The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1906-10-03
ARMY CAR MUST FEAR
Five Million Wandering Peas
ants Who Demand Land.

DIR. Mackenzie Wallace Describes
Miserable Condition of Trekking
AgricuIturists In Search of Harvest
EmpIOyment-WOrke on by RevO-
IutiOnists, Each One Returns Home
"a Firebrand.
Further light upon the great tragedy
that is being enacted in Russia is
thrown by DR.. Mackenzie Wallace in
the London Times, where he discusses
the condition of the landless peasant,
says a special cable dispatch to the
New York Sun. He is now living in
the open air with a company which is
one contingent of q vast host of 5,000,
600 trekking agriculturists. He is
with a band who left their homes
months ago, according to the annual
custom. to seek work on the crops in
other parts of the empire. They are
now returning.
THE lot of these wanderers" says
DR.. Wallace lis miserable enough
God knows. Most of them are from
Little Russia and the steppe provinces.
Some Of them travel as far as 1000
versts. They are absent from their
villages from two to six months, and
their average wage is 3S rubles, of
which they have d minimum outlay
of u rubles for passport and food en-
route. This leaves II rubles, which
makes an average wage of IA kopecks,
or 9 cents a day Some travel by train
in fourth class or on the slOweSt VolGa
boats part Of the way, but multitudes
go on foot They spend the night
wherever they happen to be when
darkness falls. They suffer innTmer-
able privations from hunger, cold, heat
and sickness, and finally, if they sur
vive, they reach their destination with
all their strength spent before they
have begun work.
Land give us landv these peasants
cry. Nor do they dream of compensat-
ing any of the present landowners
whom they may dispOssess. At the
bottom of their hearts is the ineradica-
BILE conviction that a man who works
on the land has a natural right to it.
which if put in the balance against all
the positive laws of property makes
them kick the beam. We are the
Lords they say, and the land Is ours
| Yes; they still believe In the Lord, and
before they lie down on empty stom-
! achs on the steppe they commit them
selves by the sign of the cross to the
| divine care. They believe, too, in the
! Blessed Virgin and the saints and in
icons and heaven and he'll. This steppe
| over which they wander loses itself in
the dim horizon, where the earth and
| sky mingle and are lost, and there is a
mystical background encompassing
these wanderers lives, in the midst of
which are superstitions and portents.
/ "In the Russian revolution what is
these peasants role? 1t was discovered
| to me by a man who had been the
| companion of my journeyings for two
| days. He forced his company upon
me, for while I was driving across the
| country he sprang upon me from be
| hind q tree and made the demand
| which, almost with Impotence, had
long expected to hear, Hands up
Even if l had possessed revolver
should not have fired, for l could have
blown the wretch out of existence with
a puff of smoke from my cigarette. l
| have seen pitiable specimens Of hui
mainly in my day, but none ever stir
| rod my oOuonaeSiOu ca DrOfO1OdIV 9S
this man, and I cheerfully gave him
! the few rubles 1 had and some of my
| cigarettes.
| "As he smoked he told me his history.
! For political Offense he had been pro
vided by an administrative order with
what the peasants appropriately call a
| VOLTS passport, which forces him to be
/ a perpetual wanderer on the face Of the
earth or such part of it as is under the