bubbling with fun, she carried out
nearly everything in that spirit.
Mrs. Ethel Clyde, an officer of the Federal legislative organization,
was to be the fourth of our little group within a large group. When zeal
for the “new civilization” in Russia had been at its height she had
relinquished her expensive Park Avenue apartment for a smaller one on a
side street, and contributed the difference in rent to sundry leftist
causes and birth control.
At the last moment it seemed we might not be able to go. For some years
Stuart had had a bad sinus condition, and hardly had he matriculated at
Cornell in the fall of 1933 when he had been struck by a squash racket,
fracturing the bone over his eye. That winter he had been operated on
nine times. A week before I was due to sail this doctor advised that he
have an exploratory operation. I rushed up from Washington, where the
legislative work for that session was just being wound up, and would
have abandoned the Russian expedition had not the operation apparently
been entirely successful. Stuart insisted that I go. Since he was in no
danger I continued with my plans.
It was not feasible to travel in Russia except in a party under official
guidance. Three people I knew who had gone by themselves described how
train after train had passed them, boat after boat had steamed down the
Volga with no accommodations available. Therefore, we chose the
non-partisan Second Russian Seminar.
Shortly prior to leaving I spent an evening with Maurice Hindus, Will
Durant, John Kingsbury, and Drs. Hannah and Abraham Stone, all of whom
had been to Russia the previous year. Maurice Hindus had returned
impersonal and still unprejudiced, Will Durant utterly antagonistic,
John Kingsbury full of fervor, and both Stones warmly disposed. They had
all been in Moscow, practically at the same time, for approximately the
same number of days, and all had received utterly dissimilar
impressions. Even pictures that Will Durant had taken were not the same
as those of John Kingsbury or Dr. Stone, snapped from almost identical
places, thus showing me how wide might be the variety of responses,
depending on the individual bias.
I expected to keep my eyes open, to think independently, to ask
questions, and compare. I was going to use as much sanity and fairness
as I possessed, and not be swept emotionally into any current of
opinion.
Billy Barber was the manager of the Seminar, and I did not envy him his
job. There were many complaints and stupid remarks and much
faultfinding. Most of the party were going merely to be able to say
those things were true which they had previously said were true. I asked
one woman who went on every sight-seeing expedition but never got out of
the bus, “Why did you come?”
“Oh, just to wipe Russia off my list.”
Edward Alsworth Ross was among the leaders. He was the only person who
had been there under the former regime some twenty years earlier, and
had an authoritative basis of contrast between the old and the new; we
all rather sat at his feet. He was a typical professor, wore enormously
high, stiff collars, played checkers with anybody who would indulge him,
and was upset when he failed to win. His personality was impressive,
literally so because wherever you looked you spied him. One of the
funniest sights was to see this Nordic giant, six feet four, walking
with short dark Florence Rose, five feet two, each jollying the other.
We scooted through England across to Copenhagen, about which I recall
very little. I was always trying to learn what advance the women’s
movement had made, but somebody was always trying to tell me how
marvelous the city was. Remembering Ellen Key, I reached Scandinavia
with great hopes for Feminism. But the women who were considered the
most intelligent were complacently resting on their laurels. The older
ones still reigned supreme and believed that, because they had won their
battles of twenty-five years ago, there was nothing left to fight for.
The younger group found it hard to rise above the inertia of this
overwhelming prestige. Since population was not a problem in
Scandinavia, they were interested chiefly in eugenics, and had almost
forgotten the aspect of individual suffering.
At Oslo a number of us went on pilgrimage to the grave of Ibsen. As I
stood there in silent tribute I had the feeling he had understood women
and the ties they had been loosening. To my mind Nora never went back to
the “doll’s house”; her evolution was too complete. Or, if she did
return, she entered by another door.
Mr. Barber had arranged to feed his hundred and six charges at the last
Finnish railroad station. There was a particular exhilaration about the
prospect of that meal, because it was to be our final one before
crossing into “famine-stricken” Russia. We arrived at ten in the
morning, all of us hungry. As we filed into the station our eyes met the
most gorgeous panorama—long tables beautifully laid out with delicious
meats, fish, breads, compotes.
