^Marine <Bwl<Mieal Laboratory Library

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UHOMPSOM MONTGOMERY

(1907-1986)

architect, mphcrf of
Ihotnas ^Harrison Montgomery (1673-1912),
<MBL intfcstiQahr, W (Priscilla ^Braislm
OAontyomcry ( 1874 ~ 1956), MBL librarian.

Gift of thc4rsw$ jfugh tMotitgotvery, MtD.
and <umwd (R Montgomery — 1987.

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From the Autographic Album, 1892.

Family of the Emperor of Russia: i. Czar Alexander III. 2. Empress
Marie. Children: 3. Nicholas, the present Czar. 4. Grand Duke
Michael. 5. Grand Duke George who died after the accident with a
velocipede. 6. Grand Duchess Xenia. 7. Grand Duchess Olga.
(Both Grand Duchesses are now giving their services to the Red Cross.)

RUSSIA
THEN AND NOW

1892-1917

MY MISSION TO RUSSIA DURING

THE FAMINE OF 1891-1892 WITH

DATA BEARING UPON

RUSSIA OF TO-DAY

BY

FRANCIS B. REEVES

WITH THIRTY-FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

TOe mnfcfeerbocfeer press

1917

COPYRIGHT, 1917

BY
FRANCIS B. REEVES

Ube ftnfcfccrbocfcer press, flew

Preface

SURELY we have reason for gratulation that
the United States of America and the Empire of
Russia have always been on terms of amity, of
which fact the coming to us of their warships in
our time of threatened disunion; the sending to
them of our relief ships in their time of famine;
their people's beautiful expressions of gratitude
through our Commissioners, and the coming to
Philadelphia of their fleet of battleships in 1893
with splendid gifts from their Emperor to the
Commissioners to Russia for relief of their famish-
ing peasantry, are happy indications.

And may we not link up with this gold chain
Russia's sale to the United States of Russian
America — Alaska? A possession of Russia since
its discovery A.D. 1741, with an area of 590,884
square miles, they let us have Alaska by treaty
of March 30, 1867, for the insignificant sum of
$7,200,000.

Equally good tokens of friendship have followed
these long-gone years up to the present day.

• • •

in

iv PREFACE

The motive to write this book was the resultant
of these convincing thoughts.

A frequent traveller or a long-time sojourner in
a foreign country might be better qualified to
entertain friends at home with an account of his
journeyings than can one whose observations have
been limited as to territory and time. Yet, en-
couraged by the assurance that this mission
afforded me special advantages such as are not
experienced by an ordinary traveller, I determined
to make a book-story of it.

Men, whose privilege it is to be living in these
days, are wont to discourse upon or to read about
the wonderful achievements of human knowledge.
Like the ancient Athenians, much of our time is
spent in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear
some new thing. Happily the present age has
that to tell that is of vastly more practical value
to the world than was all the boasted wisdom of
the Hellenists in the early years of the Christian
era.

Not alone in the discovery of new material
forces and the skilful unfolding of long-hidden
secrets along the lines of the applied sciences, but
also in the increase in knowledge of the will and

PREFACE

ways of God and the real meaning of the life of
His Son, Jesus of Nazareth, is our age making
great forward strides.

If one should now return to earth after a visit
upon another planet, our volunteer systems of
public charity would be a revelation to him; not,
however, such a revelation as was given to the
Apostle on Patmos, of a glorious world where there
is no death, neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any
more pain, for the former things are not yet all
passed away. Rather it would be an open vision
of a spot of hallowed ground in this ' ' present evil
world," where real sickness and sorrow abound;
of a city whose inhabitants are continually saying
" I am sick."

Ever since the outbreak of the ferocious war
two and a half years ago, and still raging, Russia
has been growing nearer and dearer to America.

This statement is no implication of our lack of
regard for other nations engaged in the terrible
conflict. We are mourning for the millions in the
war zone who are suffering the pangs of grief and
despair. Praying for their relief we harbour a
gleam of hope that Almighty God will soon reveal
a way to end all wars now and forever.

vi PREFACE

A PRAYER FOR PEACE

Heavenly Father, God of Nations,

Thou hast blessed our native land,
Showering favours without measure

From Thy ever gracious hand.
Oft beside the quiet waters

Thou hast led us ; still lead on ;
Shield when darkening tempests threaten,

Guard us 'til the storm has gone.

Father, haste the day of promise,

When, in all the world around,
Wars shall cease : ye angels harken !

Hear the gospel trumpet sound !
Wake the echo, Christian Nations!

:| Peace on earth" your watchword be,
'Til Love's banner, all victorious,

Floats o'er every land and sea.

Light the torch of truth and freedom

O'er the Nations near and far;
Bid the world's belated rulers

Now prepare for Zion's war.
Glory be to God the Father,

With the Spirit and the Son ;
Blessing, honour, glory, power,

To our God, great Three in One. Amen.

The author extends thanks to John Lane Com-
pany, publishers, for the privilege of copying

PREFACE vii

extracts from John Hubbak's Russian Realities;
to Funk & Wagnalls Co., publishers, for permis-
sion to include extracts from John Foster Fraser's
Russia of To-Day; to Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf,
D.D., for the inclusion of his addresses before his
congregations at Temple Keneseth Israel; to Hon.
Rudolph Blankenburg for the privilege of quoting
from his pamphlets regarding his visit to Russia in
1892; to R. Martens & Co., Incd., for extracts from
their monthly brochure entitled, Russia; to the
American Geographic Society for including a
writing by E. K. Reynolds; to The Continent, and
to the Sunday School Times for articles by Mar-
garet Wintringer; to Samuel McRoberts, Vice-
President of the National City Bank of New York,
for the use of his publication Russia; to the
Guaranty Trust Company of New York for ex-
tracts from their booklets relating to Russia's
Finance and Commerce.

FRANCIS B. REEVES.

We've a story to tell to the nations,

That shall turn their hearts to the right,
A story of truth and sweetness,
A story of peace and light.

We've a song to be sung to the nations,
That shall lift their hearts to the Lord ;
A song that shall conquer evil

And shatter the spear and sword.

We've a message to give to the nations,
That the Lord who reigneth above,
Hath sent His Son to save us,

And show us that God is love.

We've a Saviour to show to the nations,
Who the path of sorrow has trod,
That all of the world's great people
Might come to the light of God!

For darkness shall turn to dawning,

And the dawning to noonday bright,
And Christ's great kingdom shall come on earth,
The kingdom of love and light.

COLIN STERNE.

Vlll

Contents

PAGE

PREFACE ....... iii

CHAPTER

I.— RUSSIA'S FAMINE OF 1891-1892 — GREAT

RELIEF FROM U. S. A., 1892 . . i

II. — SAILING OF S. S. " CONEMAUGH ' . 9
III. — RIGA'S GRAND WELCOME . . .15

IV.— A RELIGIOUS SERVICE — As LOADED
TRAINS START FOR THE FAMINE-
STRICKEN DISTRICTS ... 30

V. — FROM RIGA TO ST. PETERSBURG . 47

VI. — FROM PETROGRAD TO Moscow . . 52

VII. — VISITING THE POOR PEASANTS . . 57

VIII. — WITH COUNT TOLSTOY ... 67

IX. — RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE ... 77

X. — RUSSIA'S RELIGION .... 96

XL — THE ABOLITION OF VODKA . .no

XII. — WHAT THEY SAW IN RUSSIA AFTER
VODKA LEFT — BY MARGARET WIN-

TRINGER . . . . .

ix

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XIII. — THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD'S
MOST GIGANTIC TEMPERANCE EXPERI-
MENT— BY MARGARET WINTRINGER . 119

XIV. — TEETOTAL RUSSIA . . . .126

APPENDIX ....... 129

POSTSCRIPT . 179

Illustrations

PAGE

THE FAMILY OF THE CZAR, ALEXANDER III.

Frontispiece

GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS — 1892 i

GROUP OF WORKINGMEN OF THE PORT OF

LlBAU ....... 4

GOING TO MEET THE "CONEMAUGH" ON "THE

ROADS" FROM RIGA . . . .14

THE INHABITANTS OF RIGA SALUTING THE
AMERICAN S. S. "CONEMAUGH" FROM
PHILADELPHIA, ON "THE ROADS" AT RIGA 16

PARTY AT DINNER GIVEN BY NIELS PETER

BORNHOLDT . . . . . I 8

ON THE WAY, BY GOVERNMENT TRANSPORT,
TO THE CEREMONIES ON THE " CONEMAUGH,"
MAY 1-13, 1892 ..... 20

THE HOUSE OF THE BLACK HEADS CLUB, RIGA 22

U. S. CONSUL NIELS PETER BORNHOLDT, CAPTAIN
SPENCER OF S. S. "CONEMAUGH," U. S.
CONSUL-GENERAL DR. CRAWFORD, AND
FRANCIS B. REEVES .... 26

•

a

xii ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

RELIGIOUS SERVICE AT STARTING OF RAILROAD
TRAINS FOR THE FAMINE-STRICKEN DIS-
TRICTS 30

A TROYKA 46

THE IMPERIAL FAMILY OF DENMARK AT THE
ROYAL CELEBRATION OF THE GOLDEN
WEDDING OF KING CHRISTIAN IX. AND

QUEEN LOUISA ..... 48

THE WINTER PALACE, PETROGRAD . . 50

ST. BASIL'S CATHEDRAL, Moscow . . 52

Moscow. KREMLIN. BELL-TOWER OF IVAN

THE GREAT ...... 54

CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION, PETROGRAD . 56
A HAPPY PEASANT FAMILY . . . .58

RUSSIAN PEASANTS MAKING HAY ... 60

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY ..... 64

FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM COUNT TOLSTOY

TO THE AUTHOR ..... 70

MAI AND SOPHIE PETERSON .... 74

THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL, Moscow . . 82

POOR PEASANTS ...... 94

UNDER THEIR ROOF 102

ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

PAGE

GOLD-PLATED PUNCH SET PRESENTED TO THE

AUTHOR 106

Moscow RESTAURANT, ONE OF THE MOST NOTED

IN RUSSIA 112

KALMUCK HUTS ON THE VOLGA, NEAR ASTRACHAN 122

PHILARET 128

PEASANT GIRLS . . . . . .130

THE FIRST OF THE HARVEST . . .134

TOYS MADE BY THE INSTRUCTION TOY SHOP OF
THE PROVINCIAL ZEMSTVO OF THE Moscow
GOVERNMENT, IN SERGIEV POSAD (HAMLET) 142

BUFFET MADE BY THE KOUSTARS OF SERGIEV

POSAD (HAMLET) . . . . .146

Miss FLORENCE FAIR GIVING HER AID TO MAKE

THE RUSSIAN BAZAAR A SUCCESS . .172

THE LAST CZAR OF RUSSIA AND His FAMILY 180

Grand Duke Nicholas — 1892; Czar of Russia, 1894 to 1917. He Married

Princess Alix of Hesse, a State of the German Empire, a

Granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Russia Then and Now

Russia's Famine of 1891-1892
Great Relief from U. S. A., 1892

FOLLOWING authenticated reports that the
agricultural districts of European Russia had suf-
fered an awful failure of their crops of food
supplies (1891), there appeared in many of the
newspapers of the United States telegraphic re-
ports of an impending famine in a large portion
of the Empire. As days went by, despatches, re-
affirming and emphasizing these first outgivings
of the dreadful news multiplied, and the story of
famine-stricken Russia was being discussed by
humanitarians all over our favoured land. The
Philadelphia Permanent Relief Committee, having
received confirmation of these reports, through
private and semi-official agencies, and particularly

RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

through telegraphic and written communication
with the United States Legation at Russia's
Capital, and by conference with our State Depart-
ment and the Russian Ambassador, was convened
to consider the question of sending relief to the
sufferers.

At the time of harvesting the grain crops of
1891 the farmers were induced to sell at the
bidding of high prices by buyers for the Central
Powers. Dr. J. M. Crawford, our Consul- General,
writing January, 1892, to the United States
Department of State, said:

The great advance in price of grain at the beginning
of the last crop season tempted farmers throughout
the Empire to sell, trusting to Providence and the
generosity of the Central Governments to look after
the poor. Hence it was that under the stimulus of high
prices, the export of cereals from Russia up to date
of the Imperial Ukase putting an embargo on wheat
has been officially found to be equal to those of last
year, thus seriously complicating the whole matter.

The elevators of the Baltic and Odessa ports, as
well as the storehouses on the different lines of rail-
road, are overflowing with grain that has been con-
tracted for and in part paid for by English and
German buyers. This mass of grain, practically the
property of foreign speculators, is waiting for the

FAMINE OF I8QI-Q2

Imperial gates to open and let it pass through. It is
evident that it will be extremely difficult even in an
Imperial form of government to prevent it from going
to its owners whose object was to sell this grain at a
big profit to the Government for the relief of the
starving. They rushed the rye and wheat in great
quantities over the frontier in the three weeks that
intervened between the time the Ukase was deter-
mined upon and the date of its taking effect. The
peasants in many places tried to stop it, and in some
cases bloodshed resulted. They said, "You are
exporting the blood of our children. '

But what cared these horrid speculators and
gamblers for starving children?

