To properly understand the Russian Famine of 1891–92, and the relief work of the Red Cross connected therewith, one needs to keep in mind the ordinary moral and economic condition of the Russian peasantry. They were, many of them, not long ago serfs attached to the land in a condition but little better than American slaves. Though the liberation of the serfs made their legal condition better, it left them in condition scarcely less discouraging than before. They were subject to all the disabilities of hard bargains on every side, from the exactions of taxes levied in one way or another, and payable in services or goods, all of which called for an ever increasing sacrifice. They were subject to onerous military service, and penal exactions for violations of the law. These conditions surrounded them with an atmosphere of depressing poverty, fear and hopeless endurance, if not of despair. They have not felt the stimulating habitual influence of hope, of courage, of enterprise. They are not educated to surmount discouragements by overcoming them. Difficulties do not down easily before them; they go down before difficulties and disasters in something like apathetic despondency, or live in an amazing light-hearted, careless recklessness that easily turns to drink, to idleness, weakness, disease and early death. Fear is with them always, as if fate was over and against them.
The climate of Russia is cold in winter, and the means of cooking and artificial warmth are scanty, and not easily procured at any time; thus, when the famine really came upon them, observers were divided in opinion whether the famine, or fear of famine, or of something worse, destroyed or paralyzed these people the more.
The harvest yields of 1889 and 1890 had been much less than an average, and at the beginning of 1891 but little of the old supplies of grain was left over. The harvest of 1891 was nearly a total failure throughout a vast region in central Russia extending from Moscow, roughly speaking, say, three hundred miles in a northeasterly direction over a plain eight hundred to a thousand miles in width, beyond the Ural Mountains, and some distance into Siberia in Asiatic Russia—a district of nearly a million square miles. Ordinarily this is the most productive part of the Empire, upon which the remainder of the country had been accustomed to draw for food supplies in the frequent cases of deficiency elsewhere. The appearance of the country is similar to our prairie States in the early days before the growth of the planted trees; and the soil is a rich, black loam that usually produces good harvests.
It was estimated by those best qualified to judge that from thirty to thirty-five millions of people were sufferers by the famine of 1891.
Count Tolstoi on the Character of the Peasants.
Count Tolstoi gave up his whole time to mitigating the suffering caused by this great disaster, and to understanding the situation broadly. He went into the homes of the people, and studied their needs sympathetically; he placed himself by their side, and with his dramatic instinct understood them, ascertained where the hurt was felt, and how it could be cured, if it could be cured at all.
At that time the Count wrote of these poor, unfortunates: “I asked them what sort of a harvest they had had, and how they were getting along; and they replied in a blithe, off-hand manner: ‘Oh, right enough, God be praised!’ And yet these people who reside in the most distressed districts of the government of Toula, cannot possibly live through the winter, unless they bestir themselves in time. They are bound to die of hunger, or some disease engendered by hunger, as surely as a hive of bees left to face the rigors of a northern winter, without honey or sweets, must perish miserably before the advent of spring. The all-important question, therefore, is this: Will they exert themselves while yet they possess the strength, if, indeed, it be not already wholly exhausted? Everything that I saw or heard pointed with terrible distinctness to a negative reply. One of these farmers had sold out the meagre possessions which he could call his own, and had left for Moscow to work or beg. The others stayed on and waited with naive curiosity watching for what would happen next, like children, who, having fallen into a hole in the ice, or lost their way in a dense forest and not realizing at first the terrible danger of their situation, heartily laugh at its unwontedness.”
“Unless they bestir themselves in time”—what a text is this! They are all the time overborne by the apathy of fear, of unused powers, of suppression and depression. Courage, hope, enterprise to bestir themselves, where will they come from? Not, surely, from fear, and more discouragement.
The Beginning of the American Relief.
The work of the American National Red Cross in the Russian famine of 1891-92 was comparatively less than in some others of the conspicuous fields in which it had done its work. The impulse to help in the work of that relief sprang up simultaneously in many American hearts and homes, in New York, in Philadelphia, in Minnesota and Iowa. In Iowa it took the form of a veritable crusade for a most holy cause; beginning in the fervid and indomitable spirit of Miss Alice French—the “Octave Thanet” of literature—it quickly enlisted Mr. B.F. Tillinghast, editor of the Davenport Democrat, who became its director-in-chief and organizing force, everywhere organizing it, and promoting it in every direction and in every form. The movement was taken up by the women of Iowa, and Governor Boies became a prime mover, till the whole State at last joined in a triumphal march bearing corn, God’s best gift to man, to the Atlantic coast in a procession of two hundred and twenty-five carloads, exceeding five hundred bushels in each car. The corn was consigned to Clara Barton in New York and reached her agents there without accident or delay.
The American National Red Cross had authentic intelligence of the famine in Russia before it had attracted general attention; it had placed itself in communication with the Secretary of State, the Honorable James G. Blaine, and the Russian Charge d’Affairs at Washington, Mr. Alexander Gregor, and had ascertained that Russia would gladly receive any donations of relief that the people of America might send to her famine stricken people. Not only would they receive supplies, but would send their ships for them, and provide inland transportation from Russian ports to the destitute people for whom these benefactions were intended. America declined to allow her suffering sister nation to cross the seas to get this food, and quickly arranged to carry it to her. All the American agencies concerned in this movement met it in the noblest spirit; railroad companies gave free transportation, telegraph companies the free use of wires, brokers and steamship agents declined their usual commissions, and some insurance companies even gave premiums for the safe delivery of the precious cargo into the hands of the starving people.
