Cyrus H. McCormick to Woodrow Wilson

PostalB 6 CH 285 NL.
Chicago, Ills.,

This evening I mailed you a special delivery letter but in view of what seems to me the urgency of the subject and the shortness of the time, I take the liberty of sending you the text by wire. It is as follows:
Russia has plenty of men; its pressing need is financial assistance. Could not this, to some extent, be extended without waiting for the arrival of commission. If no financial aid is extended before commission arrives, there will be a long period of uncertainty and discouragement in Russia. There is double danger in delay; army needs supplies and provisional government and army need encouragement; both are needed now, and such action of extending some credit now would accord with our prompt recognition of the new government. I feel that the United States can afford to extend a reasonabke amount of immediate credit to Russia without the usual careful negotiations about terms, so that Russia may keep full strength in the field at this critical time. The alternative may be the loss of hundreds of thousands of American lives, and still larger expenditures of American money if Russia should weaken on the eastern front. I am reliably informed that military supplies now ready for shipment from this country to Russia are not going forward because of lack of available credits. The seriousness of the situation is clearly indicated by the decline of the rouble, which to-day is quoted at twenty five cents; this is less than half its normal value, and four cents of this decline has come since the revolution. The extension of even a moderate credit now would very much strengthen the influence of the commission in the work which it is undertaking.

Cyrus H. McCormick