Information came to us that the National Red
Cross Association had the promise of the people of
Minnesota of sufficient corn to load a ship and
the thought of the Philadelphia Committee was to
collect enough money, from the charitable among
us, to charter a steamship and tender the same to
the Red Cross that no time might be lost in re-
lieving the distress. Meantime, it was deemed
advisable that a special Russian Famine Relief
Committee should be formed, to include others
than members of the Permanent Relief Commit-
tee, to proceed immediately with the work in hand.
This Committee was thereupon formed with

RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

twenty-five members, the Mayor being its Chair-
man. Correspondence with regard to the alleged
cargo of corn in possession of the Red Cross
evidencing that there was faint prospect of its
reaching the Atlantic seaboard within a reasonable
time, the Philadelphia Committee proceeded with
vigour to make their appeals to the public to
purchase flour, rice, etc., and to charter a steam-
ship to carry it to Russia. Sub-committees, one
on Transportation, one on Finance, another on
Purchases and Supplies, were formed, and all these
worked with a will. The Committee met with the
greatest encouragement at the outset in the
magnanimous offer by the International Naviga-
tion Company of Philadelphia of the use of the
S. S. Indiana free of cost, excepting the actual
outlay for expenses of voyage, and the generous
proffer by the officers of the Pennsylvania Railroad
Company and the Philadelphia & Reading Rail-
road Company of free transportation over their
respective railways for all supplies given or pur-
chased, without limit as to distance or quantity.
The religious exercises on the wharf at the sailing
of the S. S. Indiana, our first messenger of Mercy
to the famine-stricken peasants of Russia, on

Group of Workingmen of the Port of Libau.

Under the picture is the following Biblical quotation; "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."

FAMINE OF 1891-92

Washington's Birthday, 1892, were so unique
and remarkable that they commanded attention
throughout Christendom. Roman Catholic Arch-
bishop Ryan, Jewish Rabbi Jastrow, Presbyterian
Rev. Charles Wood, Protestant Episcopal Bishop
Whitaker, Baptist Minister Dr. Wayland and
Methodist Episcopal Bishop Foss, standing upon
a common platform, gave wings to the faith and
hope that inspired every breast, that He who rules
the winds and the waves would speed the great
ship to its desired haven. And I thought as I
looked upon this scene that, though prophecies
shall fail, tongues shall cease, and knowledge shall
vanish away, the love that binds the hearts of the
children of men in the bonds of a common brother-
hood shall endure forever. Here was Charity in
volcanic action, and in its fire I beheld the beauti-
ful foundation-stone of all true religions, sparkling
like a "gem of purest ray serene," and, following
its light, flashed across the stormy seas, I have
seen it again and again, lightening many a dark
and dreary dwelling in dreadfully afflicted Russia.
Their cry of distress went up to Heaven and was
echoed back to our far distant shores.

The Philadelphia Relief Committee's Commis-

RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

sioners to go to Russia and deliver the Indiana's
cargo and a liberal gift of money, besides myself,
were Hon. Rudolph Blankenburg and Anthony J.
Drexel, Jr. As I was obliged to resign the appoint-
ment because of the serious illness of a member of
my family, Dr. A. L. Biddle was appointed in
my place.

So prompt and liberal were the good people of
Philadelphia and other towns, in responding to
the appeal for money, that when the Indiana sailed
for Libau, Russia, on Washington's Birthday, 1892,
loaded to her utmost capacity, the inflow of money
was at its height, and there were no signs of an
ebbing tide. Then came the resolution to send a
second cargo, and again came the offer from the
International Navigation Company of another
free steamship, the ConemaugJi; and again the
word from our big railroad men offering to carry
the shipment free of all freight charges, even
though it was to be transported from afar, as was
the greater part of the Indiana's cargo. Coal
companies freely supplied the steamship with
fuel for their engines, and stevedores worked
without wages to load them; grocery men gave
provisions for officers and crews; rich men gave of

FAMINE OF 1891-92

their abundance, widows of their mites; churches
of all creeds, societies of all sorts, Sunday schools
innumerable, children of public and private day
schools, in a word, almost everybody helped with
glowing zeal.

This was in April. The Philadelphia Relief
Committee then commissioned me to go to Russia
to supervise the delivery and distribution of the
Conemaugtis cargo.

Following is an appeal from the Pennsylvania
Department of the Grand Army of the Republic
to every Post of that Department:

Headquarters Department of Pennsylvania,
Grand Army of the Republic,

No. 1025 Arch Street.

Philadelphia, April I, 1892.

General Orders
No. 4.

I. The Steamship Conemaugh will sail under
the American Flag from the Port of Philadel-
phia, Pa., on April 23, 1892, with a cargo of
food for the relief of the starving Russian
peasants.

II. Remembering the acts of friendship shown
by the Russian Government and people
towards this Nation during the period of the

8 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

Civil War, each Post of this Department is
requested to donate one or more barrels of
flour to this worthy object, not only as an act
of humanity towards a starving people, but
also as an evidence of the appreciation of the
services of the Russian Government at that
time by the men who fought for the perpetua-
tion of American Liberty.

III. All contributions should be marked "Russian
Famine Relief, Steamship Conemaugh, Phila-
delphia,' together with the number of the
Post. They will be forwarded free of charge
by any railroad. Notice should also be sent
to these Headquarters immediately upon the
shipment of donations, stating the number
of barrels contributed.

By Command of Department Commander

John P. Taylor.

SAM'L P. TOWN,
Asst. Adjt.-General.

II

Sailing of S. S. Conemaugh

THE ceremonies preceding the sailing of the
Conemaugh, Captain James W. Spencer, April
23, 1892, though less elaborate than those of the
previous occasion, were no less impressive.

Two thousand men and women crowded the
wharves and the steamer's deck at sailing time.
Singing societies sang patriotic hymns of the two
nations, and instrumental bands contributed their
music to the joyous God-speed. His Honour
Mayor Stuart, as chief executive officer of the
City of Philadelphia and Chairman ex-officio of
the Relief Committee, made an effective speech;
two eminent ministers of the Society of Friends,
Dr. James E. Rhoads and John B. Garrett, the
one with the reading of a Psalm and an appropriate
address, the other with prayer for God's blessing
and protection, voiced the minds and hearts of the
assembled thousands and of the greater multitude
by whose charity the great steamship was freighted

9

io RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

for God's suffering children in Russia, starving,
despairing, dying victims of famine resulting from
the almost total failure of their crops of food
products in 1891.

The Conemaugh's course, after crossing the
Atlantic, was around the north of Scotland
close by the Hebrides, through the North Sea,
under the coast of Sweden; thence northeast-
ward to Riga, the principal Baltic port of
Russia, a beautiful city of more than two
hundred thousand inhabitants. This voyage,
Captain Spencer of the Conemaugh had in-
formed me, would probably require twenty
days.

Four days after the sailing of the Conemaugh I
took passage for Antwerp, Belgium, on the
Steamship Waesland of the International Naviga-
tion Company's Red Star Line. The superior
appointments of this steamer and the extreme
kindness and courtesy of its commander, Captain
Grant, combined to make the voyage a delight.
The Captain by request of the Company quartered
me in his spacious deck cabin. A two days' sojourn
in Antwerp was made necessary by sending and
receiving cable messages, etc., and then I started

SAILING OF S. S. CONEMAUGH n

by rail for Riga, via Berlin, Koenigsburg, and
Wirballen.

At Wirballen, an important Russian frontier
station, I was fortunate, being alone and unlearned
in the Russian language, in meeting Count Fer-
zen of St. Petersburg, an officer of the Imperial
Lancers, who assisted me in exchanging British
gold for roubles, and gave me valuable information
regarding Riga.

Secretary of State Blaine, who had taken a deep
personal interest in the work of the Philadelphia
Committee, had provided me with a special pass-
port countersigned by the Russian Minister at
Washington and sealed with the double-headed
eagle, the great seal of his Government, together
with the following letter :

Department of State,
Washington, D. C., Feb. 23, 1892.

To the Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the United
States:

GENTLEMEN :

At the instance of the Honourable Edwin S. Stuart,
Mayor of Philadelphia, I herewith introduce Mr.
Francis B. Reeves, a member of the Citizens' Russian

12 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

Famine Relief Committee of Philadelphia, who is
going abroad as representative of that Committee.

I ask for Mr. Reeves such official courtesies as you
may be able to extend to assist him in his humane
mission.

I am, Gentlemen,

Your obedient servant,

JAMES G. ELAINE.

The route, until Russia's borders were crossed,
extended through the Belgian and German farming
country, over which the beauties of a vernal
springtime had been lavishly scattered. I arrived
at Riga the morning of Thursday, the I2th of
May (their date, the 3Oth of April) , not a day too
soon, for the Conemaugh came to anchor in the
roadstead eight miles below the city the next
morning.

A schedule for a wide distribution of the flour,
etc., among the various agencies throughout the
stricken provinces having been already prepared
by the Czarovitch Relief Committee in connection
with the United States Legation at St. Petersburg,
I had but to examine and approve it, reserving,
however, a few carloads for any special cases of
want that might be discovered on my visit to the
famine region later on. Enough railroad cars

SAILING OF S. S. CONEMAUGH 13

(they call them wagons in Russia) were at hand to
move the entire cargo. By order of the head of
the department of the railways these trains were
given right of way before all others, not excepting
passenger trains.

The Imperial Government carefully observed
official independence in all matters connected with
the gifts of private charity, whether from their
own people or from abroad, and it is well known
that all such gifts met with the most kindly ap-
proval and grateful sympathy of the Emperor and
Empress and with the hearty sanction of their
Court and Cabinet.

I heard of well-authenticated cases of inter-
ference with the relief organization by local
tchinovniks (officials), but this happened at the
beginning of their work, and may be accounted for
on the ground that these lazy and inefficient office-
holders were piqued because they were not
allowed to have a hand in it. They soon found,
however, that the authorities at St. Petersburg
would give them their just deserts if they did not
mind their own business and let the voluntary
workers take their own course, so there was no
interference nor trouble of any kind afterwards.

i4 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

It is unfortunate that the people of Philadelphia
and other large American cities will not wake up
and exercise such a power to curb the grip of
their self-serving political gangsters.

a

o

IH

t/5

O

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4-3

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Ill

Riga's Grand Welcome

EXTENSIVE preparations had been made by the
authorities and citizens of Riga for a patriotic
demonstration on the steamer's arrival, and this
was carried out on the afternoon of Friday, the
1 3th of May (Russian date — May 1st), a bright,
beautiful day. At four o'clock a flotilla of nine-
teen steamers, well filled with people, sailed out
from the city to welcome the Conemaugh. On the
Government man-of-war Strasch were His Excel-
lency General- Lieutenant M. A. Sinowzeu, the
Governor of the Province of Livonia, and his
wife; the Vice- Governor; the resident Consul of
the United States, Niels Peter Bornholdt; the
Mayor of the city and others of the most promi-
nent officials, together with many ladies ; also Count
Andre Bobrinskoy, executive of the Czarovitch
Famine Relief Committee; and United States
Consul-General, Dr. J. M. Crawford. The mer-
chants of the trade guilds, with the ladies of their

15

16 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

families, accompanied us next in the fleet upon a
large side-wheel steamer from whose deck a fine
military band discoursed enlivening music. The
cheers of the multitude on these steamers, the
booming of cannon and the discharge of rockets
signalized our approach to the ConemaugJi's broad-
sides. The visitors on the Government steamer
being invited to board the ship, a brief but very
impressive ceremony took place in the cabin.
Following a welcoming speech by Captain Spencer,
a Russian gentleman representing the Associated
Societies of Riga, addressing the Captain, pre-
sented the customary offering of bread and salt on a
silver platter in testimony of their loving welcome.
Then addressing me, as commissioner from America,
he presented me with a beautiful album of photo-
graphic views of Riga with the following appro-
priate inscriptions engraved upon its silver covers.
On the front cover :

From the Committee of the Russian Society of
Riga, to the representative of the friendship of the
American people to Russia as a token of remembrance
and gratitude for the brotherly gift to the sufferers
from the failure of the crops, sent on S. S. Conemaugh.

RIGA, May, 1892,

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RIGA'S GRAND WELCOME 17

On the reverse side :

"The Beehive" Stock Company,

The Poet of the Glee Club of The Artisans' Aid

Society,

The Combmakers' Beneficial Club,
"Lado" Literary and Musical Society,
The Literary Circle,
Lovers of Sacred Songs,
The Nicolas Merchants' Society,
The Society Club,
Society of Russian Physicians,
Society of Mercantile Salesmen,
The Porters of Peter and Paul,
The Editors of Riga Courier,
The Artisan Company,
Third Society of Mutual Credit.

As briefly as possible I now summarize some of
the events of a complimentary character during
my stay in Riga. There and in St. Petersburg
ladies of the nobility seemed to vie with each other
in tendering their social hospitality.

There was a dinner at the Riga castle, given by
the Governor, at which about thirty were present.
Another given by the Mayor of the city at his
residence, about forty being present. A third,
when seventy sat at the table, was given by United
States Consul Bornholdt at the Kurhaas, Debbe-

i8 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

len, on the seashore. At all these entertainments
ladies graced the scene. There were teas and
lunches within the home circles of ladies promi-
nently identified with the famine relief work. At
one of these, only typical Russian dishes were
served. A serenade was given at my hotel, the
De Rome, Saturday night, the Riga Chorus Club
of one hundred men singing the national hymns
of their country and ours. At this time a thousand
men and women thronged the wide, open square
facing the hotel that it might be understood by the
representative of the givers of the Conemaugti 's
cargo that all the people united in the welcome and
in the national thanksgiving for the benevolence
that prompted the gift. At all these assemblies
were uttered the strongest possible expressions of
Russia's gratitude to their American friends.

On Sunday morning, accompanied by the
Mayor of Riga and the Captain of the Cone-
maugh, I visited several clubs and churches, — first
the Lutheran Church of St. John, the largest in the
city, erected in the thirteenth century. Here the
Sunday School was in session. Forty to fifty small
boys and girls stood in parted ranks, — boys bow-
ing, girls courtesying as the visitors passed

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through. Having evinced an interest in the school,
I was presented the next day with a copy of
selections from the rules of the Girl Sunday School,
Curatorium :

Pi . The aim of the Curatorium is to help the poorest
girls to visit the school by giving them clothes,
boots, etc.

