New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-10-18
THE SCOURG E OF RUSSIA.
THIRTY MILLION PEOPLE IN DANGER Or
STARVATION.
St. Petersburg, October I:


uoon part of a people of five or six millions
The present famine in Russia is starvation tor
five or six times five or six millions. Ihese
figures give some faint idea Of the magnitude Oh
the calamity Government officials report, not on
rough estimate, but after careful Investigation
that more than 100000 people in European
Russia are at this moment In danger OF actuai
starvation; q danger that can be averted only
by extraneous aid 1t is as though half the people
of the United States were absolutely destitute
having not a weeks food in hand, and not
dollar to procure it with. Such situation S
without comparable precedent in modern history
That it is not only possible, but is an actual fact
suggests some extraordinary considerations regard
ing the social and industrial economy oil tine EN-
pire and the responsibilities Of the paterhar
Government. II is anomaly, and IL seems
neXcusable, that such O famine should come 10
such country, and it is only to be accounted Ior
by some reason outside of the ordinary processes
of nature
In vague sort of way Russia is thought Of
as huge country, not thicky settled, ana largely
composed of wild forests and untitled plains
But this conception OF it is far from the trutn
Some one has called the Volga River the Mlssis-
sppi of Russia, and the name is not inaptly given
Just as aptly the whole of Southern Russia might
be compared with the basin of the Mississippi
IL has not its railroads and other highways, Its
progress intelligence and civilization. But IL
has its teeming population, its soil Of inexhausti-
bic richness, its abundant harvests, and, in the
rough all its vast potentiality of prosperous pro-
duction. Nature has done her best, and IL the
country has not come up to the standard OF
nature, the blame must be laid elsewhere. The
whole region is fitted, not for starvation, but for
feeding the world. The fact is that the great
farming regions Of Southern Russia are comparable
only with those of the Western United States In
extent and fertility. In the Don Cossack country
one may ride for miles acros, sirs,le farm, or
rancho, as the American would call it, Wheat
fields of 10000 acres In one unbroken expanse
are not uncommon. And the live stock Is cor
respondngly numerous. On o Cossack estate one
may find many hundreds Of horses, fine FLOODED
animals; the droves Of kline are past all number
ing; and to have 100000 sheep on single
pasture is not deemed extraordinary. The yield
per acre from these grain fields compares not un-
favorably with that in Dakota and California. II
the land were titled as intelligently in America
it would be fully productive. And the forage
grasses Of the pasture plains are as rich and
abundant as any In the world.
The blight Of all this splendid region may be
described in two words ignorance and fatalism.
1t is the policy Of the Cars Government to keep
the people ignorant. Never since teaching slaves
to read was penal offence in the Southern United
States has there been such a systematic and re-
lentless suppression Of popular intelligence as in
Russia to-day. The principle which the Gov
eminent acts is to make education proportionate
to wealth. The result is, Of course, that the
masses of the people, who have no property, are
denied all privileges Of instruction. So the peas
antry in what should be the garden Of all Europe
4 Il Al
and as lost to modern progress as the denizens of
mid.Africa Amid these boundless wheatfelds,
one sees them driving in primitive carts such as
were used in the time of Peter the Great. In
their homes they have no more of comfort or re-
finement than the Sioux in a Montana tepee
Nor can fatasm be found, more hopeless and
more baneful in Stamboul itself than among the
Russian people. Whatever evils fall upon them
they cry, 1t is the will of God!' and they go
straight on in the old way, inviting and insurng
a recurrence of the self-same evil. Such a thing
as learning from experience is utterly unknown.
The single instance of fires will show the deadly
extent of this trait Fire is the perennial of
Russia. The villages are all made of wood, and
all the houses are so connected that fire in one
is almost certain to sweep away the whole village
There are large towns that have for generations
been totally destroyed every few years. One house
catches fire, and the whole town goes, like row
Of tumbling- blocks. The people rush into the
street, ring the bells, bewal their loss and cry.
1t is Gods will" When the fire has burned
itself out they rebuild the town. But one could
as well persuade water to flow up hill as to get
them to take precautions against future con1agra-
tions by building houses detached from each other
or Of less combustible material than wood and
straw. 1t is the will of God, they think that the
town shall be periodically consumed So if
through their own stupidity or neglect any other
calamity befall them, it is the will of God. Nay
the status quo is itself the will of Cod If God
wanted them to have good roads, He would pro-
vide them; for men to alter what God has given
them is impiety. And so they hug their ignorance
and squalor to their hearts, and the fires and the
foods, and the famine, and content themselves
with repeating the parrot-cry 1T is the will Of
God!n
And so it comes to pass, as Soltykoff has said
that the Russian peasant wears boots of bast in
stead of leather, does not even know what
bed is, never eats meat or butter. but plods as
stupidity and as hopelessly as his oxen. They
come into the world like insects, and die like
summer flies" Wretched as he is, the Russian
peasant is so hardened SO callous that he scarcely
seems to realize his condition. Only the most ex-
IRENE proyocation can rouse his spirit A few
weeks ago, the sight of thousands of bushels OF
grain being shipped out of the country did madden
him. and there was wild outbreak of wrath
But even that has now subsidized The cry was
raised that it the Jewish Spectators who
were exporting grain, and so the wrath Of the
populacc was defty turned upon the muchsuffer-
ing Children Of Israel. The truth is that no Jews
were concerned in the grain shipments at all. The
spectators were. every one of them. Orthodox
Greek Christians
The only available food of some millions of
people is now what is called hunger bread" The
only Ingredient of this that bears any relation to
proper food consists of mill-sweepings and mill
yard scrapngs The latter is simply the upper
LAYER of the ground surrounding the mill Tt con-