were brought to me, while each member of the committee was served with a large plate of potatoes. I commented on the difference in the dishes.
"Yours is officer's fare, ours is sailor's," they explained.
"Then why did you make a revolution?" I asked banteringly.
They laughed and said, "The Revolution has given us what we wanted most—freedom. We are masters of our ships. We are masters of our own lives. We have our own courts. We can have shoreleave when not on duty. Off duty we have the right to wear civilian clothes. We do not demand everything of the Revolution."
The world-wide rise of the workers, however, is based on their desire, not solely for the first necessities of life, but for a larger part in its amenities. Driving through Helsingfors one night we missed the usual bands of sailors rolling down the streets. Suddenly we were brought sharply up before a building with facade and dimensions of a great modern hotel. We entered and were guided by the music to the dining-hall. There, in a room set with palms and glistening with mirrors and silver, sat the diners, listening to Chopin and Tchaikovsky, interspersed with occasional ragtime from the American conductor. It was a hotel of the first class, but instead of the usual clientele of a big hotel—bankers, speculators, politicians, adventurers and ornate ladies—it was crowded with bronzed seamen of the war fleet