P2. The Curatorium consists of an unlimited number
of persons both male and female of any religion,
state & position in life.

?3. There are three kinds of members; honourable,
actual & fellow labourers. Honourable members
have to pay 10 roubles a year, or 100 r. once for
all time; actual members — 3 r. a year & fellow
labourers are especially school-teachers.

P4. The means of the Curatorium is formed of
members' yearly payments & of voluntary
offerings of members of the society & as well of
persons not belonging to it.

P5. The management & the direction of the affairs
of the Curatorium fall upon : the Administration
of the Curatorium & the general assembly of
members.

P6. All the members of the Administration work
gratuitously.

This document is an indication that the Sunday
School in Russia has not advanced beyond the
original established by Ludwig Hecker in Ephrata,

20 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

Penna., in 1739, and adopted by Robert Raikes
in Gloucester, England, in 1781. A few days later,
I received the following note:

Miss Nathalie Mansouroff , President of the Sunday
Girls' School Curatorium in Riga, requests the honour
of calling Mr. Francis B. Reeves its honourable mem-
ber, knowing his sympathy and noble activity for the
mentioned schools in America.

RIGA, May, the 5th, 1892.

1 7th

The Merchants* Guild, whose stately, pictur-
esque building was erected in the year 1353 and
rebuilt five hundred years later, was next visited.
Upon presentation to the President and Directors,
who were convened as a reception committee, a
large silver ';'loving-cup': was offered in token of
welcome; the President first touching his lips to
the wine, the guests next being served, and then
the gentlemen of the Committee.

The next entertainment was furnished by a
men's club named the "Black Heads/' where the
ceremony of the " loving-cup" was likewise the
token of welcome. Here was exhibited a marvel-
lous collection of snuff boxes, the accumulation of
ages, and a magnificent array of silver antiques,

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RICA'S GRAND WELCOME 21

of which photographic representations and de-
scriptions in book form were presented to me. In
conversing with a member of the club I asked him
the meaning of the club's name. Not being well
versed in English he said, "It is a widowers' club."
Expressing my surprise that so many young men
had lost their wives, he said that they had never
had wives. Then, in answer to a question, I said
that we in America would call it "The Bachelors'
Club."

Among the educated classes of Russia the speak-
ing of French and English as well as their native
tongue is not unusual. As I understood only our
native language, care was kindly taken on all
occasions to keep me in touch with English-
speaking Russians. It would be well for students
in our colleges to acquire knowledge of the lan-
guage of other nations, particularly those scholars
who may become foreign missionaries or who may
contemplate a business vocation in the line of
development of American commerce.

Mr. Fraser, in his book Russia of To-Day, says:

It is a punishable sin to speak German within the
Russian Empire. It is, however, the keen ambition
of every young Russian lad and girl to speak English.

22 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

All through the winter of 1914-15 anybody who could
give lessons in English was at a premium. Humble
teachers, who had formerly struggled with adversity,
found they were earning £20 a month. The stock of
English primers gave out, and I fancy that for my
little Russo-English dictionary I could have got its
weight in — well, in one-rouble paper notes. Russian-
English clerks and typists are in the heyday of pros-
perity. They have not to seek jobs; they are woo'd to
work. A year ago all the boys who intended to go
into business learnt German at school. That is now
the forbidden tongue, but parents have presented a
petition to the education authorities praying that
English be substituted. English is on the boom.

In the afternoon, by written invitation, I was the
guest of "The Ladies' Circle of Riga, " a company
of honourable ladies actively engaged in the relief
work. As we sat at tea I was asked to tell the
story of how we came to think of them and to do
so grandly for them in America, and especially to
give an account of the methods of the Philadel-
phia Committee. Among the very appreciative
responses that were made was the reading of two
original poems, — one by Madame Marionella
Philadelfena Maximovitch, the handsome wife of
Innovkentie Klavdievich Maximovitch, President
Judge of the Supreme Court of the Province of

+

The House of The Black Heads Club, Riga.

RIGA'S GRAND WELCOME 23

Livonia, in the Russian language; the other by
Madame de Woehrmann, nee Princess Mary
Ourousoff , in English. The next day these verses
were presented to me tastefully printed in both
these languages and enclosed in a cover of satin,
representing on one side the flag of their country
and on the other side our American flag.

POEM BY MADAME MAXIMOVITCH

In your distant, happy land

You have heard of our need,
And you send a helping hand,

Friends in sorrow, friends in deed.

On the waves of the vast ocean

Came the news of hungry peasants;

The Indiana, swift of motion

You then sent us with your presents.

Worse than wind and storm and rain

Is the famine's cruel sting,
And the help out of this pain

The Missouri was to bring.

But a new act of your friendship,

Of such tender, deep import,
Is this third and noble steamship,

Conemaugh, now in our port.

24 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

Oh, believe me, seeds of kindness!

We shall reap from what she brought;
If you call us, touched by sadness,

You shall have our every thought.

We shall share with you each sorrow,

By you we shall always stand,
But we wish a bright to-morrow

To each day in your bright land.

From a woman's unskilled pen

Please accept these humble greetings,

And believe that all our men,

That all Russia, share these feelings.

At Chicago we'll be meeting
There the goblet we shall raise,

With the world at large repeating
Your so well-deserved praise.

May the thanks and all the blessing,

Which we call on you to-day,
Like the sunlight, warm, caressing,

Always lie upon your way.

First in every grand endeavour,

First in work of every kind,
May you thrive and prosper ever,

Model to all human kind.

The other poem, composed in English by Made-
moiselle Olga de Woehrmann, equally expressive

RIGA'S GRAND WELCOME 25

of the warmth of the woman-heart of Russia, is as
follows :

Welcome, brothers, come in friendship

From the land of noble deeds !
Welcome, Conemaugh, noble steamship

Come to help us in our needs.

By what words of friendly greeting

Can I say all that I feel
Overjoyed at this glad meeting,

Brothers, friends, so true and real!

Thinking kindly of our peasants,
You have come across the deep;

From your rich and welcome presents
What a harvest we shall reap !

For the seeds brought in such kindness
Must bring forth much that is grand ;

Let us thank you in our gladness,
Welcome ! Welcome to our land.

?

Russia's brotherly devotion

Will reward you for this hour,
Love is deeper than the ocean

And as boundless in its power.

Shortly after my return to Philadelphia I
received a letter from Mademoiselle de Woehr-
mann, the closing words of which are the following :

26 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

So few foreigners have been able to understand
Russians; so very few have admitted that we are not
the savage barbarians we are generally made out to
be; and it is a great relief to read truth and nothing
but truth in a foreign paper. I hope you will keep
your promise of coming over to St. Petersburg with
Mrs. and Miss Reeves and that I shall have the pleas-
ure of welcoming them and you at Moshkoff Person-
lok. With many thanks and kind regards, believe
me, yours sincerely,

OLGA DE WOEHRMANN.
June, 1892.

We have misunderstood Russians because we
have not known them. We have not known them
because the opportunity has not come to many of
us at first-hand, but often from unreliable sources.
Since my return from that country I have nailed a
number of falsehoods about the Russians that
have been going the rounds of our newspapers.

Our Government may go along for another
century before claiming perfection. This applies
not only to National but also to our State,
County, and Municipal affairs. 'Let him that
is without sin among you, first cast a stone at" —
Russia.

Russia loves America and America loves Russia,

From Left to Right: U. S. Consul Niels Peter Bornholdt, Captain Spencer of
S. S.Conemaugh, U. S. Consul-General Dr. Crawford, Francis B. Reeves.

RIGA'S GRAND WELCOME 27

and we say to her, "Peace be within thy walls and
prosperity within thy palaces. '

A RUSSIAN S TRIBUTE IN VERSE TO COLUMBIA'S

HELPING HAND

In addition to the souvenir received by Mayor
Stuart of Philadelphia from the Ladies' Circle of
Riga, his Honour has in his possession some poetry
forwarded by Michael A. Scherbinin, of Rublevka,
Poltava Government, Russia, ''with the author's
most sincere and most respectful regards.' The
ode follows:

To Our Neighbour

Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved neigh-
bour unto him that fell among the robbers? And he
said; He that showed mercy on him.

LUKE x, 36-37-

Thou say'st it is by obligation

For service rendered in the past
That thou art succouring our nation

In time of dearth and deadly blast.

Well, be it so! But Lord, defender,
Was blaf-weard in thy tongue of old.

In modern English this to render
It meant bread-keeper, we are told.

28 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

To-day, in God's predestination,
By succour brought in time of need,

Thou art the blaf-weard of our nation,
A brother and a friend Jndeed.

Be welcome, sympathizing brother!

And welcome be thy noble band,
Who wrought with one accord together

To forward help by sea and land!

The deed forbodes that blessed morning
When wars and enmity shall cease,

And when all nations are adorning

The throne of Christ, the Prince of Peace.

From Bering Strait to Louisiana

Our heart is on thy welfare set :
Missouri, Conemaugh, Indiana

A Russian never shall forget.

And while the Tynehead we are meeting
With cargo brought by woman's care,

Iowa's daughters we are greeting,
Whose thought our hearts enshrined will bear.

To us thy sympathy is dearer

Than gold, or silver richly spread,

Stretch out thy hand ! We must draw nearer,
One path of equity to tread.

Thy welfare as our own esteeming,
What know we of our coming fate?

RIGA'S GRAND WELCOME 29

We only know, what God is scheming
Shall be both lasting, strong and great.

Two things thy banner has bespoken

As stars involve a two-fold sense :
Of Heaven's realm they are a token,

A symbol of God's providence.

The wonders of God's grace confessing,

We praise the Giver of all bread.
May His reward and fullest blessing

Be poured upon Columbia's head!

All hail Columbia, land fraternal !

Long live the Emperor of our land,
And on the base of truth eternal

May their dominions firmly stand!

MICHAEL A. SCHERBININ.
June 8, 1892.

IV
A Religious Service

As Loaded Trains Start for tKe Famine-

StricKen Districts

THE starting of the first trains loaded with
flour from the Conemaugh, destined for the far-
away starving peasants, was celebrated the morning
after the welcome in the harbour, at Miihlgraben,
seven miles from the city, whither I was conveyed
by special train with the Governor and other
high officials with their wives and daughters.
The Governor's private car contained two rooms
with chairs and sofas of blue satin and gold. Here
again a great throng of people assembled to wit-
ness the demonstration. Two trains of thirty-six
Russian cars each stood there, their locomotives,
fired with wood, with steam up, gaily decorated
with the flags of Russia and the United States in-
tertwined. The officers of the Conemaugh were
present in their official uniform.

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A temporary structure had been erected and
improvised as a church. It was completely cov-
ered with bunting of the national colours, our own
stars and stripes prominently figuring in the grace-
ful drapery. (See illustration.)

Here an hour's religious service was held. The
gold-mitred Bishop of the Orthodox Greek Church
in the Province of Livonia officiated and made an
address, which, though brief, was filled to the
brim with grateful and earnest Christian sentiment.
By request of the Bishop, our Consul-General, Dr.
Crawford, translated and repeated the address in
English. This is the translation:

In the name of the Russian Orthodox Church we
greet you, our American brethren, and bid you a
hearty welcome to the shores of our Empire, and in
evangelical love we pray that the blessings of God may
descend in abundance upon you and upon your fellow-
citizens. It is that divine love which Jesus Christ
preached to us, — the love that knowing no difference
between nations, or religions, or individuals, has
brought you here. It is that love that is not stayed
by difficulties nor by vast distances; that love that
overcomes all obstacles and brings succour to all that
are in need; it is that Christian brotherly love that has
led you across the great ocean and over the inland seas
which separate your country from ours that you may

32 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

bring food to our people who are in hunger and have
no bread. We offer with all our heart our prayer to
God that you and your compatriots may, among other
great blessings, every season enjoy bountiful harvests.
May God give you a pleasant sojourn here, and guide
you safely home to your beloved land of philanthropy,
prosperity, and happiness.

Notwithstanding the beautiful Christian spirit
of that Bishop's address, I cannot refrain from
quoting the following from a letter by Com-
missioner Blankenburg to the Philadephia Times,
March, 1892.

It seems that the Russian Church has for its found-
ation stone wretchedness, ignorance, and superstition;
that to remove them would be to endanger the great
influence and absolute control which the priests now
wield. We see an object lesson of this statement on
every side; look at the villages with their miserable
huts, abodes not fit for even cattle to live in; their
dirty streets, wretchedness unspeakable, and then
behold — the magnificent church building that rears its
proud steeples and fine cupolas in the midst of squalor
and want. The cost of all the huts and abodes in many
of these villages — and almost every one has a church —
cannot nearly approximate the cost of the church build-
ing alone ! If the priests would devote but one-half
of their labours to the furtherance of the things of this
world and the other half to that of the world to come,

A RELIGIOUS SERVICE 33

they would confer an inestimable blessing on their
people, though they might lose some of the power they
now wield. Better yet, make school-masters of nine
out of ten priests, or if they are not willing to change
their vocation send enlightened schoolmasters abroad,
separate church and state and a wonderful change
will soon be wrought.

An intelligent Russian, who, as most of the intelli-
gent ones do, spoke French, told me that the wealth of
the Russian Church is almost incalculable; that it
could pay the Russian national debt (some $3,500,000,-
ooo) and would then be enormously wealthy. Yet
this same church has hardly been heard of during
the great distress prevalent in so many provinces; no
soup kitchens have been opened by it ; no contributions
given. It seems bent only upon saving souls for the
world to come and upon laying up for itself the riches
of this world.