Congress had been appealed to for ocean transportation, and the Senate had voted a liberal appropriation, but the bill was defeated in the House of Representatives. Then the citizens of Washington took up the matter and were joined by the Society of Elks, one of the noblest of our benevolent orders, ever ready to join in any good cause for humanity; and funds to charter a steamship to carry the cargo to Russia were soon raised and placed in the hands of the Red Cross.
The sentiment that roused and sustained this great movement on the part of the people of America was a mingled one of sympathy for starving Russian peasants, and gratitude for timely moral help of the Russian navy in years gone by.
Was it accident or design that chose the British steamship “Tynehead” to carry this material expression of American sympathy and gratitude and enabled the president of the American National Red Cross, on the deck of a British vessel, in presence of the American people, to say that, “these tributes of America to Russia in her hour of temporary distress were not to be counted as gifts, for they had been richly earned; not even accounted as loans, for they had been anticipated a hundred-fold in an hour of our own peril—far greater, God grant, than Russia may ever know. They were not even the principal of a great national debt; but a tithe of the interest long due, and joyously acknowledged—acknowledged there under the triple shadow of the three great flags floating above, blending now in their mighty folds the finest, purest attributes of God’s holy gifts to man, peace, love and charity.”
Mr. Tillinghast, in describing the scene of the departure of the “Tynehead” from New York, at which the above quoted words were spoken, said: “Captain Carr, a brave man and a Briton, who had been tossed by the waves from the Indian Ocean to the Bay of Fundy, was for a moment speechless. The hardy sailors about him bowed, and their eyes moistened. There was not a man on that ship who had ever before been charged with the delivery of such a cargo.”
A tug hauled the ship out into the river at high tide. She was greeted by saluting whistles of passing ferries, yachts and steamers, by waving flags and cheers from thousands. The “Tynehead” was headed for the long voyage to the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic on the shores of Russia.
Dr. Hubbell, representative of the Red Cross to the international conference of the Red Cross to be held at Rome, and authorized to proceed to Riga and receive and distribute with the Russian Red Cross this gift of Iowa, was already on his ocean voyage and ready to do his part in this beautiful blending of international courtesies and services that it is the mission of the Red Cross to devise and to carry out where-ever it can make or find the fitting opportunity. Dr. Hubbell arrived on time at Riga and will further on state the facts about the distribution of the cargo.It must not be thought that the Russian government or people were indifferent to the sufferings of their fellow countrymen during this great misfortune, or that they made no sufficient effort to meet their needs or relieve their sufferings. The question has often been asked: “While America was so active in this charity, what was the government of Russia doing for its unfortunates?” Perhaps this query is best answered by quoting from the official report of the American Ambassador at St. Petersburg, the Hon. Charles Emory Smith, to his government, which was written at that time, and says:
In the presence of this national disaster the Russian government has not been passive. Without reviewing the administrative system, it must be said that it has sought to grapple in liberal measures with the tremendous problem. Before the first of March, 1892, it had appropriated one hundred and fifty million rubles or seventy-five million dollars for this purpose, and the direct outlay by June can hardly be less than two hundred million rubles. Besides this, taxes have been remitted, and work has been furnished where practicable. Vast quantities of grain have been bought and brought from the rich fields of the Caucasus, though, with the limited means of communication and the loss of horses, it has been difficult to convey it to the regions remote from the railroads. Large public works, employing hundreds of thousands of men, have been undertaken. The forests of the imperial domain have been opened to the peasants for fuel. The proprietary class have, as a rule, in this emergency, proved worthy of their positions and responsibilities. There are single families taking care of as many as twenty thousand people. The women, especially, have come forward with a consecration and self-sacrifice which commands admiration.
If it were not invidious or indelicate many cases might be cited of ladies of gentle birth who have left their homes, braved the dangers of disease, faced the hardships of an unaccustomed and trying life, and given up weeks and months to the feeding of the hungry and ministering to the sick. One thing ought in fairness to be said. The Emperor has been published abroad as indifferent. It is only just to remark that this peculiar kind of indifference has been manifested not merely in a vigorous direction of the later governmental operations of relief, even to the summary dismissal of inefficient agents; but in gifts from his private purse, which, if the belief of St. Petersburg can be accepted, amount to fifteen or twenty times all the contributions of all the world outside of Russia.
Ambassador Smith estimates that the American donations supported more than seven hundred thousand people for a month. This may be accepted as the result of their practical work for humanity.
From the above report it will be seen that the distress was so excessive and widespread that even the available resources of so great an empire as Russia were sorely taxed in the endeavor to succor its famishing people; and that its people of all classes rose nobly to the work of the occasion.
Appreciation of American Sympathy.
That the substantial sympathy of the American people was fully appreciated by the Russian people may be gathered from what follows. The mayor of St. Petersburg, in an address on behalf of that city to American donors, declared:
The Russian people know how to be grateful. If up to this day these two great countries, Russia and the United States, have not only never quarreled, but on the contrary, wished each other prosperity and strength always, these feelings of sympathy shall grow only stronger in the future—both countries being conscious that, in the season of trial for either it will find in the other cordial succor and support. And when can true friendship be tested if not in the hour of misfortune?
