Americans, Attention!

In our issue of January 21, No. 13, appeared an appeal of the Nihilists for pecuniary aid, not in behalf of the movement itself, but for the material relief of those who are now suffering in consequence of their participation in the struggle for Liberty in Russia. The special appeal then printed was a translation of that which had been issued to the people of France. To-day, in another column, we printed the appeal that has been issued directly to the English-speaking race and especially to Americans. In it is stated the fact, which we now take pleasure and pride in announcing, that the Editor of Liberty has been duly appointed the American delegate of the Red Cross Society of the Will of People to organize the subscription in this country, and receive, acknowledge, and transmit such responses to the appeal as American sympathy and American love of Liberty shall show its willingness to make. He assumes the trust thus placed in his keeping with clear sense of the honor conferred and full realization of its importance. He adds his voice to those of Vera Zassoulitch and Pierre Lavroff, who in turn speak authoritatively for the best elements of Russian life, and, with all the earnestness at his command, asks every one whom it may reach to give the utmost that he or she can spare to succor the Siberian exiles and their suffering families. The appeal is to the human heart, regardless of individual opinions. Let it not be said that the citizens of the freest country in the world failed to do their best to heal the wounds inflicted upon such of their brethren as have heroically struggled to cast off the chains placed upon them by the most absolute and cruel of autocracies.

We are in possession of stamped and numbered subscription lists issued by the Central Committee of the Red Cross. To any responsible person in any part of America who shall signify his willingness to devote a portion of his time to working up the subscription, one of these lists, together with copies of the printed appeal, will be forwarded. Especially do we urge our readers to take a hand, and an active one. in the glorious work. Individual subscriptions may be sent directly to Benj. R. Tucker, Box 3366, Boston, Mass.; also any requests for further information. All amounts received, with the names of the donors, will be acknowledged in these columns, and promptly transmitted, at least possible cost, to the Central Committee.

Let us add that the appeal which we formerly published occasioned, by its issuance in France, the expulsion of Pierre Lavroff, one of its signers, from French territory by the new ministry, which professes to be governed in its policy by the principle of Liberty. Lavroff has long lived the life of quiet student in Paris, spending most of his time in the libraries, and his expulsion is another evidence of the hypocrisy of the pretence that any other principle that authority can lie at the foundation of any form of government whatsoever. Before leaving France, he addressed a letter to Clémeceau, from which we quote the following passages, leaving till another time the burning comments of the radical press of Paris upon this latest outrage:

I have just been notified of the decree expelling me from French territory.
Having scarcely busied myself at several years with the affairs of France, I did not consider myself so dangerous to “public safety” of the republican country in which I took up my residence some five years ago. But I do not complain. A revolutionary socialist, it is with me axiom that existing society cannot be society of justice and liberty; if it pleases the government of French republic to furnish new proofs in support of my theory, it would ill become me to exhibit astonishment. It acts according to the logic of its situation as a government. . . . .
It intends, in expelling me to-day, to show a mark of friendship for the government of the Russian empire; but, in view of the weakness and inferior intelligence of the latter, this act of compliance is not unlikely to be found more disinterested than we could have desired. Who knows how many other concessions to political combinations will follow to-morrow? It is inevitable. . . . .
Driven rudely from a country which I loved and where I have made friends, I have only to submit to the decree, still deeming it thoughtful on the part of a minister not to have relegated me to some interior stronghold, or not to have conducted me to the frontier, manacles on wrists and in prison wagon, as happened a year and half ago to several of my friends, who had mingled as little as I in the struggles of French political parties.
I submit, then, to the decree of the ministry, and shall probably have left France when you read this letter. But it is for you and your friends, representatives of the French people and managers of their journals; for you, who, by talent and political influence, are the natural guardians of the interests and honor of your country,— it is you ti take heed whether the government of the French republic is not allowing itself to glide too quickly into a path fatal to the principles of liberty and democracy, whether the danger, from the moral and political point of view, does not become more imminent with every hour.
In quitting France, probably forever, I shall always preserve the memory of those who struggle within her boundaries for the triumph of the principles of republican radicalism.