Seething Poland—Governmental lawlessness—Overwhelming little Poland by sheer force of numbers—Twice over the Polish frontier—A panic of Warsaw Jews—Russian oppression—A nervous populace—Campaign to exterminate Warsaw police—Hopeless plight of latter—A pathetic incident—Where poverty stalks—Effect of era of misery and chaos upon Warsovians—Traffic in white slaves—Daily occurrences—A Warsaw hospital—Chiaroscuro in the Polish capital—Parties of Poland—Poles traditional revolutionists—Hope and optimism temperamental characteristics of the Polish people.
URING the early summer I entered Poland twice; once from Russia, from Bielostok in Grodno; once from the Austrian frontier. Both occasions were memorable, because each in its own way was typical of the condition of Poland. Bielostok was still dripping with Jewish blood spilled by the treacherous authorities. Just outside of the town the railroad crosses a narrow stream. In a field bordering the stream a large contingent of soldiers were encamped, giving it the appearance of the outskirts of an army. The bridge was guarded not by sentinels merely, but by a guard of fighting strength. Near the railroad station on sidings were several military trains, freight vans converted into barracks. A company of one hundred men held the station—as if the remaining, panic-stricken Jews were in danger of rising up and storming the troops of the Emperor. But Russia needs to maintain this show of force. From this point clear across the strip of territory called Poland troops were ever in evidence.
My other entrée was from Austria, a little later, during a panic of the Warsaw Jews. A Russian religious holiday was approaching. Sundays and church days have long been notorious massacre days in Russia, and the Jews dread them as a plague. The celebration of the Day of Peter and Paul was to be signalized by a massacre of Warsaw Jews, current gossip said. The report spread, and gained in credence. The day before the holiday forty thousand Jews fled the city. I crossed the frontier at Granica at midnight—was tumbled from a train into a broad customs inspection-room, where every traveler’s baggage was closely overhauled and all arms, tobacco, and forbidden literature confiscated, then on to Warsaw where the spirit of unrest seemed to have possessed not only Jews but every human being. Not that life is any the less gay in the Polish capital, for here the music of song and dance is always in the air, but the nerves of the populace are on edge—quivering. I stepped out of a shop one day just as a stalwart soldier was passing by. He caught sight of a small camera under my arm and jumped, startled, as a woman by a mouse. Warsovians warned me not to go about the streets alone even in broad daylight, so many casualties were daily reported. The ever-present Cossack with his terrible nagaika—that barbarous lash-whip, tipped with lead—was on every hand. Hospitals were crowded with injured and “pogromed.” Prisons were crowded; fortresses were full, and the police were guarded by soldiers. There were daily cases of mob violence. On every hand evidence of military law—and on every hand evidence of internal chaos.
If the Caucasus offers the most intricate and difficult problem of administration in all the Russian empire, Poland presents a situation almost as troubled and quite as hopeless of immediate adjustment.
Poland from border to border seethes with unrest and bitter hatred; there more nearly than anywhere else in Europe is a situation approaching the chaotic. Russia appreciates how desperate is her hold on Poland and as a safety measure martial law is maintained universally and continuously.
“Martial law” is a means for legitimatizing utter lawlessness on the part of the military and police authorities, excusing the indiscriminate use of bayonets and bullets. The example thus ingloriously set by the officials is all too quickly followed by the people who have thrown to the four winds all respect for law and discipline and restraint and the battle is waged on “a fight as fight can” basis. Bloodshed, riot, assassination, robbery, and crimes unlisted are part of each day’s work. Ever since “bloody Sunday” in January, 1905, not one night of peace has visited this wretched country that for so many decades was the source of contention of half of Europe’s greatest powers. Just as the slaughter of Father Gapon’s working-men in St. Petersburg was the signal to all Russia to rise, so Poland also responded to that signal at that time. With firm, deliberate intention she then entered upon a period of sanguinary revolution which rages as fiercely to-day as it has at any time since that fatal Sunday. Russia, appreciating the universality of this aggressive attitude, put an army of nearly 300,000 men into the country. Approximately 200,000 of these were soldiers and 100,000 administrative officials—all Russians—bitterly hating the Poles, who in their turn hold dislike for official Russians, second only in keenness to their dislike for the Germans, whom they also fear. On the other hand, between the labor parties of each country is a strong friendship, for, in official Russia, the workingmen of Poland, as well as the rank and file of Russia itself, appreciate a common enemy.
Not only from hereditary wrongs does Poland suffer, but from present oppression. The iron yoke of Russia presses heavily, and every one in Poland is in desperate rebellion, including the children, who refuse to go to school until the Polish language is substituted for the Russian, and the university students, who are shut out of their university because of the tyranny and cowardice of a government that only sees revolution in education. Small wonder, then, that over half of the population of Poland can neither read nor write, and that the proportion of schools is decreasing rather than increasing. The attitude of Russia toward Poland is that of suppression—not of rational administration. Of what interest is it to Russia if Polish children do not go to school? The salaries of teachers are at least saved. Warsaw has 60,000 school-less children—growing up in darkness, nurtured only by a blind hatred of the people whose flag floats over their city. The amount of money spent on education in Poland amounts to twelve cents per child, as compared to $2.30 per child in Berlin.
Poland’s population is approximately 10,000,000. Nearly two thirds are agriculturists. More than one half of this number have either no land at all, of their own, or next to none, at best an insufficient amount to afford them a livelihood. Industry has been demoralized and disorganized to such an extent that wages have remained stationary for a decade while the cost of living has doubled—and this in the face of an increasing population. The Poles are so fiercely nationalistic. The people