A peasant of Samara sent to a Russian editor, together with three colored eggs, a letter which he asked to have forwarded to America. It appeared in the Century Magazine. Here is an extract:
Christ is risen! To the merciful benefactors, the protectors of the poor, the feeders of the starving, the guardians of the orphans—Christ is risen! North Americans! May the Lord grant you a peaceful and long life and prosperity in your land, and may your fields give abundant harvests—Christ is risen. Your mercifulness gives us a helping hand. Through your charity you have satisfied the starving. And for your magnificent alms accept from me this humble gift which I send to the entire American people for your great beneficence, from all the hearts of the poor, filled with feelings of joy.
Count Bobrinskoy, writing officially to the secretary of the Iowa Russian Famine Relief Commission, used these words:
It gives me very great pleasure indeed to express to you the sincere appreciation that the Russian people entertain toward the splendid work organized in America for the relief of the sufferers in our famine-stricken districts. I can assure that the same deep gratitude is felt, not only by the poor who have received the generous American contributions, but also by us all, who, having worked for this relief, know how much it was needed. I know by Dr. Hubbell how great was the activity of your peoples as well as that of Miss Clara Barton in sending us the “Tynehead,” and how much you have done in the interests of our people. The names of “Indiana,” “Missouri,” “Conemaugh,” “Tynehead” and “Leo” will always remind us of the most beautiful example of international charity and fraternal love that history has perhaps ever mentioned.
TYPHUS FEVER PATIENTS IN THE RUSSIAN FAMINE, 1891-92.
COUNT LYOF NIKOLAYEVITCH TOLSTOY
On the first anniversary of the arrival of the Iowa ship, “Tynehead,” at Riga, there was a significant event in Philadelphia. The Russian man-of-war, the “Dimitre Donskoi,” the flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron, anchored in the Delaware River. The vessel was decorated with flags and the officer of the day was the Grand Duke Alexander. By special invitation of this representative of the Czar, Dr. Hubbell and the nine other American commissioners, who went to Russia in behalf of the donors were present on board. They were received with the most impressive honors. The Czar had sent gifts by his officer, and the presentations were made in the name of his majesty, under the imperial flags. A large open trunk contained ten boxes of polished wood, and each of these was inscribed: “In remembrance of your visit to Russia.” Accompanying each was a letter expressive of his majesty’s gratitude. The tokens were all magnificent specimens of Russian art work in silver.
The Department of State at Washington, under date of January 11, 1894, issued the following information:
On November 7, 1893, the United States Minister at St. Petersburg received from the nobility of that city, through their marshal, Count Alexis Bobrinskoy, an address to the people of the United States. This address, which is in the English language, embodies, in terms fitly chosen, the thanks of the Russian people to the American for the aid sent to their country from our own during the famine periods of the past two years; it is beautifully engrossed and its illumination embraces water-color drawings, which render it a most attractive work of art. The document, which is superbly bound and enclosed in a fine case, was duly forwarded to this city by Minister White, and will be given a conspicuous place in the library of this department.
The following is the Text of the Testimonial from the Nobility of Saint Petersburg to the People of the United States:
In the annals of Russia for 1892, painful though the memory be, history will point out many a bright and joyous page scattered throughout the Empire, on which will be written in letters of gold the beautiful story of brotherly love as exemplified by the good people of the United States of America.
Hardly had human voices been heard calling for bread in certain governments of Russia, that had suffered from drought, hail, and untimely frost, ere that friendly people across the Atlantic, moved by an earnest desire to help the afflicted and to feed the hungry, collected from every state in the Union, as if by one accord, shipload after shipload of corn, and dispatched them, one after the other, on their errand of mercy and relief.
Deeply grateful for such evident signs of evangelical feeling and interest, the Assembly of Nobles of the government of St. Petersburg, as representatives of the intellectual class in Russia, has resolved to express their warm and heartfelt gratitude to those friendly people who form the great nation of the United States of America.
May the Lord bless and keep all those kind-hearted Americans, men, women and children, who took part in that great and good work of charity, and may the Hand that giveth unto us all, reward them bountifully, and ever keep them from a like misfortune.
(Signed.) The Marshal of the Nobility of St. Petersburg,
Count Alexis Bobrinskoy.
Previous to receiving this beautiful tribute, on the arrival of the S.S. “Indiana” from Philadelphia while not connected with the Red Cross work, a similar artistic tribute to American donors was presented by the workmen of Libeau to represent the sentiment of the workmen of Russia, we introduce it as an additional illustration of the universal sentiment of tender sympathy and gratitude of the Russian people.
Dr. Hubbell’s Report.
Arrived in St. Petersburg. It would be a week or ten days before we could expect the arrival of the “Tynehead,” with its cargo for the famine sufferers; but we had a copy of her manifest and knew what she would bring.
