I -—
I
The emancipation of the working
*
class must be the class-conscious work
.. fc.; , . ... V-. ’ ,-Y%
' of the working class. — KARL, MARK
T
11_ FAIRBANKS, ALASKA, NOVENBERJ, 1913._
RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONIST
DESCRIBES MS EXILE
Boris Nikolaeff, Now In San Francisco, Describes
His Life's Sufferings for the Cause
of the Revolution,
SAN FRANCISCO.,—Three times to
to have been called from Russia, impris
oned in terrible Siberia, and finally to
have escaped thrice from the horrors of
its prisons, has not been sufficient to
frighten Boris Nikolaeff, a Russian polit
ical revolutionist, now in this city. Nik
olaeff has given all but his life to the
cause of freedom, and now he is plan
ning to return to Russia and carry the
work still further.
“After he came to San Francisco he
was penniless aud he stayed with some
of his countrymen who were very poor, ’ ’
explained one of his friends. “Pie slept
on the floor of a room occupied by four
or five others. Some of us found him
and asked him why he had not come with
ns. ‘This is a paradise beside Siberia, ’
he said.
‘ ‘And then, at one of our meetings, when
we passed the collection box, he tried to
put into it a dollar someone had given
him. Of course we would not let him. ’ ’
“You must hear him speak,’’ said one,
‘ ‘He is a great orator. ’ ’
The oratorical power of Nikolaeff is
evident even in ordinary speech. He
talked with fervor, fire, dash, apparent
eloquence. He moves his hearers, even
when they do not understand. This
power is given him by the life he has
led—a life of fixed, unswerving purpose,
consecrated to one ideal—free Russia;
never swerved from that idea, holding
to it with a rapt intentness and constant
devotion hardly to be understood by
anvone but a Russian.
0
Nikolaeff’s political faith is his relig
ion, and he is a crusader. His party is
known as the Socialist Revolutionist,
which is quite distinct from the Socialist
of the United States and other nations.
The Russian party that corresponds
most nearly to our Socialist is the Social
ist Democrat; these are Marxians, users
of the ballot, and are plentiful in the
shop and factor}- classes of Russia.
But the Socialist Revolutionist is an
other. We do not know him in America.
He is a terrorist: but not in the anar
chistic sense of ruthless and individual
terrorism: he acts in groups, with full
deliberation, and after his bomb has
found its mark he publishes and scatters
abroad a list of the crimes for which the
victim has been put to death. The Soc
ialist Revolutionists are the high priests
of that flame which is forever flickering
or flaring on the hidden alters of Russia
—the flame of Revolution, never quite
extinct, always ready to blaze into fire
and burn the political barbarism and
evil forever out of that nation of suff
erers.
Boris Nikolaeff, through an interpreter,
gave a vivid picture of the life of the
Siberian exile. In regard to answering
personal questions about himself, he was
wary, with the wariness of the man who
has lived in a world full of spies. But from
his description of the land of political
exiles may be judged the life he has led;
and will lead again and again until he
dies.
“Picture to yourself a colossal, marshy
forest with an extremely sparse, half
wild population; with deadly winter cold;
with paths interlaced through the forests
by hunting junguser.H, and for eight
I
months out of the year the frosted rivers
as the only means of communication. It
is a country with only primitive industry.
A single country town with a couple of
thousand inhabitants stands alone in
500,000 square versts (about 400,000
square miles) of distance: and one gram
mer school serves districts of larger size
than some of the countries of western
Europe.
“There are tens of villages in that
country composed of a score of houses
each [where one cannot find old people
or children. That ideal of Brown-Secor,
Metchnikoff and other lights of
science, who struggle against old age
and death, is almost reached—as though
the population does not grow old at all,
but, having reached 20 or 30. years of
age, preserves itself, in the same condi
tion year in and year out.
“Here you will meet former jewelers,
piano tuners, journalists, compositors,
mechanics, graduated engineers of all
classes, doctors, many tailors, men cf
the liberal professions and of highly de
veloped culture. While in some villages
one can hardly find a person that is able
to read and write, there are villages
where the percentage level of knowledge
will not give up to the most cultured
states of the United States. At the post
offices of some of these villages there are
received as many different newspapers
and magazines, sent free by the editors,
as are printed in the European lang
uages.
“This portion of Russia comprises the
northern part of the State of Irkutsk
, and the "State of Iakutsk. To this place,
during the last five or six vears, the
government of Nikolas II has sent hun
dreds and thousands of captains of the
revolution—men that have not yet been
beaten or tortured to death in the ‘ 'Hous
es of Death,’ the torture chambers or
galleys.
