Interview with the Peasant-Born Millionaire Reformer, Tchelisheff.
[By the Associated Press.]
PETROGRAD, Nov. 18.--There is prohibition in Russia today, prohibition
which means that not a drop of vodka, whisky, brandy, gin, or any other
strong liquor is obtainable from one end to the other of a territory
populated by 130,000,000 people and covering one-sixth of the habitable
globe.
The story of how strong drink has been utterly banished from the Russian
Empire was related by Michael Demitrovitch Tchelisheff, the man directly
responsible for putting an end to Russia's great vice, the vodka habit.
It should be said in the beginning that the word prohibition in Russia
must be taken literally. Its use does not imply a partially successful
attempt to curtail the consumption of liquor resulting in drinking in
secret places, the abuse of medical licenses and general evasion and
subterfuge. It does mean that a vast population who consumed
$1,000,000,000 worth of vodka a year; whose ordinary condition has been
described by Russians themselves as ranging from a slight degree of
stimulation upward, has been lifted almost in one day from a drunken
inertia to sobriety.
On that day when the mobilization of the Russian Army began, special
policemen visited every public place where vodka is sold, locked up the
supply of the liquor, and placed on the shop the imperial seal. Since
the manufacture and sale of vodka is a Government monopoly in Russia, it
is not a difficult thing to enforce prohibition.
From the day this step was taken drunkenness vanished in Russia. The
results are seen at once in the peasantry; already they are beginning to
look like a different race. The marks of suffering, the pinched looks of
illness and improper nourishment have gone from their faces. There has
been also a remarkable change in the appearance of their clothes. Their
clothes are cleaner, and both the men and women appear more neatly and
better dressed. The destitute character of the homes of the poor has
been replaced with something like order and thrift.
In Petrograd and Moscow the effect of these improved conditions is
fairly startling. On holidays in these two cities inebriates always
filled the police stations and often lay about on the sidewalks and even
in the streets. Things are so different today that unattended women may
now pass at night through portions of these cities where it was formerly
dangerous even for men. Minor crimes and misdemeanors have almost
vanished.
Tchelisheff, the man who virtually accomplished this miracle, was a
peasant by birth, originally a house painter by profession, then Mayor
of the city of Samara, and now a millionaire. Physically he is a giant,
standing over 6 feet 4 inches in his stocking feet, and of powerful
build. Although he is 55 years old, he looks much younger. His movements
display the energy of youth, his eyes are animated, and his black hair
is not tinged by gray.
In Petrograd Mr. Tchelisheff is generally found in a luxurious suite of
rooms in one of the best hotels. He goes about clad in a blue blouse
with a tasseled girdle, and baggy black breeches tucked into heavy
boots. He offers his visitors tea from a samovar and fruit from the
Crimea. Speaking of what he had accomplished for the cause of sobriety
in Russia, Mr. Tchelisheff said:
"I was reared in a small Russian village. There were no schools or
hospitals, or any of the improvements we are accustomed to in civilized
communities. I picked up an education from old newspapers and stray
books. One day I chanced upon a book in the hands of a moujik, which
treated of the harmfulness of alcohol. It stated among other things that
vodka was a poison.
"I was so impressed with this, knowing that everybody drank vodka, that
I asked the first physician I met if the statement were true. He said
yes. Men drank it, he explained, because momentarily it gave them a
sensation of pleasant dizziness. From that time I decided to take every
opportunity to discover more about the use of vodka.
"At the end of the eighties there came famine in Russia, followed by
agrarian troubles. I saw a crowd of peasants demand from a local
landlord all the grain and foodstuffs in his granary. This puzzled me; I
could not understand how honest men were indulging in what seemed to be
highway robbery. But I noted at the time that every man who was taking
part in this incident was a drinking man, while their fellow villagers,
who were abstemious, had sufficient provisions in their own homes. Thus
it was that I observed the industrial effects of vodka drinking.
"At Samara I decided to do more than passively disapprove of vodka. At
this time I was an Alderman, and many of the tenants living in my houses
were workingmen. One night a drunken father in one of my houses killed
his wife. This incident made such a terrible impression on me that I
decided to fight vodka with all my strength.
"On the supposition that the Government was selling vodka for the
revenue, I calculated the revenue received from its consumption in
Samara. I then introduced a bill in the City Council providing that the
city give this sum of money to the imperial treasury, requesting at the
same time that the sale of vodka be prohibited. This bill passed, and
the money was appropriated. It was offered to the Government, but the
Government promptly refused it.
