^1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, ©I^AS^^r^t f *— UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. !5H5H5H5i5H5EFHSH5H5HSH5E5H5Zn5H5H5H5H5Z5H5Z5H5Z5H5H5B5i5H5H5ZSHSH5i iHHianiHiiiiiiiiiSi^iiiiiiiii rHSZ52sasssasas3sa5asHsasz5HSHsasasHiiasasasE5Esasasasasa5asHsa5asa5a5 that equals in despotic severity anything ever told of the Russian horrors. It was a " political " outrage, more^ over. In November, 1890, a meeting of " politicals " — that is to say, of Anarchists or " Nihilists " — was at- tempted to be held in Newark, N. J. The New York Herald the next day came out with such flaming head- lines as — the new era in russia. 89 "Police Clubs for Anarchists' Heads." " Captain Glori Felled by a Coward from Behind, but it took his men no tlme to revenge the Assault by Thumping the Pates of the Rioters until Blood Flowed. " " Nine of the Ringleaders Thrown into Cells and Held Without Bail." The Herald then gives a column describing the sum- mary breaking up of the meeting by the police. 1 quote the following passages: " Persistent attempts by Mrs. Lucy Parsons, the widow of the executed Anarchist Parsons, to make an inflamma- tory speech to a crowd of nearly two thousand persons in Newark last night precipitated a riot. " The police used their clubs with terrible effect, besides arresting Mrs. Parsons and nine of the leaders of the An- archistic crowd on charges of inciting the trouble. " The crowd became threatening, but within five min- utes about forty policemen arrived in patrol wagons and charged the rioters with drawn clubs. Many heads were hit and split by the heavy night-sticks, and there was a wild scramble to get away. " The prison of the 4th precinct station rang with the shouts of the crazed Anarchists. They laughed and sang, and were glad to talk. Particularly voluble was Simon Gerdon, who is a young Russian: " ' I am a Russian Nihilist/ he said. ' You call this a free country; but it isn't. The Constitution of the United States grants every one the right of free speech, but you 90 THE NEW ERA IN" RUSSIA. don't have it. A police captain has power enough to over- ride that glorious document. He has more power than the Czar of Russia. ' " " The clothing of several of the prisoners was covered with blood a which flowed from cuts on their heads, the results of taps with clubs. They were anxious to be re- leased on bail. This was refused to them." Now, this Newark scene, as quoted from the Herald, equals in cruel and despotic police action, in the applica- tion of the administrative process by refusing bail to the prisoners, and in invading the rights of" politicals/ ' any- thing ever written by Mr. George Kennan, or Mr. Step- niak, of Russian outrages. More than that. The prison- ers, who were cut about the heads by the clubs of the police till their clothing was covered with their blood, were not even given surgical attendance, but were left welter- ing in their gore all night. Has Mr. Kennan anything to say in condemnation of this " outrage " on American citizens? For the same, or less than the same, he has bitterly denounced the Russian authorities. Is that a crime and an infamy in Russia which in this country is right and commendable? What has he and other magazine writers to say about the arrest- ed Russian Nihilist's declaration that " a police captain in America has more power than the Emperor of Russia has in Russia?" I cordially endorse the action of the police in Newark on the occasion referred to above, as 1 endorse all action in favor of law and order, but I wish to call the attention of the American people to the declara- THE NEW EEA IN KUSSIA. 91 tion of a Russian Nihilist that he found in this country a police captain had more power than the Emperor of Russia had in his country. And with this 1 close the subject. Notwithstanding the frequent magazine articles and itinerant lectures about the cruelty of the Russian authori- ties to political prisoners, the internal improbability of the stories thus told, taken in conjunction with the unquestion- able fact that the people of Russia under the beneficent reign of Alexander 111. are happy, prosperous, and law- abiding, has had its effect upon thinking people, and a smile of incredulity, even of weariness, has gradually be- gun to replace the inquiring interest which at first greeted these stories. Mr. Stepniak, the brains of this outrage business, saw that, like Othello, his occupation would soon be gone unless he invented another and fresher kind of outrage; and the character of this presented itself to his mind very speedily. What was its character is indicated by the sudden and terrible stories told of the horrible persecutions to which the Jews were so abruptly subjected in Russia. The world first heard of these amazing cruelties some time after the submission to the Emperor of General Igna- tieff's proposed law on the better regulation of the Jews in the Empire, that is to say, to remove as far as possible the wide divergencies in customs, manners, &c, existing be- tween the Jews and the Russians, to homogenize them, so to speak, with the great bulk of the Empire's subjects. This was in 1882. The proposed law was not accepted. But Mr. Stepniak saw his opportunity to arouse the indig- nation of a liberal age by playing upon its sympathies and 92 THE