“Notwithstanding the utmost efforts
of Stolvpin, Kokovzoos and Scheglovi
tovs to conceal their footsteps, stained
with blood, the truth appears, now- and
then, in print. Such leaders of the rev
olutionary movement as N. V. Chaikov
sky, E. K. Brejkovskv, G. A. Gersliung,
have told the world of the thousands of
hanged men of the mass military exe
cutions, the tortures and torments in
the torture chambers of Shlisselburg,
Akatula, Zerentui and Katomazy; the
mass of suicides, self-poisonings, open
ing of the veins, self-burnings, which
are the only possible ways of enforcing
the protest of the men who cry for free
dom.
“But remember that all the population
of Russia, her 150,000,000, holds ever in
mind the motto proclaimed by their hero
martyrs—“Th« Karth and Liberty!” It
was to fight that motto that the Russian
government invented the prolongation
of the torture chamber, a ‘free’ deporta
tion. About 500 to 700 political prisoners
are transported by the Lena River every
year; they go to the places of destruction
at the White lakutz, as the public report
names the Kirensk district.
“Having marched under the convoy
from the center of Russia to the shores
(Continued on Page 4.)
LABOR CAUSE
LOSES A FAITFUL
ADHERENT
Patrick Casey passed away at St. Jos
eph’s hospital last Saturday morning.
Physicians attending attribute his death
to a generall breakdown.
The deceased was 53 years of age, and
for the past 16 years had resided contin
uously in the North. He was born at
Kileedv, Ashford, County Limerick, Ire
land, and was but 20 years of age when
lie emigrated to the United States. When
the first news oi the Klondike strike
reached his ears, he stampeded to Daw
son. Later he worked on a number of
creeks on the Canadian side of the line,
coming to the Fairbanks district in 1905.
He was a Western Federation man and
a member of Local Fairbanks, Socialist
Party. It was 4 years ago that Casey re
alized that the emancipation of the work
ers could not come from any other source
than the workers themselves. Comrade
Casey was an enthusiastic advocate of
the Socialist doctrine because he realized
that the trade union was unable to cope
with the great combinations of capital.
In the referendum circulated last fall for
candidates for the legislature, Casey re
ceived quite a large vote and, it is said,
would have been, had he lived, one of
the candidates on the Socialist .ticket in
the coming campaign to represent the
workers of this district.
Ilis funeral was attended by such a
large number of friends that it was corn
commented on that many visited cluirch
who had not been there for years.
BY THE
POLITICAL
_EDIT0R
The daily papers tell us of more con
flicts between capital and labor in Col
orado, the state where the government
officials, during one of the great labor
wars, on being told that they were viol
ating the provisions of tilt Federal Con
stitution are reported as having said:
“To Hell with the Constitution.”
West Virginia, Michigan, Colorado
and other states where the workers are
on strike are just as much like Russia,
under the Democratic Administration as
they were like Russia under the Taft
and Roosevelt administrations.
The workers .will have learned some
thing before the time arrives for casting
another ballot, and it can be safely
asserted that the party that calls itself
Democratic will not have another chance
to feast at the pie counter at the workers’
expense.
The chances are that in 1916 the Dem
ocratic party, with its taritf schemes and
currency reform, will pass away from
the political horizon, pushed into oblivion
by the class conscious votes of the work
ers.
The Alaska Socialist is a workingman’s
.paper, published by workingmen, for
workingmen, and is not, nor can it be,
subsidized by any politician or poli
ticians, no matter what brand they bear.
A politician is a professional office
seeker and his particular brand of poli
tics is immaterial and is simply a step
ping stone. A politician will use any
brand if he thinks it will get him the
offie that he has his eye on.
If you want to know what the poli
ticians (professional office seekers; are
; doing, subscribe for the Alaska Socialist,
i $5.00 per year; $2.50 for six months;
;
$1.25 for three months.
THE INCOME TAX IS
NOT A SOCIALIST MEASURE
Reformers Always Advocate the Income Tax. It
Gives Politicians a Chance to Evade
the Main Issue.
The income tax scheme is as old a§
the hills and is not a socialist measure,
although some people, when they hear
of it for the first time, actually think
themselves inventors, and imagine that
they should be ranked alongside of Karl
Marx or Kdison.
The income tax bill became a law in
1S94, when the Populist party had 1,000,
000 votes and put five senators and ten
representatives in congress.
The Income Tax Bill.
