The Missionary by J. W. Scoles

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 10, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 22.

The Missionary.

By J. W. Scoles

THE LAND OF THE CZARS. NO. 4.

VIEWED from anything like a liberal standpoint, the restrictions exercised over its subjects by the Russian Government are almost unbearable. One scarcely knows which to manifest the greatest wonder over, the thought that there is not more of the revolutionary spirit manifested than there is, or the fact that under the oppressive surveillance and espionage of the present system the people have any mind of their own left at all, and are not simply controlled, like so many cattle. A recent article by George Kennan, in the Century, so clearly sets forth the almost universal power assumed by the Government that we quote from it, as follows:—

“There is probably no country in the world where the public power occupies a wider field, plays a more important part, or touches the private personal life of the citizen at more points, than it does in Russia. In a country like England or the United States, where the people are the governing power, the functions of the police are simple and clearly defined, and are limited, for the most part, to the prevention or detection of crime, and the maintenance of order in public places. In Russia, however, where the people are not the governing power, but hold to that power the relation of an infant ward to a guardian, the police occupy a very different and much more important position.

“The theory upon which the Government of Russia proceeds is that the citizen not only is incapable of taking part in the management of the affairs of his country, his province, or his district, but is incompetent to manage even the affairs of his own household; and that, from the time when he leaves his cradle and begins the struggle of life, down to the time when his weary gray head is finally laid under the sod, he must be guided, directed, instructed, restrained, repressed, regulated, fenced in, fenced out, braced up, kept down, and made to do generally what somebody else thinks is best for him. The natural outcome of this paternal theory of government is the concentration of all administrative authority in the hands of a few high officials, and an enormous extension of the police power. Matters that in other countries are left to the discretion of the individual citizen, or to the judgment of a small group of citizens, are regulated in Russia by the Minister of the Interior, through the imperial police.

“If you are a Russian and wish to establish a newspaper, you must ask permission of the Minister of the Interior. If you wish to open a Sunday-school, or any sort of school, whether in a neglected slum of St. Petersburg or in a native village in Kamschatka, you must ask the permission of the Minister of Public Instruction. If you wish to give a concert or get up tableaux for the benefit of an orphan asylum, you must ask permission of the nearest representative of the Minister of the Interior, then submit your program of exercises to a censor for approval or revision, and finally hand over the proceeds of the entertainment to the police, to be embezzled or given to the orphan asylum, as it may happen. If you wish to sell newspapers on the street you must get permission, be registered in the books of the police, and wear a numbered brass plate as big as a saucer around your neck. If you wish to open a drug store, a printing office, a photograph gallery, or a book store you must get permission. If you are a photographer and desire to change the location of your place of business, you must get permission. If you are a student and go to a public library to consult Lyell’s ‘Principles of Geology’ or Spencer’s ‘Social Statics,’ you will find that you cannot even look at such dangerous and incendiary volumes without special permission. If you are a physician, you must get permission before you can practice, and then, if you do not wish to respond to calls in the night, you must have permission to refuse to go; furthermore, if you wish to prescribe what are known in Russia as ‘powerfully acting’ medicines, you must have special permission, or the druggist will not dare to fill your prescriptions. If you are a peasant and wish to build a bath-house on your premises, you must get permission. If you wish to thresh out your grain in the evening by candle-light, you must get permission or bribe the police. If you wish to go more than fifteen miles away from your home, you must get permission. If you are a foreign traveler you must get permission to come into the empire, permission to go out of it, permission to stay in it longer than six months, and must notify the police every time you change your boarding-place. In short, you cannot live, move, or have your being in the Russian Empire without permission.”

It can readily be seen that the amount of patronage which must necessarily exist under such a system as this can only be productive of great injustice to those who are so unfortunate as to come under the jurisdiction of the Government in the capacity of law-breakers. It makes little difference what the offense is, the accused party must always remain in confinement for the law to take its course, until his case has been passed from petty officer to superior officer, and from superior officer to judicial officer, and so on, through an almost interminable round of investigation, until at last it comes up before some official who may have hundreds of such cases on his hands already. The result is that the matter is remanded back to its original starting-point, or, as happens in too many instances, the case never reaches trial at all, but the victim is simply exiled by what is called “administrative process.” Concerning this most cruel and unjust way of dealing with suspected parties, I will defer writing until another time. J. W. SCOLES.