Page 44 - 1926 February - To Dragma

TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 207

zations sponsored by the embassies, trying to promote and keep
friendly relations with the Allied powers, while the seething un-
rest was becoming manifest throughout the country and was to
come to a climax—the Bolshevik revolution—soon after my
departure to America.

Then my college days at Cornell—with a rapid succession of
new impressions—conscious and subconscious—which became
crystalized, sorted and classified shaping my present personality
only after I left college and began the " l i f e struggle."

* **

I returned to Russia immediately upon completing my studies
at Cornell in 1921—mainly to see my mother, but also because I
was vastly interested in conditions in general. I tried to rid my
mind of all prejudice and preconceived ideas, as I was entering
Russia sitting at the door of a box car in which my fellow travelers
and myself were being transported for seven days over a distance
which formerly used to be covered in about twenty hours; from
Riga to Petrograd.

I was quite persistent in keeping my cheerful spirit. What i f
the street cars did not run and I had to take an hour's walk to
reach my mother's home, what i f people did walk in the middle
of the streets carrying awkward burdens while all mechanical
means of transportation seemed non-existent, what i f grass grew
four inches high between the cobblestones on the quiet, residen-
tial street where I used to pass on my daily trip to school, what
if the whole city looked drab, cobweb covered, starved and for-
lorn, with nothing but reminiscences and no present sensations
other than dull pain—my youthful enthusiasm helped me push
aside these trifling details, as I became absorbed in the unique
opportunity of studying conditions and of providing such com-
fort as I could to those around me.

That was the time when the Soviets were still enforcing
their original ideas of making men and women primarily citi-
zens: making them spend six hours a day in Government offices
which, having no funds at the time, as money was abolished, were
breeding places of idleness. The children, left thus alone at
home, were to be placed in asylums, of which there were but a
few inadequate ones.

I held a routine job in the bridge engineering department of