The concession to the Populists from
the old parties was the passage of the
bill for the taxation of incomes. Bitterly
opposed the income tax bill became a
law in 1894 without President Cleveland’s
signature. On five different occasions
the Supreme Court of the United States
had declared the income tax constitu
tional.
The large capitalist interests were de
termined to do away with this law by
one way or another. To collect a speci
fic new tax it was necessary, at least it
was held to be so, that Congress should
pass an appropriation for that purpose.
Although the government had already
begun preparations to collect the tax, the
Secretary of the Treasury, Carlisle, pre
tended that he had no funds for that
purpose; this was the same Carlisle, who
in 1895 turned over the bond issue, un
der circumstances of the greatest scan
dal to a syndicate headed by J. Pierpont
Morgan, thus virtually giving that syn
dicate a profit of $1S,000,000. Morgan’s
lawyer, Francis Lynde Stetson, had been
Cleveland’s law partner from 1SS9 to
1892, and was then a frequent visitor to
the White House.
When the final vote was taken, it
turned out that one Justice had changed
his mind, “over night,” and arrayed
himself against the income tax. This
Justice was said to be Shiras who, as we
have seen, came from the same tt ite as
Senator Quay, and who had been coun
sel at Pittsburg for the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad system. The pro-income
tax newspapers freely stated that the
vacillating Justice was Shiras, and de
nounced him. This tergiversation caus
ed a very consequential sensation, and
LAWYERS ELECT
TAFT FOR PRES,
One of the daily papers reports that
William II. Taft has been elected presi
dent of the American Ear Association.
In Bill’s famous speech in Pocatello,
Idaho, he is reported to have praised
the courts as follows: “Our judges are
like what I expect to meet in Heaven,
etc., etc.”
There is little danger of the American
Bar Association being reformed as long
as a corporation lawyer like Big Bill
Taft is its president.
If there are many judges like Taft in
Heaven, the workers will certainly be
very willing to go to Hell, for Taft and
his gang have surely given them hell
enough already; and a Heaven full of
Tafts would certainly be turned into a
Hell.
FRISS WILL OPEN
COFFEE HOUSE
On Wednesday, Nov. 5th, Ben Friss
will open his coffee house on Front street,
where he' will attend to the wants of the .
workers in the way of furnishi wfcf&Mu
with the best of everything inutile line
of pastrj-, cakes, pies, coffee, t$jO cocoa,
chocolate, sandwiches of all kinds,
also baths, rooms and bunks.
The former building occupied by Friss
has been torn down and completely re
built, and includes a comfortable sitting
room, with all kinds of reading matter
and writing materials. The worker’s
pocket-book is always lean, even in the
most prosperous seasons through the ex
ploitation carried on under the capitalis a
system, but Friss, assisted by Mrs. Friss,
promises to furnish substantial fare at
prices that will be within the reach of
the most slender pocket bock.
was bitterly commented upon in the
speeches and declarations of supporters
of the income tax. But, of course, none
of Shiras’ critics were so venturesome
as to make specifc charges of improper
motives or acts ; had such charges been
made, no scintilla of proof could have
been discovered in the records.
By a vote of five to four the Supreme
Court declared the whole income tax act
unconstitutional, in that it was a direct
tax and violated the Constitution by mak
ing no provision for an apportionment
among the States according to the pop
ulation.
One of the reasons given by Justice
Field in declaring the income tax un
constitutional was that it would reduce* , .
judicial salaries; he pointed out, with
great seriousuess and solicitude, that
judges were protected by that clause
the constitution which provides th*
their compensation “shall not be dim
inished during their continuance in
office”!
Justices Brown, Jackson, Harlan and
White entered a vigorous dissenting
opinion. “. . By its present construction
of the constitution, ” said Harlan, “the
Court for the first time in all its history
declares that our Government has- been
so framed that in matters of taxation
for its support and maintenance those
who have incomes derived from the
renting of real estate or from the leasing
or using of tangible property, bonds,
stock, and investments of whatever kind
have privileges that cannot be accorded
to those having incomes derived from
the labor of their hands or the exercise
of their skill or the use of their brains.’’
Y ou will see from the above quotation
from Myers’ History of the Supreme
-Court, that reform measures like income
tax, old age pensions, inheritance tax
: and all such measures, while they in
i
crease the revenues of the state, thereby
I furnishing full treasuries for politicians
to, play with, do not increase the wages
I of the workers. Every big income could
be taxed and the status of the wage
workers would not be changed. Wage
workers would remain wage-workers
and capitalism would remain the same.