The Bishop having presented the jewelled cross
to the Americans present to be kissed, and that
ceremony having been performed, the service was
concluded with chanting and songs of praise by a
fine male double-quartette, and the last nine bags
of flour required to complete the train load were
put on board, each of the following named persons
carrying one bag to the car: Count Andre Bobrin-
skoy; the Governor of the Province; the Mayor
of the City; the City Prefect; the Director-General

34 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

of the Railways; the Chief of the Customs; the
Resident Consul of the United States; the Consul-
General, and your Commissioner. Then the train
sped away on its errand of mercy amid the cheers
of the populace. Under government direction
trains carrying food supplies were given right of
way, sometimes causing half a day's stoppage of
passenger cars.

One train of cars was sent for distribution among
fifteen districts, among which were the following,
the names of distributing agents appended:

Government of Orel Prince Kurakirt

Government of Simbursk, St. Vevuline Mr. Rodionof

Government of Nishni Novgorod, St. Sviashsk. . .Mrs. Masloff

Government of Saratof , St. Atkarsk Mr. Shidlovsky

Government of Tamboff, St. Fitkingoff Mrs. Bostrom

Government of Tamboff, St. Tokahevka Mrs. Plahovo

Government of Tamboff, St. Morshansk Princess Sagarin

Government of Saratoff, St. Saltikovka Mrs. Saburoff

Government of Orel, St. Babarakine Mrs. S. Pizareff

Government of Skopino ; to Count Leo Tolstoy.

I would direct attention to some facts bearing
upon the locality and the extent of territory
affected by the famine, the measures of relief
administered by the government and people of
Russia, as well as that given by our own people and
others, and will briefly refer to the causes of the

DESTITUTION AND RELIEF 35

great calamity. When it is remembered that the
Russian Empire, with a population of one hundred
and eighty millions, embraces more than half of
Europe and one-third of Asia, an area of 8,647,-
657 square miles, nearly three times greater than
the United States of America, exclusive of Alaska,
or one-seventh of the land surface of the globe,
and that European Russia alone contains a popu-
lation in the fifty provinces of one hundred and
twenty millions, of whom about half are of the
dependent peasant class, one may begin to realize
something of the difficulties and the dangers that
beset the way of the one man ordained, by the law
of an hereditary monarchy, to govern and sustain
so vast c. realm. I wonder no longer that, for se-
ditious utterances or privy conspiracy, thousands
have been banished to Siberia in order that peace
may be insured to the millions ; I only wonder that
so much sentiment and sympathy have been
lavished in our land upon the said political exiles,
with none whatever for the true man at the helm,
at that time Alexander III., who, I believe, would
have sacrificed his life any day for the safety of the
great Ship of State and the happiness of his sub-
jects.

36 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

On New Year's Day, 1893, the Czar, Czarina,
and the Czarevitch held a grand New Year's
reception at Gat chin. After it was over, the
Czar, with his head bared, and in the presence of
a thousand of the populace, blessed the Neva.

At a later discussion on the matter of a dis-
tinctive title for the Emperor, a courtier pro-
posed that, "as the father was known as the
Liberator, the Czar should be named Alexander
the Just."

"Oh, no!';> the Czar exclaimed, 'I am and shall
remain the Peasant Emperor. Some of my
nobility style me so in derision, scoffing at my
affection for the Moujick, but I accept the title
as an honour. I have tried to procure for the
humble a means of livelihood, and this I think is
the best and only means of keeping the world
going. "

Ode to the Emperor Alexander III.

For the great good heart that holds thee
Firm and strong in love's straight road;

For the wonders of thy purpose
To help bear the peasant's load;

For thy brainy power that governs
Thy vast empire's wide domain,

DESTITUTION AND RELIEF 37

All the world will rise to laud thee
And extol thy noble reign.

F. B. R., 1893.

The territory covered by the relief work of the
Russian government and organized private phi-
lanthropy embraced seventeen governments or
provinces with a population of thirty-six millions.
Of these, more than half, or about twenty millions,
were as destitute of subsistence as was the widow of
Sarepta at the time of the prophet Elijah's oppor-
tune visit at her house. The Russian peasant was
in a far worse plight, however, for whereas the
widow faced starvation only for herself and one
son, there, over every threshold, gaunt famine
stared into the pale emaciated faces of a score or
more of men, women, and helpless children, and no
Elijah was there to work a miracle upon the meal
barrel and empty oil vessels.

The question is often asked: 'What caused
the wretched destitution of the Russian peas-
antry?' Of the various theories advanced no
single one seems to afford an adequate explanation.
The popular opinion that it was the result mainly
of the drought of the summer of 1891, when the

38 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

hot east winds burned up everything, is only
partially correct. For several years preceding, the
same conditions prevailed though to less degree,
so that the poor peasants, disheartened and
impoverished, were unable to cope with the grim
destroyer when the almost total failure of 1891
befell them. The normal state of these people is
so close to the verge of starvation, having nothing
laid up for days of misfortune, that a single sea-
son's crop failure absolutely prostrates them.

The loss of their horses, cows, and sheep, through
their inability to feed this stock, worked a double
injury, inasmuch as it not only deprived them of
the assistance of these animals in farm work, but
also of the manure so essentially necessary for
maintaining the fertility of the soil. At the best
of times, by reason of insufficient fertilizing, the
peasants have been compelled to let the land lie
fallow for from three to five successive years to
prevent entire exhaustion of the soil. Mr. James
Besant, a devoted worker for relief in the Province
of Samara, said the loss of horses was immense
and the death-rate of cattle was increasing, so that
out of a million in the province not over four hund-
red thousand would survive. Most of the unfortu-

DESTITUTION AND RELIEF 39

nate peasants were without cattle and had not
sufficient seed to sow their fields, and had nothing
for subsistence until the next harvest.

The Vyestnik Yeoropy, a St. Petersburg periodi-
cal of March, 1892, attributed the droughts, which
had become chronic, to the destruction of the
forests, which has been going on during the past
fifty years. It said : ' ' The territory drained by the
Volga, Don, and Dnieper was formerly covered
with extensive forests, whose deep shades preserved
the springs from exhaustion. These forests have
disappeared. The Don is being gradually choked
with sand washed down from the desolated forest
tracts/1 The writer concluded therefrom that
the prevailing unfortunate conditions were the
result of slowly working climatic changes and
affirmed that no thorough attempt had been
made to strike at the root of the difficulty. The
application of our American system of irrigation
would be more efficacious than hundreds of ship-
loads of food, which at best can afford only tem-
porary relief.

A Russian count, speaking on the subject, said :

The moral and physical condition of the peasantry
has greatly deteriorated since their emancipation from

40 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

serfdom by the act of Alexander the Second, thirty
years ago. The peasants have never learned how to
use their liberty, aye, slaves yet to ignorance and a
non-personal machine-religion, they know not the
meaning of the word liberty.

A writer in the Contemporary Review, March,
1892, said: "Bad harvests in Russia are so much a
matter of course that the peasant has learned to
await them as he awaits the coming of the tax
gatherer.' The taxes then were of three kinds,
imperial, by the State, which includes the Ecclesi-
astical rates ; local, by the Zemstvo, and communal
by the village Commune. The Zemstvo is a kind
of local administration which supplements the
action of the rural communes and takes cognizance
of those higher public wants which individual
communes cannot satisfy. The principal duties
are to keep the roads and bridges in proper repair,
to provide means of conveyance for the rural police
and other officials, to elect Justices of the Peace,
to look after primary education and sanitary
affairs, to watch the state of the crops, to take
measures against approaching famine, and in the
event of famine occurring to attend to the admin-
istration of relief.

DESTITUTION AND RELIEF 41

Unhappily the feudal system held the farm-lands
away from real ownership by the farmers. This
system, which of old prevailed in the Middle Ages,
was abolished in England in 1660; in Scotland in
1747; in France at the Revolution of 1789; in Ger-
many and Austria after the Revolution of 1848-50.

Now the stars in their courses, which fought
from heaven against Sisera, are shining so brightly
over Russia that I deem it safe to predict that
Russia will fall in line with these other nations and
feudalism will vanish like mist before the morning
sun.

The land was imposed upon every family under
the Emancipation Law in quantity proportionate
with the number of males in the household. The
land dues or rent was required to be paid whether
crops grew or failed, and as the allotted land was
not more than enough to keep the women of the
family employed in the cultivation, the men had
to find employment elsewhere or become a burden
upon the workers. And rarely was employment
to be secured on any terms. When it could be had,
it was only at wages equalling fifteen to twenty
cents per day . I heard of men working the entire
summer of 1891 for eight cents per day. Russia's

42 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

protective tariff has not availed, as in the United
States, to build up manufacturing industries.
They have them in the large cities, but they are
very few in comparison with the population. In
the villages I saw none, not even a tinsmith, black-
smith, or potter, — absolutely nothing in the indus-
trial line outside of their primitive farming. And
in this they were truly antiquated. Their plow,
called a soktra, was the same old wooden soil
scratcher that was in use a thousand years ago.
It was made of wood with a little sharp spade-
point of iron. Against all modern agricultural
implements and labour-saving machines the Rus-
sian peasant sets his face like flint. Attempts to
introduce them have been met with determined
resistance. In all the region where famine pre-
vailed I saw no truck patches, vegetable gardens,
nor fruit trees, nor any markets nor stores for the
sale of the products of these necessities for com-
fortable living.

Thus it may be seen that the sad condition of
these people is not to be reckoned solely as the
result of a single year's calamity but rather as the
outcome of a combination of evils of which ignor-
ance is the chief, a culmination of long-existing,

DESTITUTION AND RELIEF 43

unfortunate conditions connected with the neces-
sarily defective political economy of their country,
with intoxication and with their religion, — a curi-
ous blending of Paganism and Christianity.
Happily, their great ruler is alive to a sense of his
serious responsibilities; the higher classes are
active in support of his beneficent measures for
their relief, and the people of our favoured land
have thrown a cheery light upon the dark picture
that the world may see it and arise to lift up their
fallen brothers and sisters.

It would seem after what I have said, as though
there could have been no very bright side to life in
Russia at the time of my sojourn there, but I
assure you there was and that it was my privilege
to see it.

The total grant by the Russian government for
food and seed-grain in 1891 and up to May I, 1892,
amounted to over $150,000,000. This grant was
made of necessity in the form of a loan to the
peasants, it being wisely regarded as incompatible
with the stability of government to give away
money absolutely from the public exchequer. Of
course the repayment of the loan, depending solely
upon the ability of the borrowers to return it

44 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

from the products of future good crops, was a
remote possibility.

In addition to this the Emperor gave from his
private purse ten million dollars, and it is estimated
that the prosperous Russian people added to this
fund fifty millions more.

The Society of Friends in England raised a fund
of two hundred thousand dollars, of which eight
thousand dollars was contributed by Philadelphia
members of the Society of Friends. This fund was
employed in relief work through a committee of
their own.

The English in Moscow, then numbering about
800, had raised a distress fund with the assistance
of friends in England. These funds they had
entrusted to the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, patron-
ess of the Red Cross Society, and grand-daughter
of Queen Victoria. This lady had taken great
interest in the relief of the famine sufferers; a
bazaar, which she had arranged, had in five days
netted about $45,000.

The money value of the supplies sent from
Philadelphia and money given directly by the
Philadelphia Relief Committee into the hands of
the Committee in Russia, for purchase of food,

DESTITUTION AND RELIEF 45

seed-corn, cattle, fodder, etc., may be stated at
three hundred and fifty to four hundred thousand
dollars. Twenty thousand dollars in money was
taken over by the Indiana's commissioners, and
ten thousand dollars by myself for purchase of
Russian seed-grain ; or potatoes, cattle, or for other
special needs such as might be made known upon
the spot. From the United States five cargoes of
flour and grain and provisions were sent, — first,
the Indiana from Philadelphia, February 22nd,
with 2500 tons of flour and other provisions
of a miscellaneous character ; second, the Missouri,
the latter part of March, from New York for Libau
with about 2000 tons of flour given by the Min-
nesota millers; third, the Conemaugh, April 23rd,
from Philadelphia for Riga with 33,163 sacks and
516 barrels of flour, 400 sacks of rice and 100
packages of provisions; fourth, the Tynehead, in
May, from New York for Riga, with the Red Cross
cargo of shelled corn; and, fifth, the Leo, in June,
from New York for St. Petersburg with one-
half of a small cargo of flour given by our country
people under the auspices of The Christian Her-
ald, Dr. Talmadge's newspaper. These all arrived
safely at destination, their cargoes being in good

46 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

condition on discharge excepting that of the
Tynehead, the Red Cross Indian corn, half of
which had fermented and was cast overboard. It
is much better to send wheat or rye than Indian
corn to feed Russian peasants. They have little
acquaintance with corn and know but little of the
way of preparing it for food. Rye is their main
support. The wheat flour sent from America
was used chiefly in admixture with rye, supplied
by purchase from the more highly favoured sec-
tions of their own country. A Russian nobleman
told me that all the flour received from America
was of most excellent quality.

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From Riga to St. Petersburg

THE closing incident of Riga's hospitality is
worthy of note. I had been advised to make
ready to go to the railway station for Petrograd,
on the evening of my departure, an hour and a half
before the train was to start. At the appointed
hour, a troyka sent by the Governor, three fine
horses abreast, stood at the door to take me to the
station. Over the well-paved streets of the city,
out into the suburbs, our team dashed away, the
middle horse, under the gilded duga, trotting a
square eight-mile gait, the outsiders on a lively
gallop. The driver arrayed in dark blue frock,
with a light blue silken girdle, scarlet sleeves, vel-
vet cap encircled with feathers, and driving reins
matching his girdle, displayed extraordinary skill
in driving his steeds, without a whip, — simply by
dexterous manipulation of the blue ribbons and
an occasional kind word. Every other vehicle on
the streets took to the curb line on our approach,

47

48 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

for the Governor's carriage holds the right of way
in the middle of the street and is in no wise re-
stricted in its rate of speed. A circuit of seven
miles brought us up at the railway station, the once
jet-black horses and their brilliant trappings now
white with lather.

