in its significance, was gradually losing its effect upon the people: man gets used to everything.
I decided to try other methods. I would talk to the employees in the departments about the vital interest the conscious American workers felt in the great Russian Revolution, and of their faith and hope in the Russian proletariat. The people would become interested immediately, but the questions they would ask were as strange as they were pitiful: "Have the people enough to eat in America? How soon will the Revolution be there? Why did you come to starving Russia?" They were eager for information and news, these mentally and physically starved people, cut off by the barbarous blockade from all touch^ with the western world. Things American were something wonderful to them. A piece of chocolate or a cracker were unheard-of dainties—they proved the key to everybody's heart.
Within two weeks I succeeded in procuring most of the things needed for the expected deportees, including furniture, linen, and dishes. A miracle, everybody said.
However, the renovation of the houses that were to serve as living quarters for the exiles was not accomplished so easily. I inspected what,