NEW ERA IN RUSSIA. ignorance. Eussia is a far-off country, and the means that other countries have of getting accurate information as to the doings of that government and people, are not so per- fected as they are in Western Europe and the United States. The " atrocious persecution " of the Jews in Rus- sia was given to the world in piecemeal, until finally in the beginning of 1890, mankind was horrified to learn that a wholesale order of banishment, proscription, and confisca- tion was issued by the Eussian Government against that class of its subjects. Naturally enough the question was asked by almost everybody if this news was really true, and if so, what was the motive underlying it. In the United States Congress a resolution was introduced by Mr. Charles S. Baker, of New York, calling upon the President to interfere on be- half of the persecuted people as far as international court- esy would permit. Upon the Secretary of State devolved the duty of executing these wishes of Congress, and he did so with his accustomed promptness and thoroughness. His report stated there was absolutely no truth in the stories — that no thought had ever been given to the perse- cution of the Jews in Eussia. For satisfactory reasons the Eussian Government had determined to issue regulations of a purely domestic character in the interests of industry, and the Jews as well as all other classes of Eussian sub- jects were affected by them. This, however, was a matter purely within the scope of a Government, and it was one' with which other nations had nothing whatever to do. Mr. Blaine's report settled, once for all, the talk about Eussian persecution of the Jews. As, however, a number THE NEW ERA IN RUSSIA. 93 of these Russian Jews have come to this country in the last two or three years, a few words about them as they live in Russia will be apropos. The Jews in the Russian Empire are peculiarly clannish and conservative. They adhere with remarkable tenacity to mediaeval customs, habits, even modes of thought. Throughout the Empire those of the Jews who are subur- ban or rural in their residences are distributed chiefly along the frontiers, though they also are to be found in the in- terior in the small towns. The great bulk of them avoid large cities. Living, therefore, on the frontiers mostly, they have opportunities for smuggling which so acute and clannish a people could utilize to a great extent. And this they have done. Almost every Jew on the frontiers of Russia is a smuggler. To break up the system of de- frauding the revenue it has been found necessary tt> order that they be distributed at points remoter from the fron- tiers. This is the only " persecution " that the Jews have been subjected to in Russia. No restriction whatever is placed on the exercise of their religious belief. To one who is acquainted with Russia it is the height of absurdity to speak of the Russian Government persecuting people for religion's sake. There is no country in the world, not even the United States, where there is greater religious freedom than in Russia. The Government is heartily in favor of having the Jews adopt the advice of the great He- brew philanthropist, Baron De Hirsch, who counsels them to assimilate with the Christians not only in Russia but throughout the world, as their co-religionists have done in France, England, and the United States. In other words, 94 THE NEW ERA IN" RUSSIA. he counsels them to renounce their mediaeval customs, obey the laws, and, while preserving their religion to the utmost, to become Russian citizens just as Hebrews in the United States, while ardent Israelites in religion, are loyal and earnest and thoroughly nationalized Americans as cit- izens. There is no persecution for religion's sake, let it be distinctly understood, in Eussia. This Jew question in Russia is a very difficult one in- deed, and one not fully understood outside that Empire. It must be remembered that the Russian Jew (except in very rare cases, chiefly among many of the students of the universities, where he is frequently an Anarchist and an in- fidel) holds himself aloof from all races but his own. He will not even eat from the same plate as his neighbor of another religion, and considers all others than himself as heathens. They even have a peculiar language of their own, which they use among themselves, and con- sider it a sin to speak Russian in their own house- holds. The intense narrow and bigoted character of the Russian and Polish Jew is well known by American Hebrews, who hold no sympathy with their brethren of the Russian Empire, except, of course, a relig- ious one. The American or French or English Hebrew is a bright-minded, liberal, progressive citizen of the country he resides in. He holds fast to the dogmas of his faith, but he does not wish to carry into his private or social life the customs and manners of the tenth or the twelfth cent- ury. This last is what the Russian and Polish Jew does, and with his inveterate disposition to engage in smuggling and his merciless tendency as an usurer, he causes a great THE NEW ERA IK RUSSIA. 