There was something of anxiety, amounting even to consternation, among those who would have to do with the reception of the ship, for reports from the United States had been circulated that persons were on board the vessel who were objectionable, if not avowed enemies to the Russian government, and such could not be recognized nor received. This concern could not easily be dispelled until it was made clear that no one was aboard the “Tynehead” save its own officers and crew. Elaborate ceremonies had been held on the arrival of the other relief ships and were contemplated for the “Tynehead.” This we did not want, and took occasion to express the feelings of the Red Cross and of American donors in a letter acknowledging courtesies extended from the president of the Russian Red Cross affording opportunities to visit its various institutions, and particularly the regular working departments, in its clinics, dispensaries, hospitals and training for active service in civil as well as military field work.
St. Petersburg, May 8/20, 1892.
To His Excellency, General de Kauffmann,
President of the Red Cross of Russia:
Honored President:—I desire to express my thanks for the courtesies and the privilege of becoming acquainted with the every day practical work of the Red Cross of Russia as shown by the kindness of your secretaries.
Nowhere have I seen more complete, comfortable and generous provision for the general care of the sick poor than here in the institutions of the Red Cross and under its work.
And there can be no doubt that the practical experience that the workers are receiving daily will greatly increase their efficiency for service in time of war.
It will be a source of pleasure to make a report to the American Red Cross of the practical work of the Russian Society in time of peace.
Regarding the arrival of the cargo of the ship “Tynehead,” I trust your excellency has already understood by our Charge d’Affairs, Mr. Wurts, that no public demonstrations have been nor are desired. This cargo is largely from the people of an agricultural State, many of whom have suffered from failure of crops in their own country, and thus keenly appreciate similar conditions that others may suffer when such a vast territory as the interior of the Russian Empire is denied rain season after season in succession; and they have simply taken this method of expressing their sympathy, for it is their custom to give in like manner in their own country whenever occasions of calamity or suffering of any kind require the aid of outside help. At this particular time they feel that perhaps the same rains that had been withheld from their brothers in Russia had given the increase to their own crops, which have been unusually abundant the past year; and thus added duty to desire. Moreover, there is a deep brotherly feeling throughout the nation; for our people never forget that Russia has always been the friend of America.
And further, the arrangements of your various committees in the matter of distribution leave nothing to be desired, and that the final reports will afford great pleasure and satisfaction to those who have them to make, there is every reason to believe.
With great respect,
J.B. Hubbell,
General Field Agent American Red Cross
in charge cargo “Tynehead.”
The following is General Kauffmann’s answer:
St. Petersburg, May 11/23, 1892.
J.B. Hubbell, M.D., General Field Agent, American Red Cross:
Much Honored Sir:—I am eager to express to you herewith my most sincere thankfulness for the sympathetic account of the activity of the Russian Red Cross Society, which you have been so kind to give in your letter of the eighth May current. You have had the occasion to persuade yourself of the common direction between the Russian and American Societies of the Red Cross, by which the help to our fellow creatures is not restricted to the relief of suffering in time of war, but is extended to all the calls of national calamities, from the gratuitous medical treatment of the poor to the large help afforded in time of epidemic disease, famine and other calamities. It is to me a great pleasure to see the sympathy of the American people to the Russian, the proof of which has been in the last years so evident. As you are instructed by the American Red Cross to express this feeling of sympathy to our society, I beg you to believe the heartfelt expressions of the like feeling from our side, which I pray to present in our name to your society and to the people of the United States.
The gift brought by the “Tynehead” will be accepted with deep gratitude and distributed among the needy people, according to the wish of the givers, through the offices of the beneficent committee under the august presidency of His Imperial Majesty the Heir to the Crown.
I avail myself of the present occasion to pray you to accept the assurance of my perfect consideration.
The president of the Russian Red Cross Society,
M. de Kauffmann.
Through the help of Mr. Wurts of our legation; our Consul-General, Dr. Crawford; Count Bobrinskoy, representing the Russian Red Cross, and the Government, as well as the Czarowitch Committee; and through the active help of Mr. W.H. Hilton, an Englishman at the head of the large linseed oil works, deacon in the Anglo-American Church, whose thirty years’ business acquaintance over Eastern Russia and his sympathy with a people in distress, particularly fitting him for the work; with these agencies the assignment of the cargo was arranged to be sent to eighty-two famine centres for distribution. It was to be consigned to persons of unquestioned integrity and fitness for the work. These people had been communicated with, and their acceptance of the charge assured, and the number of carloads that each should receive made known to each, that he might make the necessary provision for its reception and distribution. Count Bobrinskoy had ordered 320 freight cars to be in readiness at Riga to receive and transport the cargo free of cost to whatever point might be desired. When these preliminary arrangements had been completed and the “Tynehead” sighted from the signal station, we started in company with Count Bobrinskoy for Riga, the port that had been previously selected by the Russian Ambassador in Washington as being free from ice and most favorable for transporting the cargo to the interior.
The “Tynehead” was a big ship, one of the largest ocean freighters, and came too heavily loaded to enter the harbor until her cargo had been partly discharged by lighters, and she anchored eight miles from the port. The governor’s ship, having on board his excellency, M. Znovief; Count Bobrinskoy, representative of the Czarovitch Committee; N. von Cramer, representing the Red Cross of Russia; R. Kerkovius, president of the Exchange of Riga; von Richer, chief of police; von Keldermann, chief of customs; von Nagel, captain of the port; N.P. Bornholdt, United States consul, and J.B. Hubbell steamed an hour down the river to welcome the “Tynehead,” which had all flags and streamers flying and by the activity of our consul, Mr. Bornholdt, the lighters already lying alongside to take in the grain. After an hour on board the captain was brought back in the governor’s ship on which we lunched, and later dined at the governor’s palace, where the captain was presented with a beautiful tea service of Russian enamel inlaid work as a present from the Czar.
