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4 Si
is pathetically needed and is useful; and also it is fairly distributed. In Russia I heard from our boys nothing but praise for Russian Relief."
As for his own feelings toward Russia, Mr. White stands divided. "I came away, I think as most honest reporters do, with mixed feelings on the country. There were some things that I like very much. There were some things that I didn't care for. For instance, I didn't think that their industry was anything like so efficient as ours, although occasionally we would find a remarkably well'run factory. . . . On the other hand, I thought their agriculture was very good, indeed. Now we didn't see much of it, because this was primarily an industrial tour. And of course, admittedly, they showed us their best. There wasn't anything sinister about this! If a party of visiting foreign dignitaries would come through Kansas City, why, you'd probably take them to the best factories that you had — and you'd take them out to — well, I don't know if Sni'A'Bar Ranch is still the best — but you'd take them to your show agricultural places and see no reason to apologize for taking them to the best." And of course, he's right. He went on to say, "We also saw their best, but I don't think they were concealing their worst from us. And I will say that their best was as good as our best.
"I thought their methods were excellent, and while I'm not actually a farmer, I grew up in a farming community and I don't think I could be badly fooled on the subject of a well' run farm. The Russians are good farmers.
February, 1945
"Also, they have a magnificent theatre. Artistically, in many ways they are up with us and in some ways they are ahead of us. Their movies aren't nearly so good as ours, but in every community this size they have — well, you would have here, if this were a Russian town, a local ballet theatre with a permanent staff of people and probably a local repcr toire theatre. Those places in America have largely been taken by the moxne-. Of course, they have movies in Russia but they're not so good as ours. But the local theatre was usually better than anything I saw — than anything you'd see in America."
As for the Russian attitude toward freedom of the press, Mr. White had adverse criticism. "It's their privilege to run any kind of a press that they want, in Russia. Their form of government and their form of freedom of the press is their business and not ours. However, when it comes to the way we want to run our paper, it'.« our business! ... In this country, reporters representing papers of varying viewpoints always attend all large events and comment on all things. I feel that if we are to be free, if we are to be properly informed about the world, that this should be true in other sections of the world.
"While they don't come in and sit down at a desk of the Kansas City Star, everything that the Star gets from a Moscow dateline is edited before it leaves Moscow by the Russian Foreign Ministry. . . . No fact can ever come out of Moscow which the authorities think might in any way give an unfavorable picture of the country.