While we paused, debating which of these delicacies to taste first,
there came a stampede of fifty other Americans, a tourist group led by
Sherwood Eddy. Never had I seen such an exhibition. The men, unshaven,
hatless, coatless, pushed and shoved around, in front of, and almost on
top of the tables. The best we could do was find comfortable seats from
which we could have a good view of the riot. The meal prepared by the
railroad with such courtesy for our party was demolished by another.
Barber and Eddy eventually discovered it was all a mistake. The train
carrying the Eddy-ites had failed to stop at the town where their repast
had been awaiting them, and naturally they supposed this breakfast was
theirs.
At Leningrad we were met by buses and driven through streets that
swarmed with imperturbable, peasant-like people. The upper parts of
their Mongolian-shaped heads all looked exactly the same. I noticed how
immaculate they were. Faces, necks, hands, were white as white and
displayed a cleanliness simply marvelous when you took into
consideration the difficulty of securing soap and water. Very few were
old; many were children apparently between the ages of two to twelve.
But in the expressions of all I glimpsed a sadness.
The former capital was depressing and down at heels, shabby and in need
of painting. Yet it was beyond comparison in its spacious dignity; the
architectural design of the houses could not be hidden. My
high-ceilinged room at the Astoria was luxurious with alcove bed, bath
room, and large marble tub, which, although cracked and spotted with
rust, nevertheless evidenced the days of splendor when the hotel had
been frequented by the aristocracy of the Old Regime.
From my window I could see the cobbled square. It was eight o’clock and
the city was awakening. I watched the passing show: heavy wagons were
drawn by a single and often most decrepit horse with what seemed a dark
brown rainbow, arched and graceful, over his neck; queues formed in
front of little stands that served rations of beer or bottled soda
water; some women, the varying colors in their shawls making bright
splotches, swept the car tracks with birch switches or pushed empty
carts on their way to market, others carried hods of cement up the
ladders to the masons on the new buildings being erected everywhere.
Usually the men were doing the skilled work, and women, hardy and
robust, with strong legs, bare feet, sunburned faces, were kept at the
laborious, monotonous, physical labor until such time as they could
qualify as expert artisans.
The Communists’ apartments were much better, lighter, airier, cleaner,
more modern than those for non-party members. When we asked why, in an
equalitarian state, one section should be thus privileged, we were
answered, “It was they who made all this possible. Why should they not
have the best? What you bourgeois give to your capitalists, we give to
our Communists.”
We asked Tanya, our guide, if she were a Communist, and she replied,
“Oh, no. That’s too hard.” Ordinary citizens might be excused for a
mistake or even a crime, but party members could have no human
frailties. They were exiled or perhaps shot for cheating, stealing,
deceiving, exploiting, taking money under false pretenses, or many
things which average people could do and be punished with fines alone.
Although the cost of the trip itself was relatively low, whatever we
bought in Russia was excessively high owing to the peculiar situation of
the ruble. In the first place, there was no ruble; it existed only in
theory. Second, every foreigner was supposed to deal exclusively with
the Torgsin stores through which the Government had cleverly contrived
to come by a hoard of foreign currency by charging seventy-eight cents
in our money for each ruble instead of its actual value of five cents.
For example, the price of a stamp on a letter to the United States,
which was two and a half rubles, amounted to two dollars.
Mrs. Clyde, who leaned sympathetically towards Communism, said to one of
our young men, “Let me get you a little present.”
“Not here,” he said. “It’ll be too expensive.”
“Oh, yes,” she insisted. “What would you like?”
“Well—a bar of almond chocolate, then.”
She had to pay ten American dollars for that ten-cent bar of chocolate.
Her Communism melted slightly.
Ultimately, we solved the ruble problem. One morning a boy who had been
loitering around the Astoria asked Grant, “Would you like me to take you
through the city?”
Grant prudently inquired, “How much?” It appeared that the boy merely
desired an opportunity to perfect his English; he had plenty of rubles,
which he was glad to dispose of at the rate of fifty for a dollar.
Russians could obtain none but the cheapest commodities on their
tickets; if they wanted luxuries such as good shirts, leather or rubber
boots, and other articles sold only at Torgsin, they were obliged to
surrender some treasured gold piece or use foreign money.
