Mustard seed No. 1 was carried over from the United States in the Autumn of 1887 and sown on the good ground of the late Count Tolstoy, and other noble men, whence—as results show—it spread abroad with a swiftness suggestive rather of the proverbial weed than of the fair flower its blossoming has shown it to be.
In the Autumn of 1886 Dr. Peter Semyonovitch Alexyeeff of Moscow, accompanied by his wife, sailed for Canada and the United States for the purpose of inspecting the hospitals, prisons, and elementary schools; and they came for the Winter because some parts of Canada during that season possess a climate similar to that of Central Russia, while in other parts the climates are identical. In fact, Canada is the only country in the world where the climatic conditions are at all analogous. The construction of new hospitals, the adaptation of already existing buildings for hospital use, the internal arrangement, and the perfection of their internal machinery had long been matters of deep interest to Dr. Alexyeeff.
Germany and France, with climates so different from that of Russia, could not furnish him with the information available in North America, where, in his opinion, the habits and conditions of existence—such important factors in matters connected with hospitals and invalids—also differ less from those of Russia than do the general surroundings in the countries of the Continent. After visiting the principal cities of Canada and the United States from Quebec to Vancouver, and from Boston to Washington, (some of them more than once,) Dr. Alexyeeff arrived at the conclusion that the hospitals of the United States were better built and much better administered than those of London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.
Naturally, no one could spend nine months in investigating hospitals and prisons in this country without coming in contact with the liquor problem. Moreover, Dr. Alexyeeff was a wideawake man, who took an interest not only in all matters connected with his profession, but in very many outside of it. He was, also, a man of very lofty character. His wife once wrote me concerning him somewhat as follows: "He walks, habitually, on such moral heights, in such a rarefied spiritual atmosphere, that I, the daughter of an English clergyman, reared accordingly, and myself (as you know) deeply in sympathy with it, find difficulty in following him." Obviously, he was precisely the man to appreciate the temperance movement, and to carry it to its logical conclusion. In the preface to a volume, "About America," which he published in Moscow in 1888, he writes:
Neither the wonders of wild nature in the Rocky Mountains nor the menacing might and grandeur of Niagara produce such an impression on a Russian as the success of the fight with drunkenness—the temperance movement—and the successful development, in all classes of society, of morality and the strict application of practical morals.
He did not confine himself to this brief, general statement. He wrote in praise of temperance, of prohibition, for learned Russian societies. Then he wrote a book entitled "Concerning Drunkenness." The Censor's permit to publish is dated March 29, (April 10,) 1887. It was published by the management of the magazine, Russkaya Mysl, (Russian Thought,) which may indicate that it had first appeared in that monthly as a series of articles, though I have not been able to verify the fact. The book may have been published promptly, or at least the article from the medical magazine may have been published in the cheap form (costing two or three cents) used by the semi-commercial, semi-philanthropic firm "Posrednik," which may be rendered "Middleman" or "Mediator," designed for the dissemination of good and useful reading among the masses.
At any rate, "Concerning Drunkenness" appeared at the price of one ruble (about fifty cents) in 1891, prefaced by a dissertation by Count Tolstoy, "Why Do People Stupefy Themselves?" specially written for this occasion, as Dr. Alexyeeff told me. (It has been translated under the title of "Alcohol and Tobacco," London, and published without any indication that Dr. Alexyeeff inspired it.)
In 1896 a second edition, revised and enlarged, was published, also in Moscow; and to this the author added a list of helpful publications and a summary bibliography, which included books issued in various foreign countries, ranging in number from 705 for Great Britain and Colonies, 142 for the United States, 247 for Germany, 124 for ten other countries combined, (up to 1885 in all these cases,) to ten for Russia. Of these ten, four are in Latin, four in German, one is in Swedish and one in Russian—the latter, evidently, an article republished from The Medical News. On the whole, a list practically non-existent, so far as Russia was concerned!
Dr. Alexyeeff had discovered a field of endeavor as virgin as the unplowed steppe. Only scientists desperately hard up for an unusual topic for a strictly academic discussion and recklessly willing to risk incurring universal unpopularity would have dreamed of unearthing those volumes. He promptly aroused Count Tolstoy's interest in the subject of temperance, which in this case signified prohibition, since the Count in his preface to Dr. Alexyeeff's book (dated July 10-22, 1890,) treated liquor on the same basis as tobacco, which he had totally abjured at least two years previously. With Tolstoy, to become convinced that a reform was desirable was, as all the world knows, to become an ardent propagandist of that reform. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Alexyeeff, seconded by those of Tolstoy, temperance began to attract attention in Russia, temperance societies were formed, and have been steadily increasing ever since in numbers and activity.
Eventually Mr. Tchelisheff arrived on the scene with his splendid vital force and practical solutions of the financial and other problems (or suggestions for them) that arise from prohibition, (especially when a Government monopoly and revenue are concerned,) which he most strenuously advocated when Mayor of Samara, as representative in the Duma—everywhere, in fact, where he could obtain a hearing, willing or unwilling, up to the Emperor Nicholas himself. And the Emperor showed that he was equal to the magnificent opportunity, and joined hands with the former peasant in aiding his country.