Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1891-10-30
RUSSIAN PERSECUTION.
1T Is NOT DUE TO RACE OR RE-
LlGlOUS PREJUDICE.

At Least That Is the View Held by Gan
" Observation-Disclosures the Objection
able Measures BE Extended to Include
and Other Foreigners?
Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, Oct. 19.-It is officially an
nounced ut st. Petersburg that the car is
about to issue a ukase, drafted by the
council of the empire, extending the des-
potic and oppressive measures hitherto ap-
piled exclusively to the Jews to all aliens
and to every Russian subject who is not
of Muscovite origin OF a member of the
national orthodox church. This is mani
testify aimed at the large and important
body Of citizens of German race who, to-
gether with the Jews, constitute the most
prosperous element of the Russian empire.
1t is precisely this prosperity, and not, as
generally supposed, mere questions of doc.
trine n faith, that is at the root of all
the present intolerant policy of the Mus
covite government. The latter is in1u-
enced and directed in the course which it
is now pursuing, not by considerations of
~nationalism or religion, but by considera-
tions that are of a purely economic char
acter.
Indeed, the persecution to which the
Jews have recently been subjected, n
which is now about to be applied to the
cars subjects of German race, is a tribute
which may be described as striking in
more senses than one-tot the thrift, the in.
dustry, the commercial enterprise and in
tegrity of those of the Russians who hap
pen to have Teutonic or Hebrew blood in
their veins. l may add that had the i'm
perial government followed it's inclina.
tiors, it would have inaugurated its pres.
ent reign of terror by dealing with the
Germans first, and then with the Jews, in
stead Of giving the latter the precedence.
For the 5000, 900 of Germans, owing to the
superior privileges and immunities which
they enjoyed until the accession to the
throne of Alexander III, have attained toa
higher degree of prosperity and are there
fore more obnoxious thar the Hebrews.
But the latter nave unfortunately no
government willing to espouse their cause
Wis ct armae. From a political point OF
view, they are friendless, and hence the
car incurred NJ risk of complications with
any foreign power on their account. 1t
was owing to this that he tackled them
first, leaving the Germans until such time
as he would be fully prepared to resent and
resist intervention in their behalf by EN-
peror William.
I have stated above that the motives of
the czar's attitude toward his Hebrew and
German subjects are of al economic
character. 1t is only fair to add that they
are also prompted by patriotism, although
of a shortsighted and misguided kind.
While the thrifty, Industrious. and enter
prising Germans and Jews have gone on
steadily improving their financial condition
and achieving wealth and prosperity on
every side, those of the czar's lieges with
Slav blood in their veins have, thanks to
their Incidence, their ~improvidence and
general "shiftlessness," been going down
hill at such a pace as to render their situa-
ton desperate in the extreme.
The contrast between the orthodox and
the unorthodoX subjects of the czar-be-
tween the starving Russian peasantry and
beggared nobility on one hand and the
we'll to do, thriving German and Hebrew
colonists on the other-has become too
startling and too glazing not to raise SEN
timents of the bitterest animosity on the
part of the former coward the latter. In
seeking to drive out of the empire all those
Of his subjects who do not belong to the
Slav race, Alexander III is only obeying an
irresistible national movement which
would certainly develop not merely into
an agrarian insurrection. but into a ma
tional revolution, were he to attempt to
run counter thereto.
The condition of the nobility and of the
"Barine" or landowner class has attained
the very lowest degree of distress. There
is scarcely an acre of their land which is
not mortgaged up to the very hilt and sub
ject to foreclosure and sale on account of
the nonpayment of interest. Indeed, the
last issue received here of the Weekly Re-
port or Journal of the Imperial Ministry
of Finance contains no less than twenty
eight pages devoted to a closely printed
list of the enormous number of landed
properties, the mortgages on which nave
just been foreclosed by the so called Agra
rian bank of the nobility. The original
owners may be therefore regarded as with
out resources and penniless. Still worse is
the condition of the indolent, drunken and
degraded %peasantry, who, having no money
to purchase seed, leave their strip of COM
munal land untitled and uncultivated, and
resort to theft, robbery and in some authen-
ticated cases even to downright cannibal-
ism in order to keep themselves from starv-
ing.
The question as to whether the deplora-
BILE and desperate situation of both the no.
bility and ~peasantry is likely to be relieved
or improved in any way by the expulsion
from the empire of those of the cars sub
jects who do not belong to the Slav race, is
one upon which all sensible and unpreiu-
diced people must experience very serious
doubts. Indeed, history teaches us that
measures of this kind always affect the
perpetrators thereof far more injuriously
than the victims, and l need only cite the
cases of Spain and Portugal, once the most
powerful and prosperous countries of the
Old World, and whose decline dates from
the epoch when the Jews were barbarously
expelled from the Iberian peninsula.
But at any rate the Russian government
appears to anticipate that the people will
be less discontinued and less ripe for revo-
luton if they do not have the spectacle of
Jewish and German prosperity before
their eyes. In the case of the Germans,
this prosperity extends to almost every
branc of industry, both manufacturing
and agricultural, while with the Jews,
who are either legally or else practically