Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

ffic was entirely dead on that section of the line for weeks at a time. From that city to the Orenburg settlement, supplied by us from the Orenburg district center, meant a drive of fifty to sixty miles one way through deep snow, often untracked, across storm-swept plains and hills, with famished horses hitched to low sleds affording little protection from the bitter cold. For one acquainted with conditions it required no great foresight to foresee such inevitable disaster. Therefore the plan was considered wholly impracticable. It would be tragic in its failure. But too much time had already been consumed in negotiating and waiting. The famine did not wait. Daily, human beings were starving to death. Conscience sternly commanded action. A cable was sent to our Committee stating that I would return to Riga and Moscow to there make the best possible arrangement I could. At Riga, Brown appeared a little more lenient, but said he would leave the details of our arrangements to be worked out by Col. Haskell and myself at Moscow. As our organization had now been taken into the A.R.A. family, their Riga office courteously secured rail- road passage for me and provided a lunch box for the journey. An auto took me to the station. By this time we were allowed to carry our American passports with us into Russia. The snow was falling fast and the air was cold when I arrived late in the day at Moscow on the third day of December, three months after my first arrival. An A.R.A. automobile was at the station to meet the train, and I was taken with my luggage to the A.R.A. Headquarters, assuming that as we were now under A.R.A. direction, we would also be housed with the American personnel; but they were apparently crowded, so they called up the Savoy UNSEALING THE CLOSED DOOR 185 and by night I found myself once more in the familiar Savoy Guest House. My meals had to be found where I could in the three or four cafes that made a pretense at being restaurants. The tables at the two A.R.A. per- sonnel houses were unfortunately filled. Larger tables and additional chairs seemed hard to get. My first conferences with the A.R.A. at Moscow were with Col. Lonergan, the Executive, who was very amiable, and showed a sincere desire to work out a mode of cooperation, efficient and at the same time satisfactory to us. As soon as the general plan was sketched, the de- tails were taken up with Col. Haskell, Director of the A.R.A. in Russia. As we could not give definite assur- ances concerning the amount of the funds our organiza- tion would have at its disposal, and as the fund then on hand was small, Haskell declined to allow us the number of American workers our field demanded. He was not acquainted with the American Mennonites, and could not be expected to anticipate how generous would be their response to the famine appeal. But his reasonable atti- tude and direct manner facilitated the conclusion of a work