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Show RUSSIA'S CRIMINALS. j I'ollowing the example of the French j j revolution, the Russian revolutionists j ficed not ouly political offenders, but j rimiual--, f nm tho prisons of Wilier1 a. In some instances the criminals who y, iil vere held iu restraint broke out of the prisons and spread over the neighboring regions. The trust put by the Russians in their i criminal 1!ls he-en violated. In the province of Tomsk thousands of erimi- 1 na Is have boon loo' i ng and slaying, j They have finally been called to account ac-count and in a clash with the police authorities and troops a number havo been killed. J t was a strange perversion of the ideals of liberty to free anarchists, murderers, robbers and criminals of various va-rious other descriptions. Prisons have been established in this country with tho idea that one of tho most precious rights of man is liberty and that "one of the severest punishments is deprivation depri-vation of liberty. Tt is of the essence of a crime that it violates the principle of liberty. Every criminal abuses bis liberty when he commits a crime because he does something some-thing which men have agreed among themselves should not be done. They have limited their liberty within certain cer-tain rules of law and ordor and the criminal breaks those rules and infringes in-fringes upon what society calls public or private rights. Society, therefore, imprisons the criminal bo as to protect itself by keeping him in restraint and by punishing him for his wrongdoing. In the fervor of new-found freedom the Russians probably entertained an altrv istic idea that criminals were not so bad after all and that if they should be given a new opportunity to enjoy j liberty they would not prey upon so- 1 ciety. How foolish was this opinion is being demonstrated by the disorders in Tomsk and other provinces of Bus- ! sia. Americans, who have gained much experience in self-government, are perfectly per-fectly clear as to the difference between be-tween a political offender and a criminal. crimi-nal. -There may be and often are political po-litical offenders who have criminal instincts, in-stincts, and it is just as necessary to deprive them of liberty as it is to deprive de-prive the common criminal of liberty. Hut in this country we do not put men in prison for political offenses. Even anarchists, such as Emma Goldman, are permitted to preach their doctrines against the existing order without let or hindrance until they commit a crime. Whether this is altogether wise and prudent we need not discuss, but Americans Amer-icans would not commit the monumental monumen-tal folly of opening up the jails on the theory that criminals have as much right to liberty as political offenders. That 13 the childish folly of a people who have just begun to experiment with liberty. |