A description of the Russian colony in Chicago presents exceptional difficulties for various reasons.

To begin with, there is almost a total lack of literary-archive material, except for fragmentary information, which incidentally came into the hands of local publications in the Russian language, and of which Dr. H. R. Krasnow, old Chicago resident, zealously preserved isolated copies.

Secondly, altho the Russian colony in Chicago is second among the Russian centers in the United States, it is extremely scattered both in the city proper and in the suburbs of Chicago. This condition of a 'sprinkled' 2Russian settlement causes a severe breaking-up of its cultural forces, which were originally quite weak as compared with New York, and tends to form petty centers, frequently competitive, to its own detriment. It is sufficient to point to the thirty socio-political and religious organizations in the Russian colony of Chicago, with a population of some thirtyfive to forty thousand people to see the incredible diversity of 'contending forces' in the Russian colony. The more significant centers into which the Russian population of the Chicago suburbs ia divided are the following (these figures are very close to being accurate, having been gathered from old-timers; it is a pity that the embassy has no statistical material):

In these towns the industries most developed are Iron Work Construction, steel, 3cement, etc.

The Russians are engaged exclusively in factories and in mills, while the womenfolk, married or single, regardless, are employed in factories, not for reasons of need, particularly during the World War, but in order to earn and to save.

Russians are employed in various industrial enterprises of the city of Chicago, yet they concentrate mostly in farm-implements factories, International Harvester Co., McCormick, also in the factories of the well-known Russophile, Crane, where about 5,000 Russians are employed.

The famous Chicago Stockyards employ chiefly Slavs, of whom there are about 15,000 Poles, and of Russians not less than 5,000.

About 4,000 Russians are engaged in mattress factories and paper factories. Industries of smaller scope in which Russian immigrants become engaged are: The building trade, various crafts, seasonal work on farms and finally Russians engage in cleaning windows, basements, as waiters, dishwashers, rag-picking and rag-sorting, a word, they are not squeamish about doing the dirtiest jobs.

Earnings, as in the entire country during the war, fluctuate between $3.00 and $10.00 per day. Women are making from $12.00 to $16.00 per week.

The cost of living in Chicago, rent in particular, is cheaper than in New York, at least by 25 percent. But this does not at all mean that our compatriots in Chicago live cleaner and better.

I personally have nowhere observed such poverty and such dire need among Russians as in Chicago. Here they live in certain slum sections of the city and in decayed, dilapidated, frame hands, Piles of ill-smelling refuse are conspicuous in the yards. Russian single men, with few exceptions, make their nests in boarding-houses, sixteen in one room, three or four in one bed. In the dwellings the "atmosphere" is so "solid" that indeed an "axe could be suspended."

Such sanitation in the Russian belt must be explained of course as not so much a result of ignorance and poverty of the Russian immigrants as it is laxity on the part of the city authorities, the comparative youth of the town, with population increasing at a giddy pace. All feel themselves newly arrived, crowds at a Fair, and in the feverish hurly-burly of life there 6is no time for arranging a steady, clean, and healthy life...

The reader may ask: And how do the Russians acquit themselves with regard to sobriety? I have not kept figures as to how much alcohol Russians consume. But I saw things, which are ominous. In the evenings, particularly on Sundays, I had occasion to observe on Russia 'little streets and alleys' something like a pilgrimage to holy places. Young people, children, women, with kerchief tied around the head tread the beaten path, in true pilgrim-style, with kettles or jugs (they do not fancy the water-well for drinking water!!) in single file, and in lines to the saloons, the taverns, after wine and after beer.

At dusk 'all is well and orderly' but a little later, at dark,--look out for trouble. Russian abandon awakes, and a melee is a common thing. From every little window resound Volga tunes--"Bounce once more," "Along she comes". Tunes from accordions and guitars blend with face-slapping and sinister blows.

The police whisle is heard, muffled automobiles, with people inside, hands bound, "mugs" bloody, and then, the usual thing, jail, a fine, and all the rest of it as 'a premium.'

This is the general run of life in the Chicago Russian colony. I feel, dear reader, that you blush for your compatriots, who carry the good name of a Russian citizen across the Ocean, into the foremost democracy in this universe. Alas! such is the truth of life, uncolored reality!

I had occasion to hear and see numerous other great evils in the,Chicago colony yet the most crying evil of them all is the chiseling and ruthless exploitation of the Russian immigrants by bankers, and by "medical quacks, who make lavish use of panaceas for all ailments, whispering formulas in order to arrest the disease," etc. etc. Government authorities are fighting this end by an intensified surveillance over these self-made "doctors" and 'learned teachers', yet experience shows that so long as ignorance and superstitious prejudice against the regular medical men persist among the plain Russian people, the struggle with all these adventurers and quacks will be rather in- 8effective, and a mere outside surveillance will prove insufficient.

As a rule the Russian turns to the doctor only when the sickness takes on a chromic form, and when the patient is already more in need of a priest to administer the last sacrament rather than of a doctor, who can no longer help him.