The Case for Political Asylum
Tacoma’s newspaper calls on the federal government to stop extraditing Russian political refugees, citing the nation's own revolutionary roots.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The outcry against the sending back to the tortures of Russian militarism of the peasant Jan Pouren had the effect of calling the attention of the Washington government to the danger of a great mistake, and the proceedings against Pouren were quashed. But Russia, clinging to her man like a leech, has recommenced proceedings to drag Pouren back; and in Chicago similar action has been taken by the Russian government to extradite Christian Rudowitz, also a Russian, who fought in the revolution of 1906 against the autocracy of the czar. As in the case of Pouren, the case of Rudowitz has excited the sympathies of the men and women who believe that this country should not render back to monarchies the political offenders. Our nation was founded by political offenders. Washington was a rebel. Pouren and Rudowitz did in Russia in 1906 just what Nathan Hale and Joseph Warren and the embattled farmers of Lexington and Concord did—they took up arms against oppression and obeyed the orders of their rebel officers. Let us not send them back to torture. Rather, let us abrogate our treaty with Russia. We can afford to have our criminals escape to Russia and stay there, rather than send back to the devils of Russian officialdom one poor peasant who has reached our shores and thrown over his scarred back the folds of the flag that protected Schurz and Kossuth.
“Our nation was founded by political offenders. Washington was a rebel.”
This 1909 editorial highlights a century-old tension regarding the U.S. role as a refuge for political dissidents. The rhetoric echoing the American Revolution to justify asylum remains a common thread in modern debates over immigration and human rights.
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