Montana news. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1904-191?, 1905-04-05

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knowledge threw him into the
company of many students whose
liberal ideas were greatly to his
liking. The students of Russia
are almost a unit in their desire 10
overturn the existing government.
Soon after this he obtained the
first approximation to congenial
employment in the Office of a
lawyer by the name of Lanin. His
employer befriended him, and
sought to give him advantages
in every way, but the conventions
of social life proved irksome to
his free spirit and he went back
to vagabondage, seeing many
places, and consorting with the
slough of society.
After two years of this sort of
life we find him working in the
railroad shops at Tiflis, and here
his first tale was written and pub
lished.
His stories, while welcomed by
editors from the first, attracted no
great attention until he met
Vladimir Korslenko, a gifted and
popular writer. Korslenko saw
the stuff in him, lifted him up
and set him on his feet as it were,
taught him the technique of hand
ling language as an instrument
of expression, and inspired him
with the confidence that comes
of conscious knowledge of his
path.
When "Chelkash" came out he
leaped at one bound into the ranks
of Russias great men. He be-
came the ideal of the populace,
and bourgeois intellectuals were
compelled to give grudging
recognition of his power and
genius. The three great political
parties of Russia, the Conserva-
tives, the Nationalists, and the
Marxians, as the Socialists are
called. quarreled with each other
over his possession.
His definite allegiance, however,
has been given to the Socialists.
His powerful intellect, his bitter
hatred of class oppression and
despotic authority could land him
nowhere else, and he has given his
active work to both the party, and
the Socialist press.
He has been elected a member
of the Imperial Academy of
Science, said to be the highest
honor to which Russian writer
can aspire. The election was
nullihed by the government on
the ground that he was under
police surveillance as a menace
to law and order.
He was thrown into Jail in 1901
for joining in a protest of liter
airy men against the brutality of
the police to students and work
men. He was given permission
to leave the country and go south
on account of his failing health.
A banquet was given him at
Novgorod, his native town, on his
release from prison. A similar one
was prepared for him on his ar
rival at Moscow, but the police
boarded the train and sent him
on by another route. They did
not propose that he should be
lionized by the public.
+. ]. Dillon, one of his critics.
says: "a happy marriage, two
charming children, literary Sue
cess, some $4,000 a year, con-
genial companionship, the realiza-
ton of purpose in his life, while
he has calmly consented to the
customs about him. have not
changed his condemnation OF
human society as at present or
ganized, or caused him to pretend
to acquiesce in the principles OF
moral action of which those con-
ventions are the faint reflex. He
has remained faithful to the
theory that for men of noble
thoughts, commanding intellect
and high resolves there is no
place in this system of claw and
order"
To-day, broken in health, he is
imprisoned near Riga, for signing
his name to the petitions for free
dom, and for sympathizing with
the revolt against the outrageous
oppression of the brutes in power,
and the word comes that he is to
be tried by the government for
assisting in documents tending