Microfilm Reel 194, File 64, "Russia"

[Letterhead: RED CROSS]

September twenty-fifth

Nineteen seventeen

Dear Mr. President:

Thinking you would be interested, I beg to enclose copy of a cable received from Mr. Thompson, of our Red Cross Commission, at Petrograd.

Please do not bother to acknowledge this note.

Faithfully yours,

[?] Chairman, Red Cross War Council.

To the President, The White House, Washington, D. C.

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COPY OF CABLE RECEIVED FROM RUSSIAN COMMISSION. PETROGRAD

Sept. 24, 1917

Petrograd, September 22, 1917.

H. P. Davison, American Red Cross, Washington.

10019. See cable to President Wilson and the American people from Katherine Breshkovsky, Chairman of the Russian Committee on Civil Education. Stop. Her Committee knows that the Russian Mind must be educated by a Press Literature and Public Speakers, fitted to its understanding to realize that Government of the people serves the people and to be effective must be obeyed. Stop. For centuries the masses have been under the heal of autocracy and Government has meant oppression and not protection. Stop. She and her committee also know that a Republican form of Government in Russia can be maintained only by the complete defeat of the German Autocracy. Stop. They and their followers will give up their lives rather than submit to German Dominion. Stop. Katherine Breshkovsky, known to all as the Grand-Mother of the Russian Revolution is 75 years old and the greatest woman in Russia. Stop. Born of a land-holding family of Southern Russia in Childhood she turned against the autocracy for its cruelties to peasants, became a teacher and leader in Revolutionary Groups and spent 34 years in prison and Siberian exile. Stop.

At the outbreak of the revolt of 1905, when over 60 years of age, she crossed the frontier on foot to help her comrades, only to be again imprisoned and exiled to Siberia. Stop. On March 4th last while planning another escape, she received notice of the beginning of the last revolution and her own release.

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AMERICAN RED CROSS [seal] cross [seal] CABLE DEPARTMENT

WASHINGTON, D.C.

COPY OF CABLE RECEIVED FROM RUSSIAN COMMISSION. PETROGRAD, RUSSIA

Page 2.

Her return to Petrograd, was the climax of the Revolution and the moving spectacle in a hundred years. Stop. A Government delegation by the then Minister of Justice, Kerensky, was present to welcome the aged heroine of the long struggle for freedom in Russia. Stop. It seems as if the whole population of Petrograd, chanting the Marseillaise, had turned out to greet this most intrepid and devoted of the Revolutionary leaders of History. Stop. Since then she has occupied quarters in the Winter Palace of the Tszars, overlooking the Grey Walls of the Fortress of Peter and Paul, in whose dungeons she has spent long years. Stop. To her reception room lead all the roads in Russia, and all sorts of people, from Minister Kerensky and the poorest Moujik, seek her council. Stop. She advises and helps all comers, and is giving her remaining years to consolidate the gains of the Revolution and help create a stable Government for the Democratic Russia. Stop. She is brave, simple and unspoiled. Stop. Madame Breshkovsky is known to many in America where she visited 12 yeasr ago. THOMPSON

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[Letterhead THE SECRETARY OF STATE]

October 10, 1917.

Dear Mr. Tunulty:

Your letter of the 26th of September asking for a suggestion of reply to the telegram to the President from the Chairman of the Russian Committee on Civic Education, has been received.

As Catherine Bressovsky seems to head a far reaching educational movement in Russia, I suggest that the President may care to send a telegraphic acknowledgment and I submit a draft herewith. If approved, will you kindly return it so that I may sign it and have it despatched.

Sincerely yours,

Robert Lansing

Enclosure.

The Honorable

Joseph P. Tumulty,

Secretary to the President

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Bureau of Foreign Intelligence

Ootober 10. 1917.

AmEmbassy

Petrograd.

The President has received a telegram of sympathy and friendly assurance from Catherine Bressovsky, chairman of the Russian Committee on Civic Education, and directs you to communicate the following acknowledgment: quote It has afforded me genuine pleasure to receive your eloquent message of September twenty-fifth. stop At this hour, when the historic events of the past few months have brought Russia into such close touch with America, it is most enheartening to witness the courage with which the new Russia faces the problems of the future, especially when the high mission of national enlightenment and preparedness for the great duties which fall upon a civic democracy is advanced promoted by such an educational organization as yours stop We of America long since learned that intellectual development and moral fitness are the most powerful elements of national advancement stop As the individual is the type of of the nation, so the nation should embody the highest individual ideals of civil perfection, in order to assert and maintain its honorable position in the world family of commonwealth, fulfilling its material and moral duties towards its neighbors, strong in the night of right and fearless in the cause of truth and justice. stop

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