The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1904-03-13
PRESS UNDERGROUND
Printing of a Revolutionary
Jewish Magazine.
SPIES BESTED FOR YEARS
How Literature Is Struggled
Across the Frontier.

from twenty-four TO thirty pages is pub
lished in Russia every month, and for the
last five years the spies and detectives
of the police have been searching in
vain for the place of its publication. From
the same press come many proclamations,
handbills, and booklets of a revolutionary
character, which are spread broadcast
throughout the Cars dominions
The members of the General Jewish
Workingmens' League of Russia and Po-
land, who engage in the publication and
the distribution of revolutionary matter,
are constantly smuggling revolutionary
pamphlets across the frontier. The adj
ventures which this business is contra
band literature leads to and the many
narrow escapes the smugglers have
would furnish great fund of material for
romantic noveists, but for the greater
part these stories will remain untold. A
few striking incidents of this underground
Journalism may be related here.
To begin with. there is the secret press
Of the Bund the Jewish Workingmen's
League referred 10. AS has been said
the printing of the twenty-four page
monthly journal of the league, which is
called the Workers Voice, has been kept
up for five years.
This is the second press of the Bund,
the first one having been discovered by
the police and destroyed five years ago
The Bundists who were working on the
paper at that time were all arrested, but
ten days later the Workers Voice. better
printed than before and full of new life
came out again.
-bo CD oil
sent for varying terms to Siberia, but the
Bund soon filled their places. To show
the enterprise Of the Bund. it may be
said that the press on which the new
issue of the magazine was printed was a
new one, the printing material was all
new. and all had been obtained within
ten days after the confiscation of the first
press.
The Voice as produced by the first press
was very crude affair, the copies being
proof slips taken from the galleys, but
the copies of the new issue that found
their way into the hands of the govern
ment officials were neatly printed. Since
then the Bund has set up other presses.
Where are these presses located? How
is the bulky material handled? How is
II that no sounds are heard by people
living near the printing shops? Where
does the paper come from? How is il
brought into the country? Such are the
questions which for the past five years
have puzzled the government officials.
Light will be thrown upon these mat
ters by an account of how the Voice
was got out by the men in charge OF the
first press The printing place was in
the city of Babroisk. In the Jewish
quarter there was a married carpenter.
In the same house was another Jewish
family.
The carpenter had little outside custom,
and the neighbors had the impression
that he worked at home for a furniture
factory. Often they saw packages car
ried out, and believing them to be articles
of furniture the matter caused no COM
ment. The real business carried on in
the house was described to the writer
by member of the Bund
once when 1 visited the house ]
brought a package of lead type. The
package was quite large and heavy, but
no embarrassing attention was caused.
4 entered the house with the carpenter
whom | had met at the station. The first
room was TO outward appearance an or
binary carpenters shop.
The second room was well furnished
In the center was a fine tea table COW
cred with a big cloth on which stood a
lamp.
In a corner Of the room was a closet
OF a printing shop there was not the
least indication. Yet the most important
part Of the plant was In this room.
The carpenter took the lamp and the
cloth off the table. took hold of one edge
OF the table. and the pretty painted
board moved Underneath there was dis
closed a large, shallow box, and in this
box were a numbed of smaller boxes
filed with type. Here the type was set
up.
when any sound caused suspicion the
board was slid into place. the cover put
on. the lamp placed back on the table and
all was as before.
The great difficulty TO me was where
the printer kept the mass of paper neces-
sary. He took me to the closet. and
touched springs here. setting In motion
hidden machinery. Various compa rtments
were disclosed, in which there was ample
room to store paper and other things
needed in the printing Of the Voice
The third room was dark In this
room there was a fiat stone. upon which
the type was laid and the forms locked
and printed proofs being all that the
Voice consisted Of at that time. All was
very crude but effective
Five hundred papers in an hour have
been printed by hand. as the printers were
very expert and had devised an arrange
ment Of rollers To run the papers more
rapidly over the face Of the type When
q number OF the papers had been printed
members of the Bund would come and
carry them away.
There was never a printed paper al
lowed to stay in the house. If the police
should happen to raid the house the
Bundists figured out. it would not do To
lose the current issue Of the paper.
The carpenter was a natural mechanic
and was constantly improving the plant.
Even in those days. before the discovery
OF the hand press. the Bund was engaged
with the problem OF making press that
shcIld work without noise 1t was at
last made. but was not installed in Bah
rosk but in another city. the secret of
which remains with the Bund"
One Of the printers who worked on the
old plant in Babroisk related the follow
ing:
when I worked in Babroisk I lived in
room in part OF the city away from
the press Ny room was sort OF dis
tributing point
we took there printed matter until IL
could be carried out Of the city. There
were many other distributing points in
the city.