After an immensely dangerous journey across the Bering Strait in animal-skin rafts making it to what was once Russian territory, a dozen refugees from the Czar’s murderous regime are sent back to their fate.

‘Russian Refugees in Skin Boats Reach Alaska, To Be Deported’ from The Chicago Daily Socialist. Vol. 3 No. 263. September 4, 1909.

U.S. to Deport All But Three of Men Who Escaped in Skin Boats

PROTESTS AT WASHINGTON

Refugee Defense League May Ask Injunction to Stay Government Order

The United States government, in its hurry to help its great and good friend, the czar, has violated every pledge made to the attorneys for the Political Refugee Defense league in the case of the Russian refugees detained at Nome, Alaska, by ordering the; deportation of all but three of the twenty men, whom the league had insisted were political prisoners.

How many more of the men, who are to be deported on Sept. 4 from Nome. are political prisoners the league has no chance of finding out and the government is taking good care that it shall not, since the attorneys for the league were denied admittance to the records in the cases when they arrived at Washington. They were also denied time to send to Alaska to investigate matters.

Government Very Kind!

The government gave as its excuse for sending these seventeen men hack to the tender mercies of the czar that they would suffer hardships if kept longer in the jail at Nome, because the facilities for keeping prisoners at Nome were not what they might be. This excuse is unique in the history of diplomatic interchange of courtesy and speaks for itself.

The exact wording of the letter of Daniel J. Keefe, commissioner general of the department of commerce and labor, explaining the idea of sending back to such hell holes of torture as Baghallon and Irkutsk for fear that they might suffer from the cold in at American prison in Alaska, is in part as follows:

“August 3, 1900 Simon O. Pollock, Esq. 320 Broadway, N.Y. Sir: I am in receipt of your letter of the 24th Instant, in which you request that the deportation of six immigrants, named by you, be stayed until you can obtain the minutes hearings and prepare a brief setting forth reasons why they should not be returned.   Since of the receiving Congressman Parson’s telegram of the 20^th, instant, the record of the hearing was received, and as no brief was filed by you, and as nothing was herd from you, the department was obliged to proceed with the deportation of these aliens, and as the only vessel in which they could be returned sailed from Nome on the 4th, proximo, and failure to deport via that vessel would have involved a very large expense to the government, which the facts would not have justified, and, as you are aware there are no suitable quarters in Alaska in which the aliens could be detained for any length of time, dealing with an unusual condition the department felt obliged to adopt unusual measures to carry out the terms of the law with the least possible delay, in order to avoid hardship in the treatment of the aliens.

“In addition these aliens entered the United States without inspection, which is in itself around for deportation.

“They will therefore be returned by the vessel which brought them over to this country which is understood returns to Siberia within the next few days. Very truly yours,

“DANIEL J. KEEFE. Commissioner General.”

Overlooks One Point

The commissioner general does not make mention of the fact that the vessel which brought them over was a number of skin kayaks, of the Eskimo type, in which these men dared the dangers of the Northern ocean and the Behring sea in order to escape from the cruelties of the Czar. His letter is inaccurate at this point just as his dodging of the law in the case is evident in the earlier stages of the letter. This unprecedented action of the government and the high handed action of the commissioner general of the department of commerce and labor has aroused the members of the Political Refugee Defense League and the president today is wiring Nome to see what the local organizations, interested in the matter, can do to get out an injunction to prevent the deportation of the men until their cases can be investigated.

League Only Asks Time

“All that the league has asked from the beginning in the case of these Russians or any other refugees is time to investigate their cases and find out or not they were bona fide,” John C. Chase, president of the League.

“The league will not fight cases which are not those of bona fide political refugees or army deserters. We have proved this by our actions in the case of Alexandrovitch, who arrested at the same time with Rudowitz, and in the case of the German, Teppitz. We did not lift a hand for either of these cases because our investigations were convinced us that neither of them were political prisoners.  But for the government to adopt this high handed method and send men back without a trial or a hearing on some mere technicality in the law, without giving the friends of the persons detained any chance to investigate the cases should be enough to rouse the American people to a white heat of indignation.

“I firmly believe that if it had not been for our quick work and immediate demand upon the government, the three men who have been freed would have been sent back to the czar along with the rest. That we have saved these three is something, but if there is any law or any American tradition left in this country we ought to be able to save the remaining members of the party.”

Protests Sent to Washington

Telegrams of protest were sent to Washington coincident with the sending of the cables to Nome attempting to secure an injunction in the courts which will give the men at work at least a little me to prepare cases. The injunction to be asked will be temporary in its nature. Simon O. Pollock of New York, who was prominent as an attorney in the defense of Rudowitz, will handle the legal end of the matter for the league.

The Chicago Socialist, sometimes daily sometimes weekly, was published from 1902 until 1912 as the paper of the Chicago Socialist Party. The roots of the paper lie with Workers Call, published from 1899 as a Socialist Labor Party publication, becoming a voice of the Springfield Social Democratic Party after splitting with De Leon in July, 1901. It became the Chicago Socialist Party paper with the SDP’s adherence and changed its name to the Chicago Socialist in March, 1902. In 1906 it became a daily and published until 1912 by Local Cook County of the Socialist Party and was edited by A.M. Simons if the International Socialist Review. A cornucopia of historical information on the Chicago workers movements lies within its pages.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/chicago-daily-socialist/1909/090904-chicagodailysocialist-v03n263.pdf