At the station were assembled thirty to forty
ladies and gentlemen, including the Governor and
his wife, — indeed, nearly all of those whose kind
attentions had been unremitting from the hour of
my arrival. Having partaken of some light re-
freshments, standing at a table spread in view
of the waiting train, each in turn bade me good-
bye on the American plan — a hand-shake. I
subsequently learned by experience that the Rus-
sian custom includes a kiss, — at least on the part
of the men.

A restful night in a comfortable bed in one of
Russia's admirable compartment cars and a few
bright morning hours brought me to St. Peters-
burg, Russia's modern capital, great in wealth, in
culture, art, and architecture, worthy to be cata-
logued with Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London, and
Washington.

We all know about the change of name from St.

The Imperial Family of Denmark at the royal celebration of the
Golden Wedding of King Christian IX. and Queen Louise.

The august royal family of Denmark cherish the happy relation-
ship (through their children) with Russia, Greece, Sweden, and
Great Britain.

The warm friendship has always prevailed in this happy family
and its relation to other royal families.

The persons appearing on the picture are as follows:

1. Olga Constantinovna, Queen of Greece, with the Grand
Duchess Olga Alexandrovna.

2. Empress of Russia, with the Dutch Prince Gerald.

3. Princess Marie, wife of Prince Waldemar.

4. King of Greece, George.

5. Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna.

6. Greek Princess Marie.

7. Prince Gans von Gluksburg.

8. Grand Duke George Alexandrovitch.

9. Successor to the throne, Czar Nicholas of Russia.

10. Prince Waldemar.

11. Emperor of Russia (Alexander III.).

12. Princess of Wales (Alexandra, the elder daughter of King
Christian and Queen Louise).

13. Prince Wilhelm von Gluksburg.

14. Queen Louise (Denmark).

15. Constantine, then successor to the Greek throne and the
present king.

1 6. Dutch Princess Louise.

17. King of Denmark, Christian IX.

1 8. Princess Victoria.

19. Greek Prince Nicholas.

20. Grand Duke (Russia) Michael Alexandrovitch.

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FROM RIGA TO ST. PETERSBURG 49

Petersburg to Petrograd in 1914, and the reason,
the former being German and the new name
Russian.

In St. Petersburg, as in Riga, under the kindly
care of Count Andre Bobrinskoy, private hospi-
talities were more extended than could be accepted,
for I had determined upon devoting my limited
time chiefly to tours through some of the famine-
afflicted provinces. My anticipated pleasure of
shaking hands with the Czar was rendered im-
possible because of his having just then gone to
Copenhagen with the Czarina and their son,
Grand Duke Nicholas, to join in the celebration of
the marriage anniversary of the parents of the
Czarina, the King and Queen of Denmark. A
picture of the group assembled at that celebration,
presented to me, may be seen on the opposite page.

I met in St. Petersburg, Dr. Alexander Francis,
pastor of the Anglo-American Congregational
Church of St. Petersburg. Early in the autumn of
1891, Dr. Francis spent several'weeks in the famish-
ing district of Taboff where the suffering was most
appalling. He told me that in one village not a
child was left alive. In another village the people
had used up every board in the making of coffins

50 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

and were travelling over the neighbourhood to
find more.

From The Evangelist I quote as follows:

With the help of a few English friends residing there,
Dr. Francis organized a Relief Committee, whose
members made a house to house examination of the
condition of the peasants in three villages and a care-
ful estimate of what it would cost to keep these villag-
ers alive. It was found that five dollars a month,
judiciously expended for food, if carefully distributed,
would keep alive eight persons. His own church then
undertook to save 400 people from death by starva-
tion for eight months. As soon as tidings of what Dr.
Francis was doing reached this country through pri-
vate sources, an appeal for aid in extending this good
work of his church was made in the columns of The
Evangelist. The work so begun rapidly outgrew its
original limits. His energy, devotion and capacity for
organization soon attracted the attention of the
Russian Government, and every facility was afforded
him for the prosecution of his work.

Hon. Rudolph Blankenburg, 1892, wrote the
following about Dr. Francis:

It is but just to say here that much credit for the
good work done is due to the Rev. Alexander Francis,
Pastor of the Anglo-American Congregational Church

FROM RIGA TO ST. PETERSBURG 51

of St. Petersburg. This church was founded about
fifty years ago, and owes its existence, in a measure,
to our then Minister, James Buchanan, of Pennsyl-
vania, who, after vain efforts on the part of the British
Legation, succeeded in getting the permission to build
this church from the Emperor Nicholas I.

VI
From Petrograd to Moscow

FROM Russia's capital my next journey was by
rail over the straightest four hundred miles of
railroad in the world, to the Holy City — Moscow.
I was the bearer of letters enough to keep me there
a fortnight and to open to me every place of
interest in the city. These letters were to the
Grand Duke Sergius Alexandrovitch, brother of
the Czar, Governor of the Province of Moscow;
one given me by Princess Troubetski to Madame
Kostanda, wife of the Commander-in-Chief of
the military, a force numbering 225,000 soldiers;
to Prince Dologoroki; to Prince Ourousow; to
His Honour the Mayor of Moscow, and to others.
Under escort of the Secretary to the Mayor and
his business partner, both Russians with a good
English tongue, I was enabled to see the Holy
City under most favourable auspices.

Time would fail me to tell of the Kremlin with

52

St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, Built by Ivan the Terrible.

'

FROM PETROGRAD TO MOSCOW 53

its eighteen towers; of the grandly picturesque
view from its lofty site ; of the Cathedral containing
the venerated tombs of martyrs, saints, and czars ;
of the hundreds of churches and convents, with
their domes of green and blue and gold, with their
archaic richly decorated icons; of the holy gate
through which none could pass with covered heads ;
of the surpassingly magnificent ancient and mod-
ern palaces; of the exhibition of antiquities; of
the Tertiakoff picture gallery; of the Patriarchs'
treasury, rich in jewelled vestments; of the
grievously crooked and uneven streets with their \

V

striking contrasts of light and shadow ; of Lazarus

3

and Dives jostling one another under the dome =

3

of the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael; of a
hundred weary pilgrims, men and women, clad
in sheepskins or in rags, footsore after a tramp of

_>

weeks to some favoured shrine in the Holy City, I

now at nightfall, asleep, outstretched upon the

cobblestones in the byways of the public streets;

of the institute for foundlings, within whose walls

are 17,000 mother- forsaken infants. These words

afford but the merest suggestion of what may be

seen in Moscow within three days. Like a vision

of the night all these pass before me, but, unlike a

54 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

dream, this picture will stand out clear while life
and memory endure.

From Moscow to Bogoroditsk (English: "The
Mother of God") in the Government of Tula,
the centre of one of the distressed districts, is a
journey of a night and half a day. It had been
arranged with young Count Paul Bobrinskoy, cou-
sin of Count Andre Bobrinskoy of St. Petersburg,
that he should take this journey with me, follow-
ing it up with a more extended tour in the famine
districts of Tula and Riazan. At Bogoroditsk,
I was kindly entertained under the roof of the old
manor house, formerly called the Palace of Cath-
arine the Second. Here, belonging to the Bobrin-
skoys, who are descendants of one of Empress
Catharine's principal advisers, is an estate cover-
ing ten thousand acres, embracing several villages,
and, until the distribution of land was made
under the act of emancipation of Emperor Alex-
ander II., the grandfather of the present Emperor,
Nicholas II., lawful ownership in thirty thousand
serfs, now regarded as wards by the owners of the
estate.

Catharine II., known as " Catharine the Great, '
was born in 1729; she was Empress of Russia from

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1762 to 1796, when she died. She improved the
administration of the Empire, introduced a new
code of laws, and encouraged art and literature.
She has been called "the Semiramis of the North, "
and Voltaire said, with reference to her, "Light
now comes from the North. '

Rambaud, in his History of Russia, said of her:
"No sovereign since Ivan the Terrible had ex-
tended the frontiers of the Empire by such vast
conquests. She had given Russia for boundaries
the Niemen, the Dniester, and the Black Sea."

Tracing the lineage of their hereditary monarchy
from the reign of Catharine II., history gives us the
following record:

Paul L, her son, born 1754, was enthroned Emperor
1796, and was assassinated 1801.

His son, Alexander I., was born 1777; enthroned
1801, and died 1825.

His son, Nicholas I., born 1796, when his father was
19 years of age, enthroned 1825, at 29 years of age,
and died 1855.

His son, Alexander II., was born 1818; enthroned
1855; emancipated the serfs 1861; and was assassin-
ated 1 88 1.

His son, Alexander III., was born 1845. He mar-
ried Princess Dagmar, daughter of the King of Den-

56 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

mark, 1866, at 21 years of age. He died November
i, 1894.

His son, Czar Nicholas II., was born May, 1868,
enthroned 1894; on November 26, 1894, he married
Princess Alix of Hesse, a grand duchy and state of the
German Empire. She is a granddaughter of Queen
Victoria.

Church of the Ascension, Petrograd, Erected as Memorial to Czar
Alexander II. who was Assassinated on this Spot March i, 1881.

VII

Visiting tKe Poor Peasants

COUNT PAUL'S elder brother, Count Vladimir
Bobrinskoy, head of the Red Cross Association
of the district, was in charge of the distribution
for the relief of the famine sufferers, and as Chief
of the Zemstvo he directed all measures for govern-
mental assistance. United in constant labours
with his brothers and a sister, a beautiful, court-
eous lady, hospitals and soup kitchens, bakeries
and orphanages were maintained throughout the
entire district. My first day passed in visiting as
many of these active agencies as were within easy
reach. These good people during the entire winter
had been feeding and clothing their peasants,
ministering to their sick and providing for the dead
and dying among them, and for a long time they
did all this out of their private resources. I was
shown a large bakery, in which good rye and
wheat loaves were being baked for families unable
to bake for themselves. I was taken to a children's

57

58 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

home, a little orphanage, where there were forty
children all under eight years of age. Some of the
parents had died of cold and hunger, or of disease.
This nursery was under the constant supervision
of Countess Bobrinskoy. Next was a storehouse,
where the American wheat flour and the rye flour
purchased with government money, were mixed
together, as the peasants were so used to dark rye
bread that they did not care as much for plain
white bread.

Next day, with Count Vladimir Bobrinskoy, I
was taken upon his official monthly house-to-house
inspection of the village of Tovorkova, ten miles
distant. Arriving at this village of about three
hundred straw-thatched huts and five thousand
inhabitants, at four o'clock in the afternoon, we
first secured the company of the two elders of the
village. Leaving our carriage we started on a
tramp afoot through black mud, going from door
to door interviewing the head of each family, the
Count noting in a book, systematically, the
requirements of the household for the next
monthly distribution, facts as to the number now
dependent, how many at work, the number sick,
if any, etc. The elders were supposed to give

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V IS IT ING THE POOR PEASANTS 59

the cue if any doubt existed as to the peasant's
statement, and in such case we all visited the barn,
uncovered the meal barrel or untied the bag string
that we might see for ourselves what remained
to tide the family over to the next distribution.
In every case, save one, we found the pitiful story
only too true.

The condition of these people was deplorably
miserable. In their earthen-covered hovels of
two rooms lived families of from ten to forty
human beings beside cattle of the ordinary kind.
Entering one house in which lived forty people, an
aged father and mother, nine sons with their wives
and children, I was met just within the door by
two cows. Opening the door leading into the
other room a third cow challenged my progress in
that direction. She had been called into the
parlour for milking. "Where do these forty
sleep? " I inquired of the Count. The ready reply,
applicable to all such peasant dwellings, was, ' ' In
winter on the brick enclosure of the oven (which
they call a stove) , on bunks or shelves and on the
floor; in summer, in the barn or with the cows in
the outer room.' This family, the Count in-
formed me, had never asked for nor re-

60 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

ceived outside assistance; they were accounted
rich peasants.

Five hours were required for this inspection
business and now it was nine o'clock. Our tramp
ended where it began, at the abode of the peasant
Chief Elder. By this worthy man we were invited
to enter and partake of his hospitality. This home
differed in nothing from the others we had visited.
His family comprised twenty persons. The elder's
wife and five sons bade us welcome. Three
comely young women, wives of as many of the sons,
stood within, each with a baby in her arms. A
group of younger children, chickens running about
the floor, and two pet rooks, comprised the family
circle. Three little heads, with half a dozen
bright, wondering eyes, looked down upon us from
a broad shelf, high up, two or three feet below the
roof, where they had been put to bed. The table,
a single board, a foot and a half by four feet, in a
corner, surrounded by rough wooden seats, was
quickly spread with a coarse white cover. The
samovar was brought out, a charcoal fire kindled
within it, a draft being secured by connecting
a tin pipe between it and the stove ; glass tumblers
for the tea were placed before us, for tea is always

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Copyright, Underwood & Underwood.
Russian Peasants Making Hay.

VISITING THE POOR PEASANTS 61

served in glass tumblers in Russia. Then the
Count chatted with the party in their native lan-
guage until the samovar began to boil. Besides the
tea, — which was excellent, the elder placed before
us a small bottle of vodka, a large loaf of black
bread, a dozen hard-boiled eggs, and four salted
cucumbers. Having eaten nothing for ten hours,
I had begun to realize the dreadf ulness of a Russian
famine.

An intimation was made by the Count that we
would abuse the hospitality of our host if we would
not consume about all that he had provided, so
everything vanished saving half of the big loaf.

