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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Gilbert Grosvenor 

 TWENTY-FlVE MEDALS DECORATING A POLICEMAN AT NIZHNI NOVGOROD 



In the old days decorations were widely bestowed in Russia. Almost every supporter 

 of the dynasty could wear one or more of them. But now who wears a badge is bourgeois 

 and anybody who has anything is anathema. ''Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy 

 name !" 



We saw our Czech friends later, march- 

 ing in fine formation through Samarra, 

 to the music of their own weird, staccato 

 song, going gaily forward, buoyed up by 

 the greatest of purposes, to the line of 

 battle. They broke their discipline long 

 enough to salute and then cheer their 

 American friends — one more of the 

 countless moving tokens of the kinship 

 which all the freedom-loving people of 



earth have with the great Republic of the 

 West. 



To be an American, anywhere among 

 the allied nations at the present time, is 

 to be the recipient of uncounted marks 

 of consideration. The two "American- 

 skis" on the Volga boat were especially 

 favored in every way, and telegrams evi- 

 dently preceded them at all points of 

 change or debarkation ; so that, amid all 