With an ample supply of rubles I sent long, elaborate cables to Stuart
to cheer him up. He must have thought an excessive maternal solicitude
was getting the better of my economic judgment. But, as a matter of
fact, one of twenty words was costing me less than twenty-five cents.
Dr. Nadina Kavanoky, who had been interested in birth control in the
United States, had given me a letter to her father, Dr. Reinstein, once
a dentist in Rochester, New York, now in Stalin’s close confidence. He
came to see me about eleven-thirty one night, the Russian calling hour,
and we talked until three in the morning. When he wanted to know my
“impressions of Russia,” I said promptly, “It seems to me your policy of
overcharging us is a mistake; for the sake of a few dollars you are
creating ill will, just as the French have done. In our own Seminar we
have twenty librarians and perhaps double that number of schoolteachers
and students, many of whom have gone without other vacations to come
here. They have a unique opportunity to influence people; everybody will
ask them when they get back, ‘Did you like Russia?’ You are trying to
build up a favorable public opinion abroad, and these people are the
best mediums for that purpose. If they are pleased they will fight for
you and break down prejudice.”
But he was not convinced, and, evoking the specter of the Tsarist debt
to America, he replied, “We’ll bleed you, we’ll milk you, we’ll get
every dollar out of you we can. America demands her pound of flesh and
this is how we’ll pay you.”
The occasions for receiving “pleasant impressions” were offered by
vigorous tours to points of interest. We were given a choice of hard
buses or harder ones, all, in my experience, springless and clattering
noisily over the cobble-paved streets. After a few bumps we usually hit
the roof and came down with headaches. Our poor little guides had to
screech with full lung power to be heard over the incessant rattling.
One morning when driving back from sight-seeing, the motor gasped and
collapsed on a slight hill. Passengers volunteered helpful
suggestions—“Put it in low. Put it in neutral. Push this. Pull that.”
The driver moved gears forward and backward and then looked around at us
in perplexity, “I did, but it won’t work.” We waited and waited and
waited and waited. Somebody ran a mile to telephone that we were
stranded and needed another bus. Meanwhile, everything we wanted to see
was closing, and we had already learned that whatever you missed in
Russia was always the most worth while. In fact, it seemed they had
visiting hours timed to end five minutes before you got there. Several
other buses came along and stopped. Their drivers got out, poked their
heads under the hood, began taking things apart, strewing bolts this way
and nuts that. Then they, too, became discouraged, and, leaving
increased confusion, climbed on their chariots again and went on.
Finally some bright young man discovered we were out of gas.
As we crossed the huge square in front of the hotel, I saw directly
ahead of us an enormous pile of bricks with wide spaces on both sides.
Closer and closer we came. “When will the driver turn?” I asked myself.
But he never did; we went right over the top and the bricks slipped out
from under. That was the Russian system. You could not go round an
obstacle; you must go over it.
Enlarged portraits of Lenin and Stalin were in all public buildings.
Their statues were everywhere, in every square, on every corner. A major
industry of Russia seemed to be to find new poses for Stalin—standing
up, lying down, writing, reading. Often just his head, definitely
recognizable in spite of the predominance of red, was designed in flower
beds. One of the most delicate attentions was to give him a different
colored necktie on different days; the plants were kept in pots to make
this charming gesture possible.
After the Revolution when peace had come, connoisseurs from various
countries had been invited to examine the recovered statues, rugs,
tapestries, and _objets d’art_ stolen from the palaces and churches. One
by one the priceless paintings were displayed, specialists rendered
their opinions, commercial dealers furnished appraisals, stenographers
took down every word. The same was done with the lapis lazuli tables,
the snuff boxes, the court jewels.
The interesting part of the new arrangement was that the interpretation
was entirely Marxian. Pictures, instead of being hung according to the
orthodox history of art, were fitted into the Industrial Revolution. A
certain Madonna was not admired for its qualities of color or form, or
as a thing of beauty in itself; the guide explained to you that it was
created at such and such a time when the Church was trying to get a hold
over the people, when artists were starving and had to look for their
means of livelihood to the patronage of the Church.
Later, in the Kremlin at Moscow we saw fantastic and incredible riches,
jeweled saddles, a whole set of harness studded with turquoise, a huge
casket cloth embroidered with thousands of pearls. In order to place the
period of the latter I asked Tanya where it had come from. She replied
in her precise English, “You see, it is for to cover the dead. You see,
in Russia there was such a custom. When they died they put them in the
ground. It was such a custom, you see, to cover them with cloths.”
