Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1905-12-13
PEASANTS ARE ON
BRINK OF STARVATION
Appeal to Charitable People of
America.
TO MAKE LACE AND EMBROIDERY
Political Parties Struggling for Mas
terry in Russia-"Black Masses" Com.
prise 80 Per Cent of 10000, 900 Peo-
pIe-Want to Depose Nicholas.

ple-Want to Depose Nicholas.
st. Petersburg, Dec. 12.-Although
the government is making efforts to re-
lieve the famine in the five provinces
where the crops failed last summer,
the work is being greatly embarrassed
by the unsettled conditions and al
| ready pitiful tales of distress are pour
ing in from remote districts.
Peasants and their families are
starving, and private relief is being
sent. Appeals are being sent out not
only through Russia, but to foreign
| countries. The situation in the prov
| tnce of Orel is very acute and the mar
shals of the nobility have requested
the Associated Press to make pratic-
| ularly strong appeal to the charitable
and humanity of the Americans
! whose harvests have been so bountiful
this year. They ask that donations
should be sent to Alexander Alexan-
drovitch Stakovich, one of the promi-
nent Liberal leaders of Eletz. govern
Ii
bank of that place. The committee
is arranging to institute dining rooms
and bakeries where the starving Mou-
5iks and their families can be fed dur
ing the winter and also to arrange sta
tions for the distribution of fodder
for the horses and the cattle of the
farmers, the death of which would be
an untold calamity to them.
The women of the district have been
put to work making lace and peasant
| embroidery by the sale of which it is
| hoped to increase the funds at the dis.
posal of the committee
In Orel province, especially the fam
tne promises to be much more severe
than that of 1891, when the American
people so generously sent ship load
| Of wheat and corn to the starving
While it is impossible in the pres
ent confusion to clearly outline the va
rious political forces which are strug-
Cling for mastery in Russia, the for.
eign student of Russian affairs can,
with profit, bear in mind the general
party divisions as at present constitut-
ed. Perhaps first of all in the order of
Importance, is the party of reaction,
not at court, but among the mobiles
| who believe in the old regime and
| among the great mass of the peasan-
try, who still believe that all good
flows from the Little Father" and the
church, and who continue extremely
hostile to the "inteligencia," which
is regarded as part of the machin-
cry for their oppression.
The "black Masses" the term by
which the ignorant peasantry who com
prise 80 per cent of Russia's 140 000,-
600 people, are known, can, at any
time, turn the scale. The peasants may
| rise. burn and pillage and murder
landlords, but there is no evidence that
| the allegiance of more than an in
f1nitesmal fraction turned against the
emperor In skillful hands they, there
fore, always will constitute an immense
influence in favor of counter-reyolu-
ton. There are two parties in which
the peasantry might eventually be i'm
| pressed, and which might make up the
extreme right. consisting of those who
will never forgive the emperor for alb
| rogattng his autocratic power. They
talk of the necessity of deposing Mich
Olas and electing a new emperor
Prince DolgOrouki, of Moscow. one of
the descendants of the ruriks, is their
avowed candidate.
One of these parties was organized
last April by Baron George Rosen La
Genike, and others, who are in favor
| OF sustaining the advocacy. The issue
of the imperial manifesto, another par
| ty called the Holy Alliance, for nation
| al self-protection, was organized un-
der the leadership of Count Bobrinski
| and M. Shermatieff 1t summons all
true sons of Holy Russia to battle for
"the teachings of Christ, the emperor
and the fatherland."
All the church banner bearers of
Moscow's 500 churches, who alone num-
Der 100000, have been enrolled in it's
ranks
These parties might eventually sus-
tain military dictatorship against
the revolutionary forces.
| Immediately to the left of this party
OF reaction might be placed the moder-
ate conservatives, wno support Count
| Witte in the introduction of a new re-
| gime They comprise the conserva-
I tive Zemstyo elements under the lead
ership of Dmitri Shipoff, NJ Gouchkoff
and Michael Stakovich, and they have
| organized two parties called respec-
| lively the League, of October Thirtietn
and the party of Law and Order, with
the Novoe Vremya and the Slovo as
their organs. Their platform calls
for the realization of the reforms prom
| ised for the integrity of thes empire
and for a strong central government.
Now come the parties favoring the
complete overthrow Of the government
I-the Social Democrats, Radical Dem
ocrats, Social Revolutionaries and An.
archives. The former, by far the best
organized, is in favor first, of Dem
ocratic republic, and the latter for the
attainment of the dream of regime OF
universal socialism. The radical Dem
ocrats form connecting link with the
Socialist Reyolutionaries. Their pro.
CRANE includes Democratic republic
with single parliamentary chamber,
ministers elected from the majority OF
the various nationalities, full autono-
my. the abrogation of all titles and
ranks and the extension of the suf-
frage to the people.
The program of the anarchists is
held a secret.
| Strike Situation Unchanged.
1 Waycross, Ca, Dec. 12.-The strike
situation on the Atlantic and Birming-
ham railway is virtually unchanged
from Yesterday. II is claimed by the