It was arranged that two lines of cars be kept on the dock, into which the grain should be carried direct from the ship, which lay alongside the wharf. As soon as a car was filled it was shifted, weighed and sealed, and when enough were filled they were made into trains and sent to their destinations with right of way over every other traffic on the road, not excepting express and passenger trains; and at their destination no person presumed to break the seal save the one to whom it was consigned.
When we reached Riga, we learned that two hundred and forty peasants had been waiting on the dock two days, waiting and waiting for the ship from America. Not waiting for food, for Riga was not in a famine province, but waiting that they might not miss the opportunity and the honor of unloading the American ship that had brought food to their unfortunate brothers in the interior. As soon as they could get into the hold of the ship, one hundred and forty of them began the unloading. They worked night and day, without rest, determined to unload the entire cargo themselves without help. But on the third night our consul, Mr. Bornholdt, insisted on their having a relief of twelve hours, and when the twelve hours were up they were all in their places again, and remained until the cargo was out, declining to take any pay for their labor. Twelve women worked along with them, in the same spirit, in the ship and on the dock, with needles, sewing up the rents in the bags to prevent waste in handling.
Only a part of the “Tynehead’s” cargo was in bags; hence for convenience and economy in handling and the final distribution, we purchased in St. Petersburg and Riga 43,000 additional bags to sack the rest of the cargo, which in all amounted to nearly 117,000 bushels of shelled corn, 11,033 bags of flour and meal, besides small amounts of wheat, rye, bacon, canned goods, drugs, etc., requiring 307 Russian freight cars for its transportation. Some of this was reshipped on steamboats sent up the headwaters of the Volga, reshipped again on cars nearly to the foot of the Ural Mountains, a distance of 3,000 miles from Riga. Notwithstanding our declaration while in St. Petersburg that neither the Red Cross nor the American people desired any public ceremonies in the way of acknowledgments: dinners, excursions and public demonstrations and illuminations were planned, which we felt ourselves obliged to decline on the ground we had first taken, that any effort and any money proposed to be used in this manner would be most acceptable to all Americans if turned into food for the hungry, whom we had come to help.
At our hotel the Russian and American colors were crossed over the entrance; in the shop windows were the American colors, and in other places, where it seemed that these were not easily procured, title-pages of American sheet-music were displayed—such as “America,” “Hail Columbia,” “Yankee Doodle,” “Star-Spangled Banner,” etc, and little boys in the streets carried American flags of their own make. One little fellow had made the Russian flag on one side and the American on the other side of his device. The telephone office was kept open all night, to be ready for any possible want, and the locomotive with steam up for any possible service. The Custom House floated on its main staff only the American flag during the entire time of the unloading of the “Tynehead,” from Saturday morning until Tuesday noon—three days and a-half. When all was finished at Riga, the last train on its way, all had been so well planned, so well done in every particular that we felt there was not the least necessity for any further attention on our part in looking after this charge. But to the donors at home Russia was a long way off; they had no personal knowledge of the people they were trying to help, and some critics had circulated misgivings about the gifts reaching their intended destination. Hence, that we might be prepared to give a report from personal observation for the satisfaction and the gratification of the people at home, who had contributed these stores, it was decided to see how some of the final distributions were made.
Our first objective point in the famine district was the Province of Nijni Novgorod. But we must go by Moscow, where by the courtesy of Count Bobrinskoy a telegram was received, stating that his brother would pass through the city to the famine district, and his company could be made available, if desired. Such an opportunity was not to be lost, and our course is changed to the south, first by rail to Bogorodizk, thence by droschky to Michailovskoi, to the house of Shestoparoff, manager of the beet sugar mills of the Bobrinskoys. Here the home taste and appearance of everything inside make one feel as if he were in his own New England home, although not a word of English is heard. After breakfast the next morning we go to the distributing station, which is supported by the Bobrinskoy family in one of the sugar mill buildings. Here we find the doctor, the baker, the soupmaker, several of the first ladies of the place, great cauldrons of excellent soup, tea, milk, Nestle’s food, rye and corn bread—the tea and milk are for the sick and for the children—and the doctor, who is familiar with every family, directs who shall receive and what. The bread and the soup are served on regular account, the houses and families all having been visited and the condition of each carefully recorded. As soon as one is able in part to care for himself the bread is sold at a moderate price.
A number of villages are supplied from this bakery and kitchen, and this is but one of nine carried on by this family entirely at their own expense. In the afternoon we visit different villages, some twenty houses or more. We find two Red Cross nurses from Moscow, who are at work and have their home with the peasants. In four months one has lost but four cases; the other but two; and the average number of sick in the past four months by the doctor’s report is three hundred. The peasants say they would rather do without the doctor than be without the nurses in the village.