They were evidently actuated by St. Paul's
counsel to the Corinthians — "If one of them that
believe not biddeth you to a feast, and ye are dis-
posed to go, whatsoever is set before you, eat,
asking no question for conscience sake. '

It was several days before I recovered wholly
from the effects of my share of the meal, — four
hard-boiled eggs and a cucumber. And this was
the home of a "rich " peasant, one who, in the midst
of the famine, had never asked for help. One of
the daughters, a pretty girl of sixteen years, con-
trary to the custom of unmarried women, had her

62 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

hair concealed under a kerchief which the Count
asked her to remove that I might see her hair.
Blushfully she complied, and a long glossy plait
fell to her waist. The girl's object in wearing
the head covering was supposedly to prepare her-
self for the time, probably very near, when, being
married, it would be a shame to her to display
nature's lavish head adornment.

In most Russian villages the young women are
not allowed to choose their husbands. The par-
ents do this for them, and the father will some-
times take up with the first one that happens to be
recommended to him by a neighbour or by some
one who has done him a favour, or is in a position
to enable him to befriend him, — somewhat after
the manner that little offices are bestowed in our
country for political favours. Their daughters
are never permitted after marriage to remain at
home, but invariably go to live with the hus-
band's parents, no matter how numerous their
offspring, until the couple can set up for them-
selves.

The following references to Russian weddings
in well-to-do families, I quote from Hubbak's
Russian Realities :

VISITING THE POOR PEASANTS 63

The Russian wedding is a very important ceremony,
which may be performed either in the church or in the
house. In each case the bride and bridegroom are
endued with crowns, and exchange rings during the
religious celebration, which is preceded by a civil mar-
riage. The custom — in some parts of Russia at least —
is for the bride to start on the wedding journey in white,
and it is quite usual to see the whole wedding party at
the station. The bride wears her orange blossoms
and carries an enormous bouquet; the bridesmaids
appear in the most taking hats they can command.

The first to enter the train is the bridegroom, who
has a blue frock-coat with brass buttons and a con-
spicuous knot of white ribbon. When he has in-
spected the location in the train he rejoins the party,
and the chief bridesmaid conducted by the best man,
goes in to verify matters. Then the bride is handed
in by the best man, and the whole party troop after
them. The conversation is continued until the last
moment, but neither confetti nor rice was employed
on any occasion that I have seen. I believe that the
evening is the favourite time for weddings, as it is in
many other countries.

Concerning the guests at a breakfast he says:

Russian meals have often been described, but the
reality is none the less interesting. One is asked to
form part of a gathering for a country lunch, or break-
fast, more properly. On arrival after a long drive
the guests are set down to an apparently sumptuous

64 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

repast, including wine, beer, or vodka at the outset.
When everyone has finished, the hostess asks if the
party would like to spend the hour before the ensuing
breakfast in the garden or on a stroll. Then one
discovers that the feast just ended is only preliminary
and that the real lunch is yet to come. I may mention
that the usual form among Russians is to thank the
hostess at the end of the repast and to kiss her hand.
It is allowed to degenerate foreigners to substitute
the handshake, if preferred.

From Tovorkova we started on a tour through
a number of districts in the Government of Tula
and Kursk, in an ancient phaeton drawn by three
stout horses. My companion was Count Paul
Bobrinskoy, a handsome fellow, twenty-four years
of age. We visited peasants, their fields, cows,
horses, and workers. Over dreadfully bad roads
we were jolted and knocked about, going through
Suckromna, Buturke, Muravlauke, Beresevka,
and Karidzena to Orlovka. In all these places
there were evidences of extreme poverty and of
welcome relief through the past three months.

At Muravlauke a stop made at a public house
for change of horses I utilized for a little personal
refreshment. Our lunch, which we had brought
with us, was unfolded in the midst of a curious,

Count Leo Tolstoy.
Photographed in Moscow, 1892.

VISITING THE POOR PEASANTS 65

interested party of peasants, mostly the family
of the publican. Hearty thanks came from the
head of the family to be sent to America for the
money given to buy the Conemaugh's cargo. One
of them, gazing at me with wonder at the prodi-
gality of our lunch of sandwiches and sardines,
said in a tone of great surprise, in Russian, and
translated for me by the Count — " My! He even
wears a hat like our own/ It was evident that
one coming so far on such a mission was expected
by them to wear at least a red hat and to have
some gilt trimming on his coat.

Early next morning Count Vladimir Bobrinskoy
with his sister left for some hospital work in a
distant village. With Count Paul, the younger
brother, I set out in a tarantass with three stout
horses for a drive of a hundred versts through the
country. The roads are simply wagon tracks
through open fields and, at long intervals, across
unbridged streams. We twice crossed the river
Don upon bridges of most rickety construction,
consisting of logs covered with earth and stone,
in one case so narrow that we were obliged to take
off one of our three horses before we could get on.
The snow had long since disappeared, disclosing

66 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

in the fields a most miserable prospect for the
approaching crop of grain. Cattle were very few,
but here and there I saw some thin, half-starved
cows rooting in the ground, — literally "rooting,'
for only roots were to be found to eat as a result of
all their labour and pains. Many cottages had been
dismantled by the horses eating the straw from
the roofs. From all of this I was quite prepared
to hear as I did through letters from Russia, that
the crops well-nigh failed again and that the
destitution of the peasant was as great as ever.

We stopped for the night in Orlovka, at the resi-
dence of Mr. PizarefT, who, as Chairman of the
Red Cross Association for his district, was actively
engaged with his wife in every branch of the relief
work.

VIII

WitK Count Tolstoy

COUNT LEO TOLSTOY, known also as Lyoff or
LyefT Nikolaievich Tolstoy, was born in the Gov-
ernment of Tula, Russia, August 28, 1828 ; he died at
Astapova, November 20, 1910. He was educated
in the University of Kazan and served in the army
in the Caucasus and in the Crimean War, being
appointed commander of a battery in 1855. He
took part in the battle of the Tchernaya, was in
the storming of Sebastopol, and after it, was sent
as a special courier to St. Petersburg. He retired
at the end of the campaign. After the liberation of
the Serfs he lived on his estates, working with and
relieving the peasants, and also devoting himself

to study.

• • • • • • •

Mr. PazarefT had invited Count Tolstoy, whose
base of operations was in the neighbouring Province
of Riazan, to join us at supper. The Count came,
like our Yankee Doodle, riding on a pony, a little

67

68 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

black beauty, on which he sat with all the dignity
of a First Regiment trooper. In appearance the
famous novelist and philanthropist was more
commanding than handsome, in manner easy and
kindly, in conversation quite unreserved, not lead-
ing, but as ready to listen as to talk. After supper
he mounted his pony and galloped away, first
inviting us to call upon him on the morrow.

With three frisky horses our drive was resumed
next morning. Our first stop was at Beghitshevka,
Tolstoy's headquarters for famine-relief work.
We found the Count, dressed in his grey peasant's
smock, sitting at a table in his study, a small,
unpretentious, simply furnished plank-floored
room. With a hearty welcome he presented us
to his daughter, Princess Mary, who, while presid-
ing with grace over the affairs of the house in her
mother's absence, devoted herself, with her father,
to their great work of charity in the surrounding
country.

A plan of the province given to me showed
twenty-six soup-houses and bakeries, eight hospi-
tals, and seven sanitariums under the care of Count
Tolstoy. As a result of his telling me that he had
notified the Government Committee that he would

WITH COUNT TOLSTOY 69

need no more assistance during the season and that
he now regretted having done so because there
was increased suffering and want caused by sick-
ness, I telegraphed to Riga for a carload of flour
to be shipped to him. After my return to Phila-
delphia I received a letter from him thankfully
acknowledging receipt of it. A photographed
copy of this latter is on page

In answer to a question whether he was engaged
in writing a book, "Yes,' he replied. As to its
subject, he said, 'I think that the title will be,
'The Kingdom of God is in You, ' ' asking me at
the same time if he had given the right English
translation of the Bible text.

His talk was chiefly about the sad condition
of the peasantry, and the great progress of the
Christian religion, of which the sending of these
relief ships from America to Russia was a sure
evidence. 'The time seems to have come,' he
said, "when the Fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of man are being universally acknow-
ledged."

Connected with the Count's study was a large
room with a rough old plank floor. At a table in
a corner sat an aged man, of over four score years,

70 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

in shabby clothing. Princess Mary, after explain-
ing his presence with them, brought him out for an
introduction, and read to me a lot of queer religious
rhymes written by the old fellow. She said he had
come last winter telling her father that he had a
vision of and message from God that he should
spend his last days with Count Tolstoy. Taking
him at God's word the Count admitted him. Ask-
ing Princess Mary what her father would do with
him upon return to their home in Moscow, she
expressed the opinion that he would take the old
man with him.

In reply to his inquiry regarding my stay in
Russia, I told the Count that it was near its
end as I had important business to transact in
Liverpool, England, early in June. The Count,
expressing his regret that my stay was to be so
short, I dropped the American adage — "Time is
money." "No," he said, "time is not money;
that is placing too low an estimate on the value of
time. " Standing outside the door to remount our
tarantass, I remarked to Princess Mary, looking
up at the gathering clouds, "I hope it will not
rain today. ' Beaming with brightness she said,
"I hope it will." I thought of the long journey

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Facsimile of a Letter from Count Tolstoy to the Author.

scZ/ffa&X

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WITH COUNT TOLSTOY 71

ahead of us in the open wagon ; her thoughts were
upon the struggling grain in the fields. It rained,
and I was well watered, but I took the drenching
with equanimity as I thought of Miss Mary and
the starving peasants.

Hon. Rudolph Blankenburg wrote the follow-
ing to a Philadelphia newspaper:

The rumour that Count Tolstoy has been antago-
nized and even threatened by the Russian Government
for the manner and methods of his work can be traced
to the same source that invariably tries to belittle,
misrepresent, and even falsify everything pertaining to
Russia. There is an antagonism to Russia and her
Government in Germany, as well as in England, that
seeks in every way to propagate falsehood and to
cloud the truth, and, as most of our information from
and about Russia is gathered from English and Ger-
man sources, it would be well for us to discount largely
the wonderful stories we hear from and about this land.
When I arrived in Europe the story was flashed all
over the civilized world that Count Tolstoy had been
ordered to his estates by the Government and that he
was a prisoner! I read editorials on this ;< high-
handed outrage" in some of the leading papers of
Europe, and must confess the news struck me very
unfavourably and prejudiced me a good deal. Almost
the first question I asked upon my arrival was regard-
ing the truth of this story, and the reply received

72 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

from a high and well-posted source was: 'There is
absolutely no truth in it. ' My informant added that
the Count did give the Government concern occasion-
ally on account of his peculiar notions about many
things, but this story about his arrest and imprison-
ment was not true. Count Tolstoy is at present, as
stated in yesterday's St. Petersburg Gazette, not on his
estate, ;'Iassnaja Poljana, " in the Government of
Rjasan, but in the Busuluk district of Samara, 500
miles east of his home. It would really be well not to
be in a hurry to accept as authentic all the news
we receive about Russia through the channels above
indicated. The ill-feeling of these countries towards
Russia prejudices them to the extent that they magnify
the dark sides and scarcely mention the bright ones.

The London Daily Mail, January 17, 1901,
printed the following despatch from Odessa :

While journeying north from Livadia, Emperor
Nicholas, during a breakfast luncheon at Tula, capital
of the Government of the same name in Central Russia,
sent a delicately worded message expressing his desire
to see Count Leo Tolstoy. Contrary to expectation
Tolstoy accepted the invitation and soon appeared at
the railway station.

In his peasant's garb he presented a striking contrast
to the richly dressed entourage of the Czar. Emperor
Nicholas kissed him on the mouth and both cheeks,
and Tolstoy readily responded.

Then a conversation commenced, the Czar asking

WITH COUNT TOLSTOY 73

his guest for an opinion upon the imperial proposal for
the limitation of armaments. Count Tolstoy replied
that he could only believe in it when his Majesty
should set the example to other nations. On the Czar
mentioning the difficulties of the problem and the
necessity for the aid of the united powers the Count
softened somewhat and expressed the hope that his
Majesty would be able to attain some definite results
or at any rate to formulate some workable plan at the
conference.

The Czar, thanking him for his good wishes, said
he would be pleased if Tolstoy could be induced to lend
his genius to the solution of the question and the
Count rejoined that the Emperor might count upon
his co-operation, for he was already engaged upon a
work dealing with the question in point, which would
soon see the light.

Although the remainder of this long country
ride abounded in interesting experiences I must
touch upon only one or two incidents. Our mid-
day meal, thirty versts farther on, was thoroughly
enjoyed at the table of Madame Filosoffoff , a sister
of the Bobrinskoys, who, with two lovely daugh-
ters, had turned away from the comforts of a city
home to minister to the poor in this distressed
region.

Visiting several more villages we came into one,

74 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

a half of whose houses had been destroyed by
fire a few days before. Three men fell upon their
knees before us in the road, begging for help to
rebuild their homes. Next to famine and pesti-
lence, fire is the most fearfully dreaded enemy of
these people. In a dry time, when a blaze starts
among their heavily thatched straw roofs many of
the houses go up in fire and smoke together.

Count Paul Bobrinskoy, my companion of many
days, now about to part with me at the railway
station, Kashinow, fell upon my neck and kissed
me, just as we are told in the Book of Acts the
companions of his namesake, the great Apostle,
did, and like the Apostle's friend, I, too, "sorrowed
most of all for the words which he spake, that I
should see his face no more/

I carried with me a letter written by Count Paul
to Vladimer Ivanovitch Peterson, the station-
master at Riask, five hours' journey toward Mos-
cow, written to him that I might be directed to
the right train at that point, which was a junction
of two lines of railway. I presented this letter
on arrival, nine o'clock at night, to a servant of
the company. With the aid of a bystander, an
English gentleman, who observed my futile

Mai and Sophie Peterson.

Daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Vladimer Ivanovitch Peterson of

Riask, Russia.

WITH COUNT TOLSTOY 75

efforts to make the fellow understand that I
wished him to give the letter to the station-
master, I succeeded in my purpose. The station-
master came to me, a fine-looking, tall gentleman,
with a military bearing and a most kindly face.
The letter evidently contained information con-
cerning my mission in Russia, for never before was
I the recipient of such a profusion of kind atten-
tions even from friends, not to mention strangers.
Calling servants, the station-master delivered to
one my coat, to another my hand baggage, to a third
an order for supper, and telling me in imperfect Eng-
lish that I must wait for my train three hours or
until midnight, he led me to the station restaurant
— a first-class establishment, ordered a good supper,
opened a bottle of 'Roderer, " and as we sat to-
gether, took the liveliest interest in all I could
tell him of what America was doing for Russia's
starving peasants. Again and again touched by
some allusion, he rose to his feet, extended his
arm across the table and gave me a hearty hand-
shake. The lunch over, he took me to his house,
introduced me to his peasant cook in the kitchen,
showed me over the house, proudly pointed to
photographs of his wife, who at the time, with her

76 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

little daughters, was visiting her mother in Mos-
cow. He ordered coffee made, set it before me
with cakes, oranges, mint drops, and the best
cigars I ever encountered in all Europe. He
then began to load me with souvenirs giving me a
silver Russian coin-holder, photographs of himself,
his wife, and his two little daughters ; a quantity
of lace and some fancy work made by his cook, and
finally an immense bunch of lilies-of-the-valley,
Russia's most lovely wild flower.

Returning from his dwelling to the station, I
was shown a large room in the station, the floor
of which was literally covered with human beings,
• — peasant men in their rough sheep-skin gar-
ments,— asleep. They were a gang of labourers
employed by the Government, awaiting transpor-
tation by railroad.

On the arrival of my train my friend provided
for me a special sleeping apartment, furnished with
bed, table, and chair, a striking contrast to our
Pullman narrow-berth sleepers. He gave orders
to have me well cared for, hugged and kissed me,
and with a "God bless you'! and 'God bless
America" the train moved off. By noon next day
I was again in Russia's Holy City.

IX

Russia's Jewish People

I HAVE been asked if I gained any information in
Russia touching the alleged atrocious treatment of
political prisoners in Siberia and the persecution of
the Jews. Just enough, is my answer, to assure
me that there has been exaggeration in some of
the reports that have been given publicity as to
both these serious matters, and no little misrepre-
sentation either through ignorance, prejudice, or
malice. The inspiration of such statements, may
be attributed generally to political enemies of
Russia. Everyone knows how easy it is to mis-
understand a matter when but half of the facts
and nothing of the underlying causes are revealed.
Loyal and law-abiding subjects of the Czar have
nothing to fear from the mighty arm of their ruler
nor from the prisons of Siberia, for " Rulers are not
a terror to good works but to the evil. '

I undertake no defence of Russia's penal code,
though I might better succeed in that than in any

77

78 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

effort I might make to apologize for some of our
own municipal and State politics and the conse-
quent evils and abuses that are even now being
endured by our sovereign citizens.

The Jew in Russia is not to be understood as
identical with the worthy examples of that race
who have become good citizens among us. Our
treatment of the Japanese in California and of the
negroes in some of our Southern States would seem
to suggest to us the justice of making full inquiries
before passing judgment on the Russian people for
their hostility to a certain class of Hebrews.

Pierre Botkine, Secretary of the Russian Lega-
tion in Washington, in an article in the Century
Magazine entitled, "A Voice from Russia, " makes
a noble defence of his country against the charge of
religious intolerance and persecution on the part
of the Orthodox Greek Church in the explusion of
Jews. He says :

They have not been expelled, as has been charged,
but have been restricted as to localities of domicile
and as to kinds of occupation ; they have abused their
privileges as traders and as lenders of money to the
poor until they have become dangerous and prejudi-
cial to the people. The peasants, in their weakness

RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 79

and ignorance, have in some localities lost all patience,
have been guilty of violent excesses, have mobbed the
Jews and destroyed their property. They have tried
to annihilate particularly all property, which to their
exasperated minds, was ill-gotten.

And disclaiming all thought of excusing such
barbarities, he says: — "They can only be regarded
as a protest of the people against what they found
to be a thraldom to the Jews worse than the serf-
dom which had been abolished. '

I found the Jews trading in St. Petersburg, just
as they do in Philadelphia, with no thought of
molestation, and after inquiring of United States
officials in that city, and of the best informed
Russians I feel inclined to endorse the article in
the Century.

The London Correspondent of The Public Ledger
writes on this subject, August I, 1916, as follows:

Announcement in Petrograd by Paul Milsukoff,
leader of the Constitutional Democrats in the Duma,
that a bill giving Jews equal rights will be introduced
in the Duma in November confirms reports current in
Jewish circles here for some time.

By Russian departmental order the residence of
Jews outside the pale already is permitted, and re-
cently there was a discussion of the Jewish question by

8o RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

the Cabinet Council at imperial headquarters, at which
it was understood that the project of introducing a
bill in the Duma legalizing this departmental order
was favourably considered.

The circular issued by Count Ignatieff, Russian
Minister of Education, abolishing the system of bal-
lot for Jews desiring to enter Russian secondary
schools was regarded as an excellent omen for the
further enfranchisement of Jews. Alexis Aladin, one
of the best-known members of the Duma and now in
London, said today that not only was the present
report true, but he considered it quite likely the bill
for equal rights would be passed.

"It is a step of immense importance and one that
must arrest the attention of the whole world," said
Aladin, "I am unable to reveal all I know, but I am
able to say I am confident the bill will be introduced
in the Duma and passed. '

There recently visited London two prominent
members of the Russian Government. Vice-Presi-
dent Propopoff, of the Duma, and M. Gourko. Both
these men, your correspondent learned in intimate
talks, looked with favour on speedy legislation giving
the Jews equal advantages with all Russians. Their
attitude is extremely significant of the change that
has been taking place in the inner councils of Russian
affairs since the beginning of the war.

Here we have Propopoff, a nobleman and capitalist,
swinging around to the idea that the time has arrived
to put the Jew on an equal footing with his fellow-men
in Russia. As Vice-President of the Duma, he is a

RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 81

man of influence; in fact, one of the most promising
statesmen Russia ever produced. In speaking with
friends here he said that today one does not talk of
the " necessity" of giving the Jew equal rights, but of
the "desirability.'

In other words, he maintained that the day had
come when Russia was beginning to recognize the
importance of the Jew as a vital part of her national
life. The reason, he argued, was that the Jew shows
himself of real value to Russia in commercial life and
is a factor to be reckoned with in the future if Russia
is to develop the best that is in her. With him stands
Gourko, a forceful leader in the Council of Empire
and an assistant minister.

These leaders are unafraid to compromise their
political success by putting the Jewish question on the
basis of a complete settlement of equality of rights.
That to my mind is a sure indication of the trend of the
Jewish problem in Russia.

A friend, who having been strongly impressed
by such presentments against Russia as those of
George Kennan, said to me, — "You know there is
a Darkest Russia as well as a Darkest England,
and the favouring circumstances under which you
visited the country gave you little opportunity to
see the dark side; hence you can paint your picture
only in warm, glowing tints." Possibly he is not
far astray, but I have aimed to present an unpre-

82 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

judiced, uncoloured view of things as I saw them.
I believe that the nobles of Russia are endeavour-
ing to maintain a kind, helpful paternal relation
toward the peasant class, irrespective of their
religious affiliations, and that in this respect they
are the peers of their fellow-Christians in any land.
They are struggling with the great civil and social
problems of the day in an earnest spirit of broad
Christian chanty. If their progress appears to
some to be dreadfully slow in comparison with
our own, we have but to remember the differ-
ence in our forms of government and the dangers
involved in sudden, radical political changes,
even when those changes are in the line of great
reforms. Let us remember the fate of Presi-
dents Lincoln and Garfield and McKinley, and
be still!

We have reason for rejoicing in our constitutional
deliverance from a condition that was in violation
of the fundamental principles of our Declaration of
Independence ; so has Russia for her emancipation
of the serfs in 1861, and their deliverance from an
hierarchy, which means its people's deliverance
from a sectarian yoke and from ecclesiastical
domination.

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RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 83

Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, D.D., in a recent
explanation of a Sunday-school lesson, said :

Let it not be thought that we are justified in treating
the Jews unkindly or critically because the Gospel
was preached to the gentiles after the people of Judea
rejected it. We can never earn God's love or approval
by frowning upon those whom He loved and amongst
whom He lived and died. We want to do all we can
to make the Jews know that Christ was their Messiah,
and those who ill-treat them and are cruel by word
or action will not only lose the favour of God, but will
incur His displeasure.

Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, D.D., has given
me the privilege of quoting from his published
addresses delivered at Temple Keneseth Israel of
Philadelphia.

•

The story of his visit to Tolstoy, 1894, is especi-
ally interesting. No one of our Jewish fraternity
is to my mind more trustworthy than he in the
elucidation of now existing relations between the
Russian Jews and their Government.

I quote as follows :

While within the Russian borders, I was privileged
to come in contact with many prominent Russians,
one of them, M. Witte, who at that time was Minister

84 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

of Finance and practically at the head of the empire,
the Czar, Alexander III., being critically ill in Crimea,
where he shortly after died.

But of all the men I met none made the impression
that was left on me by my visit to Count Leo Tolstoy.
It was made possible by Mr. Andrew D. White, the
distinguished scholar and statesman, who at that time
represented our country at St. Petersburg. He had
written and asked the Count to meet me and to learn of
the mission that brought me to Russia. The Count's
daughter, Tatiana, replied that her father would be
pleased to have me visit him, adding that he was just
then engaged in hay-making, and, therefore, had not
much leisure. To take as little of his time as possible
I arranged to arrive in the courtyard of his manor-
house at Yasnaya Polyana, late in the afternoon.
Approaching a group of peasants that stood at a well
drinking water and mopping their brows, my travelling
companion, a young Russian lawyer, asked them
where we might find the Count. One of them stepped
out of the group, and, lifting his cap, said most court-
eously that he was Tolstoy: learning my name, he
bade me a hearty welcome.

From the moment I first gazed upon him he held me
captive, and, by a strange psychic power, he has held
me enthralled ever since. No wish of mine has been
more fondly cherished in the years that have since
passed by than that of some day visiting Russia again,
and only for the purpose of seeing once more that
strangely facinating personality, of listening again to
his marvellous flow of wisdom.

RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 85

I had often wondered how a Moses, an Isaiah, a
Jeremiah, a Socrates, looked and talked, denounced
and dreamed : the moment I saw and heard Tolstoy I
knew. One hour's talk with him seemed equal to a
whole university course in political and social science ;
one walk with him on his estate stored up in the
listener more knowledge of moral philosophy than
could be crowded into a year's seminary instruction.
Great as was the power of his pen, immeasurably
greater was the power of his living word. In some
mysterious way the flow of his speech seemed to
exercise a hypnotic spell upon the speaker as much
as upon the listener. The speaker seemed at times
translated into a super-human being, seemed inspired,
seemed to speak words not his own, as one of the
ancient prophets of Israel must have spoken when he
said the words: "Thus saith the Lord, ': while the
listener seemed scarcely capable of thought or speech,
felt his being almost lose its identity and become
merged with that of the speaker.

The first question Count Tolstoy put to me was
from what part of the United States I hailed. Upon
my telling him that Philadelphia was my home, he
expressed himself as much pleased. He recalled the
two shiploads of food we sent from our port, two years
earlier, for the relief of the famine-stricken of Russia,
of the distribution of which he had personal charge,
and he spoke with pleasure and appreciation of
Mr. Francis B. Reeves, our fellow-townsman, who had
accompanied the food-relief.

With even keener delight he recalled that the first

86 RUSSIA THEN AND "NOW

aid received from the United States was from the
Jewish congregation of Sacramento, California, which
to him was all the more remarkable from the fact that
the district stricken was, through governmental re-
striction, uninhabited by Jews. The expression of
pleasure turned to one of sorrow when he remarked
that Russia had little deserved such generous treat-
ment at the hand of Jews — and he lived to see the
manner in which it was repaid in Kishineff and other
places.

More than 300,000 Jews of Russian birth are fight-
ing today in that country for their fatherland, and
tens of thousands of them have laid down their lives
in defence thereof. Hundreds of them are recipients
of medals of honour for deeds of valour on the battle-
fields, in many instances won while fighting against
fellow-Jews of Austrian and German armies, thus
holding ties of fatherland higher than those of blood or
faith.

From this loyalty of Jews to countries where they
are still labouring more or less under disadvantages,
even to such countries as Russia, where they are not
yet in possession of citizenship rights at all, may easily
be judged what their loyalty must be to a country such
as ours, where, almost from the first, every right that
was conferred upon followers of other faiths, was con-
ferred upon them, the country which, for the first
time since they were driven from their original Pales-
tinian home, eighteen hundred years ago, they were
privileged to call truly their own.

The conversation turned to social conditions in the

RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 87

United States, and on these matters he displayed an
amount of knowledge that was amazing. The more
I listened the more I wondered, till finally I could
not but ask him how he who wrote and worked so
much could find time to keep himself so well informed
of a country so far away as the United States. To
which he replied, "Your country has interested me
even more than mine. I have lost hope in mine; all
my hope was, at one time, centred in yours. But
yours is a disappointment as much as mine. Were
yours the free and representative government you pre-
tend to have, you would not allow it to be controlled
by the money powers and their hirelings, the bosses and
machines, as you do. I have read Progress and Pov-
erty by Henry George, and I know what Mr. Bryce
says about you in his American Commonwealth, and
I have read and heard even worse things about your
misgovernment than what they say.

