Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/36

20 "But," I exclaimed, "that was not only unjust, but stupid. What was the use of asking a political exile to swear that he was a loyal citizen?"

"There was no use of it," he answered; "but it was done. The Government did not even content itself with exacting an oath of loyalty, but required me to swear that I would tell all I knew about the revolutionary movement; or, in other words, betray my friends. I could not do that, even if I had been changed into a loyal subject by banishment."

Further inquiry elicited the fact, which was then a new one to me, that all administrative exiles who were living in Western Siberia when Alexander III. came to the throne in 1881 were required by the Minister of the Interior to take the oath of allegiance to the new Tsar. It was unreasonable, of course, to expect that men who were already undergoing punishment for disloyalty to Alexander II. would stultify themselves by taking an oath of allegiance to Alexander III.; yet the Minister of the Interior either entertained such an expectation, or else made a pretense of it in order to have an excuse for punishing a second time men who had not committed a second offense. If a criminal whose sentence has been pronounced, and who is already in exile, refuses to admit that his criminal act was wrong, such refusal may be a good reason for not setting him at liberty until the expiration of his penal term; but it is hardly a sufficient reason for arbitrarily increasing threefold the severity of his punishment. It would be regarded as a very remarkable proceeding if the governor of Illinois should go to-morrow