The peasants’ home consists of one or two square rooms, built of logs, stone, or mud bricks, with floor of earth, and furniture of boards. One quarter of the room is given up to the brick oven, which is so constructed that it serves not only for a stove, oven, cupboard, and bed in cold weather, but the chickens and small animals find protection from the cold underneath during the severe cold weather. Usually a large horizontal pipe of terra cotta passes overhead and out through a thatched roof of straw, which is often two feet thick. The fuel may be wood, straw, or dry dung; fuel is scarce. A deep cellar, well covered, outside, may hold potatoes, roots, etc. The cattle and other animals find shelter in a room adjoining the family. At Bogorodizk another royal family, in addition to work similar to the above named, supplied the peasants with raw material for spinning, weaving and making of native goods and garments both for themselves and for the market, which the countess found either at home or by sending them to the larger cities. Through letters of introduction we had the good fortune to find Count Tolstoi on his estate at Yasnia Polonia.
When the count was asked his opinion of the cause of the existing conditions, he said the government might not like to have him say that the peasants should have more land and own it themselves—that now they have only enough in the best seasons to give barely food for their support, and when a year of scarcity comes, they cannot help being destitute. When asked if there had been improvement in their conditions since the emancipation, he said if that meant in the way of property, financially, no, but mentally there had been progress and development.
One of the first questions Count Tolstoi asked was, “What do you think of most? I would excuse him for such a question; but he always liked to get into sympathy with the person he was talking with and to know how to understand him. What subjects occupied my mind most when going to sleep?” etc.
At night I slept in the library surrounded by English and American books and magazines.
When asked about the demoralizing effect of giving free help to the peasants, as said by many, he thought that an excuse of those who did not want to help. The peasant was never so unhappy as when out of work and had nothing to do. Even a day’s idleness was tiresome to him, and he did not think that a people who had been worked to their full endurance for a generation were going to be demoralized by giving them soup when they were hungry.
Peasants were coming at all hours of the day to see the count. At dinner time two had been waiting several hours. The Count let the dinner go on, and stopped to read a long paper they had brought; read it through carefully; had a long talk with them; unfolded the paper again to look over passages more carefully; after further talk he read again, and told me after they were gone, for I remained with him, that they were having a law suit and had come to him for advice, and so far as he could judge, the peasants were in the right.
When I bade him good-bye he said, from what he had heard of Miss Barton, he felt that she must be a very near relation, and wished me to give her his love.
Starting again for Nijni Novgorod we meet at Moscow Mr. Frank G. Carpenter, the writer and lecturer, who accompanied us through the Volga and southern districts. Leaving Moscow in the evening by the fast express, we reached Nijni the next forenoon at ten. Here we were entertained by the governor. The city of Nijni Novgorod has a population of about sixty thousand ten months of the year; during the other two months its population is increased to six hundred thousand. This extra population from the twenty-seventh of July to about the fifteenth of August inhabit the “dead city” in which not a single family lives the rest of the year. Yet it contains one of the largest and finest buildings in Russia, and not a match nor a cigar can be lighted at any time under penalty of twenty-five rubles. The “dead city” is built at the junction of the Oka River with the Volga, so that it is yearly inundated to the ceiling of the first stories, when the spring rise of forty feet or more comes with the melting of the snow. Here, too, is located one of the largest churches of Nijni, and on the Volga side the Siberian wharves.
In the living city is the residence of the governor on a clay bluff four hundred and seventy feet above the river, with the business part at the foot of the bluff adjoining the river. Nijni being in direct line of free river transportation as well as railway connection between St. Petersburg, Siberia, China, and the Caspian districts, the Caucasus, the oil region of southern Russia, with its wine, grain and fruit districts, make this city a great commercial centre. And the pulse of famine or plenty is probably felt here as soon as in any part of the empire.
In the two months named, traders from nearly every European and Asiatic country gather here with every variety of goods and product that can be carried by rail, water, or caravan: grains, hides, leather, teas, metals, precious stones, fish, meats, cloths, silks, peasants’ works and weavings; and the great sandbar in the river Oka of several hundred acres is covered with Siberian iron. Electricity furnishes light where needed, for it will be remembered that it is light enough in this latitude to read at midnight in summer time. Here are also royal quarters for the governor and State officials, whose social and executive residences are in the “dead city” during the entire time of the fair, in which time the governor is an absolute czar in power. To give briefly a Russian view of the famine and how it was felt in a single province and the Russian manner of dealing with it I give the following abridged account:
Nijni claims to have been the first provincial government of Russia to take active measures to relieve the sufferers by famine. The first news came to the governor from reports of dry weather in his province in May, 1891, for the crops of the three preceding years had been short, and at this time the peasants had begun to ask for bread, having already sold a part of their horses and tools; and only two of the eleven districts had sufficient bread for their people.
Without waiting to consult the general government, in order to save time, the governor took the responsibility upon himself of immediately purchasing one hundred and twenty-five thousand poods (a pud is about forty pounds), or twenty-two hundred tons of grain, and sent this in the early part of June to the districts most affected by the drouth. He used his influence to stop speculation in grain, Nijni being a great grain centre, and formed a commission from all the districts to carry out relief measures. It was after this that the Department of the Interior appropriated one million rubles ($550,000) to buy bread.