"It then dawned upon me that Russian bureaucracy did not want the people
to become sober, for the reason that it was easier to rule
autocratically a drunken mob than a sober people.
"This was seven years ago. Later I was elected Mayor of Samara, capital
of the Volga district, a district with over a quarter of a million
inhabitants. Subsequently I was elected to the Duma on an anti-vodka
platform. In the Duma I proposed a bill permitting the inhabitants of
any town to close the local vodka shops, and providing also that every
bottle of vodka should bear a label with the word poison. At my request
the wording of this label, in which the evils of vodka were set forth,
was done by the late Count Leo Tolstoy. This bill passed the Duma and
went to the Imperial Council, where it was amended and finally tabled.
"I then begged an audience of Emperor Nicholas. He received me with
great kindness in his castle in the Crimea, not far from the scene of
the recent Turkish bombardment. He listened to me patiently. He was
impressed with my recital that most of the revolutionary and Socialist
excesses were committed by drunkards, and that the Svesborg, Kronstadt,
and Sebastopol navy revolts and the Petrograd and other mutinous
military movements were all caused by inebriates. Having heard me out
his Majesty promised at once to speak to his Minister of Finance
concerning the prohibition of vodka.
"Disappointed at not having been able to get through a Government bill
regulating this evil, I had abandoned my seat in the Duma. It was
evident that the bureaucracy had been able to obstruct the measure.
Minister of Finance Kokovsoff regarded it as a dangerous innovation,
depriving the Government of 1,000,000,000 rubles ($500,000,000) yearly,
without any method of replacing this revenue.
"While I lobbied in Petrograd the Emperor visited the country around
Moscow and saw the havoc of vodka. He then dismissed Kokovsoff, and
appointed the present Minister of Finance, M. Bark.
"Mobilization precipitated the anti-vodka measure. The Grand Duke,
remembering the disorganization due to drunkenness during the
mobilization of 1904, ordered the prohibition of all alcoholic drinks
except in clubs and first-class restaurants. This order, enforced for
one month, showed the Russian authorities the value of abstinence.
"In spite of the general depression caused by the war, the paralysis of
business, the closing of factories, and the interruption of railroad
traffic, the people felt no depression. Savings banks showed an increase
in deposits over the preceding month, and over the corresponding month
of the preceding year. At the same there was a boom in the sale of
meats, groceries, clothing, dry goods, and housefurnishings. The
30,000,000 rubles a day that had been paid for vodka were now being
spent for the necessities of life.
"The average working week increased from three and four days to six, the
numerous holiday [Transcriber's Note: so in original] of the drinker
having been eliminated. The working day also became longer, and the
efficiency of the worker was perhaps doubled. Women and children, who
seldom were without marks showing the physical violence of the husband
and father, suddenly found themselves in an undreamed-of paradise.
There were no blows, no insults, and no rough treatment. There was bread
on the table, milk for the babies, and a fire in the kitchen.
"I decided to seize this occasion for a press campaign, so far as this
is a possible thing in Russia. I organized delegations to present
petitions to the proper authorities for the prolonging of this new
sobriety for the duration of the war. This step found favor with his
Imperial Majesty, and an order was issued to that effect. Another
similar campaign to remove the licenses from privileged restaurants and
clubs was successful, and strong liquor is no longer available anywhere
in Russia.
"The second month of abstinence made the manifold advantages so clear to
everybody that when we called upon his Majesty to thank him for his
orders, he promised that the vodka business of the Government would be
given up forever. This promise was promulgated in a telegram to the
Grand Duke Constantine.
"There remains only now to find elsewhere the revenue which up to the
present time has been contributed by vodka. There has been introduced in
the Duma a bill offering a solution of this question. The aim of this
bill is not the creation of new taxes or an increase in the present
taxes, but an effort to render the Government domains and possessions
more productive."
[Illustration: decoration]
[Illustration: ADMIRAL SIR CHRISTOPHER CRADOCK,
Who Went Down with His Flagship, the Good Hope, in the Naval Engagement
Off the Coast of Chile.
(_Photo from a Kodak Negative._)]
[Illustration: ADMIRAL COUNT VON SPEE,
Who Went Down with His Flagship, the Scharnhorst, in the Battle with the
British Squadron Off the South American Coast.
(_Photo_ © _by Brown Bros._)]