She spoke of the Tsarist Regime as though it had been centuries ago.
One of the pictures was a Christ removed from the cross and lying on the
ground. Tanya said, “People used to come here, and they even kissed it!”
This she uttered in the tone of scorn of a very youthful generation
shocked and horrified at the ancient traditions.
“Our hope is in the young people,” she said frequently.
“But how old are you?”
“Oh, I’m thirty-two,” as though she were doddering.
Grant and I were once walking by a group of children when a small boy
pointed at us and remarked, “Ah, there go some of the dying race.” To
them all _Amerikanski_ were capitalists.
The Marxian ideology had been applied to every phase of life. H.G.,
accompanied by Gyp, his biologist son, had flown over from London. Since
he wanted an opportunity to go around alone, he rather resented being so
closely guarded and courteously guided. After talking with Stalin he had
come to the conclusion that the Dictator had no understanding of
economics. He was somewhat annoyed at the constant interpretation of
everything in terms of politics, and of having Marx stuffed down his
throat at every turn.
At the schools you might ask what kind of mathematics they taught.
“Marx.”
“And what system of engineering?”
“Marx.”
No matter what the question, the answer was Marx.
The Anti-Religious Museum, once a cathedral, was directly across from
the Astoria. Each half-hour little girls, who seemed hardly more than
ten or twelve, their sleeves hanging down over their finger tips, with
great dignity conducted excursions of peasants through. Their lecture
started with the fundamental principle that the earth was round. A
bas-relief of the world was underneath the huge pendulum which hung from
the dome. If you stood there long enough you saw it swing from one point
to a further one. They were trying to show that it was within man’s
power to make his own heaven.
Here were kept the relics of the churches, the icons laden with silver
and gold wrung from the poor peasants in the past. Actual concrete
things were reduced to their simplest terms on large poster-type murals
which depicted stories, a necessary practice since the muzhiks were so
generally illiterate. In one a kulak was coming to the priest with a
sick child in his arms, asking for prayers to cure its illness. The
priest, fat and clad in rich robes, shook his head, saying, “You must
bring money for the saint. The saint will not cure your child unless her
arms are covered with silver.” But the kulak had only his farm.
“Mortgage it and get the money,” the priest ordered. Soon the kulak
returned with silver, and the mural showed how now the saint’s arm was
almost hidden. But still the child remained sick. “The saint’s halo is
bare,” said the priest. At last the whole figure was silvered, but the
baby died just the same.
Opposite this mural was pictured the Soviet way. The father carried the
baby to the hospital, where nurses with gauze across their mouths took
it preciously, bathed it carefully, laid it in bed. The entire
sterilizing process was illustrated—the doctor in white gown and cap,
scrubbing and washing each hand five minutes as marked by a clock.
Finally you saw the child, healthy and well, jumping into its mother’s
arms.
The people stood there looking, their imaginations fired. They said,
“This is what is happening to us.”
Most particularly I wanted to investigate what had been done for women
and children in Russia, to learn whether they had been given the rights
and liberties due them in any humanitarian civilization. Grant, Rose, as
she was known to me, and I went one day to the Institute for the
Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, a vast establishment stretching
over several miles, with model clinics, nurseries, milk centers, and
educational laboratories. I was overwhelmed in contemplating the
undertaking. There was no doubt that the Government was exerting itself
strenuously to teach the rudiments of hygiene to an enormous population
that had previously known nothing of it. Russia was also aiming to free
women from the two bonds that enslaved them most—the nursery and the
kitchen. All over the country were crèches connected with the places
they worked.
Children were the priceless possessions of Russia. Their time was
planned for them from birth to the age of sixteen, when they were paid
to go to college, if they so desired. No longer were they a drain or
burden to their families. Not only were teachers or parents forbidden to
inflict corporal punishment, but children might even report their
parents for being vindictive, ill-humored, disorderly, and in many cases
they did so.
In one divorce dispute as to custody of the offspring, the father argued
that the mother was bad. The Judge asked, “Of what does her badness
consist?”
“She is nervous and loses her temper.”
The Judge agreed she was not fit for motherhood.