It has been a custom in Russia that when a loan is made to the poor peasants that the rich peasants of the community are held equally responsible for the payment; hence they have fallen into the habit of claiming an equal apportionment whenever loans have been made for relief measures in times past. Thus the Zemstvo (the elective magistrates of the village) have the power in themselves to say that they had not ordered nor asked for the grain, and refuse to receive it for those really needing it. Hence the governor of Nijni ordered that only those receiving should be charged with the loan.The whole loan here received was 6,350,000 rubles, all of which except 150,000 rubles had been distributed when we visited the district.
In the nine needy districts of Nijni Novgorod Province there were 587,000 persons needing assistance that were excluded from the government loan as being between the ages of fifteen and fifty-five—“therefore able-bodied and able to work.” The Nijni governor followed his judgment rather than the instructions of the Minister of the Interior, and seeing that this amount was insufficient and that no provision had been made for cattle and horses, he tried to get permission to begin public works in order to furnish labor and pay to those needing it; but this was not secured until December, when 3,000,000 rubles were appropriated for roads, 420,000 rubles for town improvements, 40,000 for schools and churches. From eight to ten thousand men were given work in the woods at fifty kopeks, 27 cents, per day, and one ruble and fifty kopeks, about 77 cents, per team.
To secure a general interest of the people the governor made every public commission (boards of directors, trustees, etc.), take an active part in the relief work. He created commissions among the nobility to superintend relief work, combining the Red Cross, the churches and other individual organizations all into one committee, so that when the Crown Prince’s committee was formed on the twenty-eighth of December 341,550 rubles had been received and distributed besides 52,020 poods, 2,080,800 pounds, of bread which had been given to those who had no right to the governmental loan.
By contributions three hundred and thirty-one kitchens were established in villages, giving meals for one-half to two kopeks per meal. Nijni, with a living population of sixty thousand, contributed one hundred and ninety thousand rubles. Places were established in Nijni where twenty kitchen meal tickets may be purchased for one ruble. The citizens buy these and give to such as they desire to help.
From Nijni we take steamer down the Volga, and through the kindness of Mr. Zeveke, owner of the American Steamboat Line, so called because American names are given to all of his twelve large steamboats, we are allowed time to visit each town on the Volga, as we pass down the river. At each place the grain has been received and being used. At Samara we find Mr. Bezant, one of our consignees, just recovering from the typhus which was contracted in his relief work. And we get direct reports from Count Tolstoi, Junior, whose work is in this province farther to the east, and Prince Dolgoruhow, another consignee in the district of Burulich; these have ten carloads of the “Tynehead’s” corn, and are saving the lives of many. At this time the Province of Samara alone had lost five hundred thousand cattle, as many horses and 1,500,000 sheep from the famine.
At Volsk we saw many people around the church. The bells in a dozen different towers all ringing; from another church a large procession of a thousand people were coming, bearing on high poles crosses and banners and icons. They are joined by the people from the first church, with their crosses and banners which are not raised till the first procession is joined, and all march in their variegated red and yellow and bright colored dresses, with bare feet and uncovered heads in the broiling sun, miles away to the open fields to pray for rain, which has still been withheld from this section of Saratoff Province.
The town of Saratoff has a population of 125,000, contains many Germans, from having been one of the German colonies founded by Queen Catherine during her reign, to encourage agricultural industries. Here as in Volsk we found the people in the fields praying for rain, and in the evening it came. Here we met Mr. Golden, an Englishman, who has been the active agent in the Saratoff district, and Mr. Muhler, a German, who has been the active worker on the east side of the Volga in Samara Province. Both these gentlemen, together with a Catholic Bishop, say that the American help, both in material and money, came so timely that it saved thousands of lives that otherwise must have been lost. It came when they could get nothing from other sources, and their thanks to America are unbounded. The relief was “as if the Lord had ordered it.” Of the “Tynehead’s” cargo, Saratoff received fifty-three carloads and the Province of Samara one hundred and four cars.
There was a small quantity of the corn that got wet when put into the ship during a rain in New York, and had begun to heat when unloaded. This was sent to Saratoff with a suggestion that they use it for their cattle, but when we reached that place the peasants had washed the corn and dried it, and said it made very good bread.
As a typical incident and as an expression of the universal feeling throughout Russia:—when we reached the platform of the station at Saratoff to start westward, a Russian gentleman who could speak a little English, and another one and his wife who could not, came to the train, with an attendant bearing champagne and glasses, and made a speech of thanks, expressing the gratitude of the people of Russia to America for the heartfelt sympathy she had so beautifully expressed. The help she had brought to their people in a time of distress made every Russian feel to want to personally express his thanks. Wishing every success to its representatives, they drank to America and bon voyage.
To see some of the smaller consignments, on our way eastward from Saratoff we stopped at an inland station and went into the country some miles near Tambof, where two carloads of corn had been consigned. Here it was being ground in the wind-mills and made into the old-fashioned New England rye and Indian loaves and baked in great, brick ovens, just as we had found in other places.
