The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-07-29
THE MuRDERKD MINISTER.

2 s 2 Q E q .
 Predecessor Was Also Assassinated.
 Senator 2on Plenye was appointed minister Of the Interior April IS, 1902,
 succeeding M. sipiaguine, who was as- sassinated on April 1s; 1902, by a student named BaImaschoff. He had formerly been director of the department of po- 1 lice, which position he practically as stunned of his own accord, when in
 charge of the department of police pros-
 cautions, owing to the incompetency of the official who was in charg eof the police when Alexander II. was killed on
 March 1S, 1881. NJ. Plehve conducted the prosecution of the regicides and after?
 wards reorganized the police From that time his power increased until he became only second in importance to that of the czar. Several plots to assis-
 sinate the minister, according to re- ports, have been discovered during the last two years, which period has been
 marked by strong political rivalry be- tween the interior minister and the former minister of finance. M. Witte,
 now president of the committee of min isters.
 1 M. PIehve was not scholar, but from l his youth he had been brought up in lofflciaI circles and he slowly but surely pushed himself ahead. Before the czar called him to take the portfolio of min lister of the interior he had already lspent about forty years in official york; and at the time of his death he was about sixty-six years old. The educat- led youths of Russia are said to have been bitterly opposed to him, owing, it has been claimed to his turning on his town people, and to the drastic changes which he inaugurated or advocated. He is said to have regarded the common people as either dangerous criminals to be repressed, or as innocents to be ig- |nored. He was largely of Polish blood, yet. 1t is alleged, no man in Russia has so signalized himself for severity against the Poles as M. Plehve. He was regarded as being in many ways the power behind the throne, and was dreaded on account of his control of the third (secret) section of police and also owing to the fact that he con
 trolled the press of Russia through the censors, who, it has been understood, did his bidding without question. In
 May, 1903 M. Plehve was appointed
 president of the imperial commission appointed to carry out the czar's reform
 decree
 What part, if any, M. von Plehve ac-
 tually played in the Kicheneff massa-
 cres will probably never be known;
 but his enemies have claimed that he
 had full knowledge of the events lead
 ing thereto, through his political friend
 and agent, Krushevan, known as the
 most extreme anti-Semite in Russia,
 and proprietor of the Bessarabetz, a
 newspaper at Kislieneff. The latter is
 said to have prepared the minds of the
 people of Kisherleff for trouble by pub
 fishing a series of strongly worded an
 ti-Sernite articles. The object of von
 Plehve in this matter, according to the
 charges made at the time, was to di-
 vert the attention of the people at large from the government. It should
 be added that the allegations made
 against M. von PleIve have never been
 proved to De founded on fact, and in |.view of the Czar's inquiry into the matter and the fact that von Plehve re- tained his confidence, it is only just to
 assume that the charges were unfound-
 ed.
 The last great public work of von
 PIehve, so far as known, was the draft ing of the Peasant code, early this year. This is a scheme of peasant re-
 form, ordered by the czar in his re- cent manifesto. By this scheme meni-