Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1888 — Mr. Kennan's Change of Views. [ARTICLE]

Mr. Kennan's Change of Views.

The’following is an extract from a letter written home by Air. Kennan while he was in Russia investigating the exile f system for the Century magazine: The exile system is much worse than I supposed. Mr. —examination’ of prisons and study of the exiie system were extremely superficial. I can not understand how, if he really went through the>Tiumen and Tomsk forwardingprisons, he could hXve failed to see that their condition aqd the condition of tfieir wretched inmates were in many respects shocking. Nobody here has tried to conceal it from me. The acting governor ortEis province said to me very frankly yesterday that the condition of the Tomsk prison is “oozasnoi” (awful), but that he can not help it.

. . What I have “previously’ written ami said about the_treatment of the political exiles seems to be substantially true and accurate, at least so far as Western Siberia is concerned, but my preroneenved ideas to their character}) ave been rudely shaken, rhe Kussian h berals and revolutionists Whom Idiave met here are by no means half educated enthusiasts, crazy fanatics, or men whose mental processes it is difficult to understand. On the contrary, they are simple, natural, perfectly comprehensible, and often singularly interesting and attrac.tr ive. One sees at once that they are educated, reasonable, self controlled gentle* men, not different in any ess. ntial respect from one’s self. When I write up this country for the Century, I shall have to take back some of tlie things that I have said. The exile system is worse than I believed it to be, and worse than I have described It. It isn’t pleasant of course, to have to admit that one has written upon a subject without fully understanding it; but even that is better than trying, for the sake of consistency, to maitain a position after one sees that it is utterly utenable.