95 deal of thought to the Russian statesman. So numerous as the Jew is in that Empire, and living in such exclusive clannishness, it will be seen that the problem of dealing with and assimilating him to his fellow Russian subjects is a perplexing one indeed. Let the Jew in Russia assimi- late with his fellow-subject, as the Hebrew does in the United States, and he will be treated not only well by the Russian Government, but with marked favor. For the Russian Jew, like his Hebrew co-religionist everywhere, is quick-witted, shrewd, temperate, a man of unusual com- mercial intelligence, is readily susceptible of the highest culture, and, when progressive, as in England and Amer- ica, 'makes the most desirable of citizens. Until the Rus- sian Jew, however, does assimilate himself to his fellow- citizen, it can not be expected that he will not be closely watched by a government of which he makes no effort to become a progressive citizen. Recurring to Mr. Stepniak, and noting the fact that he is loud in his professions of being a true Russian patriot, an ardent lover of his country and his people, it seems strange that he goes away from that country and settles in another which is most inimical to his own, where he predicts and plots the disruption and destruction of the Russian "Empire. If he were in reality what he professes to be he would un- doubtedly return to his country, attach himself to the Na- tional Progressive party, which in Russia is the Imperialist Party, and by all legitimate means endeavor, as every true Russian in the past has done, every true Russian in the present is doing, to render assistance to the Imperial Gov- ernment in its great work of educating and elevating the 96 THE NEW EEA IN EUSSIA. masses, and developing the resources of the Empire. Under the beneficent reign of Alexander III. this truly great work is being carried on vigorously — ay, magnifi- cently. With serfdom abolished, with the jurisprudence of the Empire remodeled to meet the requirements of an advanced thought and an enlightened age, the most admir- able progress marks the course of the Emperor's efforts in behalf of his people and his Empire. To aid in the great work is, as I have said, the duty of every true Eussian pa- triot. Mr. Stepniak* s failure to do so is inexplicable, if he really is honest in proclaiming himself a sincere Eussian patriot. The gross inconsistency between his professions and .his actions, however, compels me to read between the lines. And the result of my reading will doubtless be in- teresting to both Mr. Stepniak and to the American people. It will also explain why the "United States and Eastern Asia have been the selected theater for the exhibition of " Nihilistic " literature. Mr. Stepniak is aware, no doubt, that the English have translated and are still translating into all the Oriental lan- guages all his manufactured outrage stories, as well as those of his imitator and disciple, Mr. Kennan, and are distributing them by the ton over Asia, particularly India and Central Asia. Immense quantities of this literature are also put broadcast all over the United States. The ob- ject of this literary activity of the English in this direction is to arouse in the people of the United States, of Central Asia, and of India a hatred of Eussia, a dislike of her peo- ple and her laws, and a distrust for their own personal and pecuniary security in that Empire as shall operate to pre- THE NEW ERA IN RUSSIA. 97 vent free commercial intercourse between the different na- tions and check the growing manufacturing and commer- cial progress of Russia. For the commercial and manu- facturing industries of the Russian Empire are developing with great rapidity. She is attracting to herself the trade of Central Asia and India, to the exclusion of the English, while the United States and Eussia are fast becoming val- uable customers in trade of each other. To so frighten the merchants of Central Asia, the princes and traders of India, and to so awaken the indignation of America at these repeated instances of Russian cruelty that practically all intercourse will be abandoned between these countries, and England left without a rival, is the object of scatter- ing broadcast these documents. For if these stories should be believed the fear of the insecurity of capital and of the danger to life in Russia, the primary foundation of com- merce, would efficiently prevent foreign merchants trusting their lives or money in Russian hands. If this wily scheme of English diplomacy had been successful, the United States would have been shut out of a growing and valuable market. It failed, however — failed not only with the East but with the United States. For at the last great fair at Nijni Novgorod there were exhibited cutlery from Connecticut and shirtings from Atlanta, Ga., in active competition with the hardware of Sheffield and the cottons of Manchester. So Mr. Stepniak, on the one hand, and Mr. Kennan on the other, have failed in their efforts to aid the English manufacturers in the " patriotic " effort to injure their own countries by checking their trade and arresting their industrial development. 4 98 THE NEW ERA IN RUSSIA. So also have their efforts failed to deter merchants and other traders of Central Asia and India from trading with Eussia. On the contrary the commercial intercourse be- tween these countries was never so brisk as now, and in a short time Eussia will monopolize the whole trade of the Orient to the exclusion of her wily and unscrupulous rival, England, notwithstan