Referring back to Riga. After the last car had been sealed and the way-bills sent, we were speaking of the harmony and unity that existed in all the different branches of this relief work, and it incidentally came out that the count and his family were carrying on an extensive system of relief among the peasants in the famine district, supplying some thirty villages with rye and corn bread, obtaining their corn from southern Russia, with soup, broth and tea for the sick and Nestle’s food for the babies—the latter an experiment of his own. It was suggested that in such an extensive work as this he should have had some of the American corn, but he replied they could get on very well without it; that his family had taken that work upon themselves to do at the beginning, and would continue to do it until next August and did not need other help. I expressed a desire to see this work, which I later found was a fair sample of what is being so quietly done all over Russia that its extent is unknown until one comes upon it. And it was at Michailoviski that we had the pleasure of seeing some of this work.
Everywhere we found people of all classes giving their time to the work of relief to supplement the governmental help; and this does not mean simply directing, superintending, or planning work for others to execute, but I found men giving up their own business, the attention of their estates, to see personally to the detail as well as the general work. I found cultivated, intelligent, refined women making their homes in the huts of the peasants, where they could be nearer their work. I found countesses working in the huts of the typhus hospitals, or taking the sick into their own homes, giving up social enjoyments and personal comforts, their own plans, in order to make their work of relief more effective. If the official side of Russia is subject to criticism, as sometimes claimed, surely the quiet, personal work and self-sacrifice of its people in this calamity is an example for any Christian land.
Sitting at the hotel table Count George told how his conscience would protest against a good dinner after he had returned from his investigating tours in the famine district to learn the situation, as a member of the Grand Duke’s Committee, for, “the ruble spent for wine and coffee would keep a peasant child or mother a whole month.” But he says when he got back to St. Petersburg a few days away from the distressing scenes, his mind occupied with other business, it did not trouble him at all to eat a good full meal just as he had done before.
On another hand to show how suffering continues in any place from lack of competent oversight this incident will show.
When going over the ground to see how the relief work had been done for his committee, he came to a village that was in a very bad condition. Many sick and dying for want of food, he asked the Zemstov if a kitchen could not be established. The reply was no; there was no one to manage it. “But,” he said, “you have a school here; the teacher can take charge of the kitchen.” “No; he is not capable; he is too slow and of no account, and we intend to get rid of him as soon as we can get someone to take his place. There is not a person in the village that could conduct a kitchen.” The count in his rounds came to the school house and found, as he had been told, that the school-master did look miserable enough in an old, worn and even ragged coat, and learned that he had not received his wages for some months; there was no money to pay him. His roll showed a list of sixty pupils; there were but fifteen present. When asked where the others were, he replied that it was so near the holiday time—only ten days—that he had let them go home. The count turned to one of the boys and asked if he had had anything to eat to-day, expecting him to say no; but he said yes; “he had a warm soup this morning.” The same question to the second boy, with the same reply; and so on with all the fifteen. When asked where they got their soup, they said the master had given it to them, and had been doing so for some weeks.
The master stood in the corner with his face very red, looking very much ashamed. It was then learned that when the school-master found his pupils coming to school without food, he began to use the savings he had laid by, to feed them, until his purse would not allow him to continue with so large a number; and he had let all but the fifteen go, and he was feeding and teaching them from the savings of other years. The count said he could not pay him his wages due, but he furnished the village with the means for a soup kitchen, and the master was put in charge and conducted it in such a manner that no one thought of his being an incompetent manager.
The shipping of the cargo of corn in the “Tynehead” to the Baltic in a voyage of twenty-eight days and its distribution through Russia answers a number of questions that were raised when the proposition to send corn to Russia was contemplated. These questionings came from business men, shippers, boards of trade, the produce exchange and philanthropists, and by some it was stoutly asserted that corn could not bear ocean transportation that distance without spoiling.
And if it should pass without spoiling, it was affirmed they had no mills to grind it in Russia, that the peasant knew nothing about corn, that they could not change their habit of living, and therefore would be unable to make use of it, if received. One of the leading business men of the country went so far as to write that we might as well ship a cargo of pebbles as a cargo of unground corn. Hence there was a degree of satisfaction to see the entire cargo, with the exception of a small quantity referred to loaded in the rain, come out of the ship in as good condition as when it was put in the hold, and to find in our journey in the interior that the peasants even needed no suggestion about grinding it in their windmills, which were amply sufficient.
But when the little corn that had heated was sent to Samara with the suggestion that it be used to feed the cattle, with four additional days in the hot state in the cars, and this was still used by the peasants and called good, it removed any doubt that might be forced into one’s mind that a starving peasant would die rather than eat a food that he was not accustomed to.
Referring back to St. Petersburg, after our list had been made up for the general distribution of the cargo, Mr. Hilton carefully went over it and said, from his personal knowledge of the people to whom the consignments were to be made, he would be willing to personally guarantee that 80 per cent of everything sent according to the list would be honestly and faithfully distributed, just as the donors wished, and he further believed that the remaining 20 per cent would be as faithfully handled.
My trip to the various places of distribution, widely separated and at unexpected times, confirmed Mr. Hilton’s belief that the entire cargo could not have gone through better hands in any land.
To be able, after such observations and inquiries, to give this report is a satisfaction that repays for all the anxious care and responsibility naturally felt with such a charge.
To add to this, the deep gratitude expressed by nobleman and peasant alike, in capital or in far-away, unfrequented interior village, always the same, even the humblest peasant refusing compensation for any service rendered an American, manifests a genuine gratitude and friendliness to America and Americans which has characterized Russia during many years.
