on its own
initiative and demanded that they be recognized as laws of the land. Among
the measures thus adopted were laws guaranteeing freedom of assemblage;
equality of all citizens before the law; the right of labor organizations
to exist and to conduct strikes; reform of judicial procedure in the
courts; state aid for peasants suffering from crop failure and other
agrarian reforms; the abolition of capital punishment. In addition to
pursuing its legislative program, the Duma members voiced the country's
protest against the shortcomings of the government, subjecting the various
Ministers to searching interpellation, day after day.

Not a single one of the measures adopted by the Duma received the support
of the Imperial Council. This body was effectively performing the task for
which it had been created. To the interpellations of the Duma the Czar's
Ministers made the most insulting replies, when they happened to take any
notice of them at all. All the old iniquities were resorted to by the
government, supported, as always, by the reactionary press. The homes of
members of the Duma were entered and searched by the police and every
parliamentary right and privilege was flouted. Even the publication of the
speeches delivered in the Duma was forbidden.

The Duma had from the first maintained a vigorous protest against "the
infamy of executions without trial, pogroms, bombardment, and
imprisonment." Again and again it had been charged that pogroms were
carried out under the protection of the government, in accordance with the
old policy of killing the Jews and the Intellectuals. The answer of the
government was--another pogrom of merciless savagery. On June 1st, at
Byalostock, upward of eighty men, women, and children were killed, many
more wounded, and scores of women, young and old, brutally outraged. The
Duma promptly sent a commission to Byalostock to investigate and report
upon the facts, and presently the commission made a report which proved
beyond question the responsibility of the government for the whole brutal
and bloody business. It was shown that the inflammatory manifestos calling
upon the "loyal" citizens to make the attack were printed in the office of
the Police Department; that soldiers in the garrison had been told days in
advance when the pogrom would take place; and that in the looting and
sacking of houses and shops, which occurred upon a large scale, officers of
the garrison had participated. These