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are payable as usual.' This and the rationing of food was a godsend to the poorer people.
"Of course this was in the early days of Bolsheviki rule. Later it could not be said that the working people were poor people. Their wages were more than adequate—that is, they could live well and save too. When the White Guard overthrew the Bolsheviki in Siberia and re-established capitalism there, the Guard complained during the first few weeks that they could not force workingmen back to work because they had too much money saved up.
"Whenever there was a shortage of anything, sugar, bread, whatever it was, the Bolshevik government monopolized it and rationed it out, issuing food cards to make sure that no one could buy more than his share. Sugar was scarce all over Europe. The Soviets set the price at fifteen cents a pound and allowed each person a monthly allowance of from a half-pound to a pound, depending on the locality. At first for a short time there was a little sugar for sale in isolated markets and the rich people were buying at the rate of $1.50 a pound.
"I had a capital opportunity to see the efficient working of Soviet food control, for in taking twelve hundred Serbian refugees across Siberia for the American Red Cross I had normal business relations with more than one hundred Soviets over three thousand miles of territory. These were refugees who had fled to Roumania, the to South Germany, then to Samara in Russia. Raymond Robbins got an appropriation of a quarter of a million dollars with which to take them out and colonize them until there should be a chance to take them back to Serbia, and I was loaned to the Red Cross to take care of the job.
"I found how ready the Soviets everywhere were to help the refugees. They sold us food at the same rate as it was sold to the Russian people. prices that might interest you particularly, as they were little more than half what would be charged in America. Butter was from two to four roubles a pound, that is twenty to forty cents; eggs were two to two and a half cents apiece; bread three cents a pound; and.at one place we got whole roasted chickens for thirty to sixty cents apiece.
