Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1914-06-18
WESTERN RUSSlAlS
ATTRACTING CHINESE
Hordes of Them Pouring Across
Border and Yellow Peril
Is Real.

Special Correspondent. New York World
Hastily. as a matter of urgent, SAM
tary necessity. Moscow has presented
to it's Chinese population a burial
ground.
The information has aroused discus
sion of a phenomenon that threatens
grave trouble to the social conditions
of the humber masses in Russia. From
all points Of the up to ST
Petersburg. kieff n the western
cities, come narratives of a migratory
flow Of Chinese men comparatively
few women) who are mostly .beggars;
some selling paper toys or offering to
do juggling tricks; the most prosper
Gus calling at the back s%taircases from
house to house, offering to sell piece
goods Of Chinese silk.
Evidently Moscow is to nave the
Chinatown in Russia. 1t is the Euro
pean terminus Of the trans Siberian
railroad. and Russian students of the
Chinese question ascribe the present
formidable influx to the knowledge
which is now widespread among
Cinnamon of the details and comfort
of the overland voyage west to Europe.
Until within a few years there we're
astonishingly few distinctly Asiatics of
the Chinese type to be seen in Euro
pean Russia. During all the centuries
of LAM neighborship the wandering
Chinaman was discouraged from tour
ing into Russia by the length and
blackness of the road. by the s~tagnant
life of rural' Russia and by the rigid
city administration, which offered no
accommodation to foreign colonies. The
war in Manchuria, the political dis
turbance in Russia and in China, and
the building of the A1nur railroad, the
great new. north arm of the trans
Siberian running out to the Pacific,
have one after the other given China
men a familiarity with Russians and
Russia; n now, unlimited, the locust
swarm is overspreading the empire Of
the car.
flowing over the track oftthe trans
Siberian, it is nearly a physical impos-
slbility to check it. There is no par
ticular gateway that can be stopped,
and the wanderers can drop off the
train before it comes to any big ter
minus and walk the rest of the Jour
ney.
l. They do not use any mail expresses;
but they have got exactly the rolling
stock they require in the returning
plough trains that have taken the
state-aided peasant settlers east to the
manage to start with a little money or
do a bit Of work on the line and are
given tickets.
The governor general of the Amur
territory, G%ondatti, who is now Rus
sia's viceroy of the far east, takes the
peoples. He employs non of them on
the Amur railroad and even excludes
them from the markets and townships
of the railroad building population. In
this he had to fight both Kokovtsoff,
the late nance minister and premier,
lister. The former wishes to employ
Cinnamon for the sake OF cheapness,
and Sazonoff sought to avoid treaty
trouble with Japan n China. But
Gondatti won; and there is now the
curious spectacle Of the Chinese being
barred out of Russia's far east beyond
1rkutsk, and Of their turning west in
thousands into European Russia.
1t is characteristic that the Russian
department of the interior has nothing
against themS if they We're Firms or
Poles or any community having politi-
cal intelligence they wonld 500 be
harTied into such discomfort as would
make them sorry that they had made
the experiment. But they are potential
yellow labor, although so far they APP
pear to be only l~oafers. Their presence
is used to recall the experiment Of Chi
nese dor in the Transvaal gold mines.
The capitalists Of some great enter
prises in Russia who. have trouble with
their work people speak Of them as a
cheap reserve. They are thus destined
to be very unpopular; but as there is
no public opinion or possibility of overt
manifestation sof sentiment in Russia
they come along by the train load with
out n government or political oppo-
sition.
1t was found necessary to give then
a burial ground in Moscow only when
several cases had been published OF
dead Cinnamon wrapped in cloth be-
ing found in the waste land around the
city. They proved to have died natural
deaths. and it was the only burial their
friends could give them.
There is always a considerable cpl
demic Of smallpox in Russia, and the
Chinese are blamed for bringing more
of it. IT they have. dangerous infec-
ton 1t is certain that they are spread
Ing 1t. for In any evening a tour Of the
cheap tea houses Of the Moscow quar-
ter near the Siberian station will show
that there is not one but has some Chi
namen init.
It is out Of the question to refuse
them admission. and the Russian
shows no open animosity to people who
Keep quiet. With the q%uickened circu-
lation Of money that has followed the
state-aided purchase of the peasant
communes for freehold farmers there
is springing up aliving for a population
OF peddlers, .and there is no visible
means of keeping the Cinnamon out
OF 1T II the government takes no action.
Russia is now for the first time at
close grips with the yellow problem in
IT'S 1u!l shape. with the added handicap
tnat the two countries have some thou
sands OF miles ,of continuous lane from
tier which makes locking out impos-
sible.
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