"We were all right," he continued, "as long as we
were an agricultural people. Our modes of life, then,
were simple, and our ideals were high. Politics then
was a religion with us and not a matter of barter
and sale. We became prosperous; prosperity brought
luxury, and luxury, as always, brings corruption. The
thirst of gold is upon us, and, in our eagerness to quench
it, and to gratify our lust of luxury, our one-time
lofty principles and aspirations are dragged down and
trampled in the mire. We build city upon city, and
pride ourselves in making one greater than the other,
and, in the meantime, we wipe out village after village,
whence have come our strength and moral fibre."

88 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

He was not the first of the world's great reformers
and lovers of humanity to lose heart and to experience
spells of despair. Moses and Elijah and Jesus and
others had their hours of agony, and prayed that the
end might come, and deliver them from their hopeless
labours. And many who, like Tolstoy, closed their
eyes in the belief that they had utterly failed loomed
large in subsequent ages among the greatest of the
world's benefactors.

Tolstoy has not failed. He succeeded better than
he knew. His pathetic death revealed the vast num-
ber of followers he had in his own country and in
all parts of the world. And had he cared to inquire,
he might have known it before his death. He could
have seen it from the fact that more books of his were
sold than of all other Russian authors combined. He
could have seen it in the vast crowds that gathered all
along the line, to catch a glimpse of him, when on his
journey, a few years ago, to the Crimea, in search of
health. He could have seen it in the deputations of
sympathizers that waited upon him, and in the streams
of congratulatory letters and telegrams that rushed in
upon him — till suppressed — after his excommunica-
tion. He could have seen it in the Tolstoyan societies
among the students of almost all the Russian univer-
sities and among other bodies. He could have seen it
among the considerable number of landlords, who
made conscientious efforts at following his life, and at
adopting his mode of dealing with peasants and la-
bourers. Were the yoke of autocracy removed, there
would arise in Russia an army of Tolstoyans as vast

RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 89

and mighty as the host which Ezekiel in his vision
saw in the valley of dry bones.

The religion of Russia of the future will be largely
that which Tolstoy lived and taught, and it will be
the religion of a large part of the rest of the world.
Time's sifting process will eliminate whatever is
untenable in his system of moral and social and
economic philosophy, which sprang more from a
flaming heart than from a cool, calculating mind. He
had neither the time nor the inclination to work out a
synthetic philosophy. He wrote as the spirit moved
him. and whenever it moved him, the keynote of all
his writing having been, as he said to me, "the hasten-
ing of the day when men will dwell together in the
bonds of love, and sin and suffering will be no more."

There are in the Tolstoyan system of religion the
elements of the long dreamed-of universal creed. It
will take time for the rooting of it. Mormonism and
Dowieism spring up, like Jonah's gourd, and pass away
as speedily as they came. A system as rational and
radical as that of Tolstoy requires an age for germina-
tion. But, once it takes root, it takes root for ever;
once it blossoms, it blossoms for eternity.

• ••••••

The incident which I am about to relate occurred
in Russia, on a July evening, 1894. In the course
of the evening meal, which I was privileged to share
with Count Tolstoy and his family, a peasant entered
with the mail and presented it to the Count. With
considerable eagerness he freed a newspaper from its
wrapper, and, turning its pages, stopped at one of

90 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

them, and presently gave vent to a number of chuckles.
To an inquiry by one of his family as to what amused
him, he held up the paper, which certainly presented
a strange appearance. Large black ink blotches in
several places in each column disfigured its printed
matter, and made it look more like a black and white
checkerboard than a printed page. Turning to
me, he said that the blackening of his articles, or
parts of them, was nothing new to him. What
amused him was that the unsmeared parts were far
more radical than those which the censor's ink roller
had made illegible, proving to him conclusively that
publications of his were being blackened without
even being read, on the theory that anything he wrote
must of necessity be dangerous, and bear the censor's
mark of disapproval. "I believe, " continued he, "that
if I were to publish a copy of the Ten Commandments
under my name, half of them would be blotted out as
dangerous reading. The fools do not seem to know
that by blotting out parts, they whet the reader's
desire for perusing all, and incite him to obtain un-
tampered copies clandestinely. '

He then told me that that particular article was one
of a series he was publishing, under the title of " Chris-
tianity and Patriotism " in a London newspaper, in the
Daily Standard I believe, not having been permitted to
publish them in the Russian tongue in his own country.
In them he showed that Christianity and patriotism
are incompatible, that the latter is an artificial
creation, skilfully fostered by rulers for their own
benefit. On account of it wars are waged, and no end

RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 91

of other evils are wrought, and sufferings are inflicted
by Christians against Christians, who, religiously,
are taught to love each other, to do good to one
another, and who patriotically are taught to despise
or hate or overreach each other. He regarded patriot-
ism as both stupid and immoral, stupid because every
country regarded itself superior to all others, and
immoral, because it lures nations to possess themselves
of advantages at the cost of the others, thus violating
the fundamental law of morality, that of not doing
unto others that which we do not want others to do
unto us. When rulers or diplomats have certain ends
in view, some land greed to gratify, they excite
enthusiastic patriotism at home by inciting hatred
against the country to be victimized, and deluded
citizens murder and cripple each other by the thou-
sands, paralyze their respective country's commerce
and industry, bring untold sufferings upon countless
innocents, in the belief that they are serving their
own best interests, when they are only gratifying
diplomats' ambitions, or rulers' covetousness, or
assuring the permanence of parasitical dynasties.
Patriotism, therefore, is the strongest ally of rulers
in the promotion of war, and in the prevention of
the earth-wide establishment of the brotherhood of
man.

I must confess that I was somewhat taken aback
by his severe strictures on patriotism, which I had,
up till then, regarded as one of the noblest sentiments
of the human heart, and I, therefore, ventured, later
in the evening, when seated with him in the arbour,

92 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

to ask for some further light on this new, and to me
startling, teaching.

Complying with my wish, he related how, a few
years back, a well-known French agitator visited him,
while on his mission to Russia to prepare the ground
for a Franco-Russian alliance. This visitor frequently
referred, with sentimental pride, to the sacred pledge
he had given himself and his country never to cease
agitating for war with Germany until France redeemed
her lost military glory. He pleaded for the Count's
espousal of the proposed alliance, claiming that, as a
patriotic Russian, he must recognize the wisdom of
crushing or weakening so powerful a neighbour as
Germany. His pleading met with no success. Tol-
stoy showed him the absurdity of his arguments.
Germany defeated France at Sedan, he said, because
France had defeated Germany at Jena; and if France
were to defeat Germany now, it would only mean
that Germany would have to defeat France sometime
in the future. To his argument that France was
duty-bound to liberate the people of Alsace and
Lorraine, and to restore them to where they belonged,
Tolstoy answered that these two provinces had
belonged to Germany seven hundred years, and that
that country had only reconquered what was her own.
As far as the people are concerned they are no less
free and happy under German government than they
were under French. Barring a few hot-heads, they
would rather be left at peace than see their lands
again made the scenes of horrible war. Tolstoy then
asked the Frenchman whether he considered himself

RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 93

a Christian. Upon receiving an emphatic "yes" for
answer, he asked him how he could reconcile Christ's
teaching of love and forgiveness with his own thirst
for revenge ? He replied that patriotism is as necessary
as Christianity, and both must be cherished alike,
even if, at times, they are diametrically opposed to
each other. Striking an attitude, he added, 'In
church, I am a Christian, in politics I am a French
patriot !':

Together they proceeded into the fields, where they
came across a peasant. Tolstoy stopped him, and,
calling him by name, told him that his guest wanted him
and all the Russians to help France to fight Germany.
" Fight for what?" asked the peasant. "To get two
provinces back,'1 answered Tolstoy, l< which France
lost a quarter of a century ago. ' The peasant stared
at the stranger, and finally, turning to Tolstoy, asked,
' Is he a fool or does he think we are fools, " and away
he went. "Who was the wiser of the two,' Tolstoy
asked me," the simple-minded, simply clothed, labour-
bronzed, unlettered Moujik, or the well-fed, well-
groomed, white-skinned politician, with a silk hat,
long coat of latest cut, and patent-leather shoes?
That peasant's answer was the voice of the people;
the politician's was the serpent's voice. As the peas-
ant spoke, so think the people in their hearts, until
the serpent's tongue beguiles them into doing what
they would never think of doing were they following
the bidding of their conscience.

'If patriotism is as innate as is generally claimed,'1
continued Tolstoy, " why do nations go to such trouble

94 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

in inculcating it ? Let them stop compelling people to
swear allegiance to every new monarch, let them
cease saying prayers for him, celebrating his birth-
days, placing his pictures in public halls, and his
monument in public squares, printing his name in
capital letters in prayer-books, calendars, and text-
books, imprisoning people for speaking ill of him,
dazzling the people's eyes and befogging their minds
by means of pomp and show and glitter, crowns and
sceptres, gaudy uniforms, military bands, medals
and ranks, fireworks and triumphal arches — let them
cease doing such things and they will soon discover
how much patriotism is inborn, how much of it is of
spontaneous growth, and how much of it is forced
upon the people.

'Patriotism, therefore, as commonly understood,"
concluded Tolstoy, "is for rulers a means for gratifying
their lust of land or power, and for the people a renun-
ciation of their God-given intellect, a surrender of
fundamental teachings of their religion. Conceived in
that sense, patriotism is but a form of slavery, and
the patriot often but his monarch's executioner.
End this blind patriotism, and you end war at the
same time, for people will then be no longer willing
to sacrifice themselves for the aggrandizement of
their ruler, or of his diplomats or of his military chiefs.
Remove this blind patriotism, and the profession of
the diplomat will be gone. There will then be no
quarrel between nations which arbitration courts
will not adjudicate. Remove this blind patriotism,
and nations will establish their cause by the law of

Poor Peasants.

RUSSIA'S JEWISH PEOPLE 95

right instead of by the force of might. Remove blind
patriotism, and you will enthrone religion among
the nations. Let people cease to be false patriots,
and they will become true Christians."

X

Russia's Religion

THE spirit of true religious liberty is working like
good leaven within their institutions as they now
exist. The Kingdom of God is within them.

Toleration of all religions which do not violate
public morality or good order exists in Russia,
and not to profess the Orthodox Greek faith, the
national religion, does not disqualify for the en-
joyment of any civil rights.

James B. Reynolds recently wrote in the Chris-
tian Union of New York as follows :

Last year in Russia I met a number of people
prominent in the Russian Church, and heard much of
the spirit of their leaders. There certainly has been
a decided awakening in recent years. Of Father
Antonio, now at the head of the great theological
seminary near Moscow, I was told how he often
gathered his students together and gave them informal
talks on personal piety, such as theological students
rarely receive and greatly need. In talking with the

wife of the military governor of the district of Moscow,

96

RUSSIA'S RELIGION 97

I was much impressed with the genuine respect which
she showed for the Russian clergy, especially as her
own ideas of personal religion revealed a depth of
spiritual life commanding the highest admiration. In
a long chat with the Countess Tolstoy about many
features of their national life, I gained the impression
that she also felt that there was at least a strong and
growing element in the Russian clergy which sought to
command respect by broad and thorough scholarship
and practical love and sympathy for their fellow-men.
In conversation with a young tutor of the Moscow
theological seminary, I certainly gained the impres-
sion of one well posted on his subject, which was the
philosophy of religion.

Doubtless many may feel that the Holy Synod is
severely repressive within the Orthodox Church as well
as without, on all "tendencies of modern thought";
but just now certainly they cannot be conceded
to have a monopoly in that line of business. The
Russian Church shows the deficiencies of a State
Establishment whose theory is to include all men
within the pale of the Church, and then make Chris-
tians of them afterwards. This naturally leads to
unworthy clerical as well as lay members. But there
has been progress. I believe a majority of the leaders
of that division of the Christian Church are conse-
crated men trying to do their best with the mighty
responsibilities of their position, and I agree with Mr.
Gribayedoff in saying of the Russian Greek Church:
"It has a great mission to perform, and, on the whole,
is doing its work nobly.'

7

98 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

The peasants as a rule are religious, in the best
sense of that word, for they are always willing to
divide their loaf of bread with the pilgrim and
stranger. They are devoted to their faith and to
the performance of their vows whether as members
of the Orthodox Greek Church, as in the case of
the great majority, or of the numerous Protestant
sects existing and thriving under the protection
of the Government. They recognize God's sover-
eignty, but have never learned the great under-
lying principle of all religions that have been of
great help to humanity in every age, — that the
Almighty Ruler works in the affairs of men through
human agencies, of whom He only requires that
they shall be co-workers with Him, seeking to know
His laws and then conforming their own laws and
lives thereto. They are very suspicious, therefore,
of every effort to change the existing order of their
lives. Often they resist measures to stay the
progress of disease and to arrest the approach of
death lest thereby they be contending against the
will of God. If a child falls into a river or brook
they make no effort to save its life, believing that
God has ordained that it should die in that way.
This conviction not only robs them of every incen-

RUSSIA'S RELIGION 99

tive to use their own free wills and intellectual
faculties to advance themselves and their children
in the scale of civilization, but it carries them into
the outer darkness of a blind fatalism. They
firmly believe that their Emperor is the vicegerent
of Almighty God. They are generally loyal,
therefore, to the 'powers that be'1 while they
are meekly submissive to their desperate lot.
Conspiracies against the Government are rarely fo-
mented among them, but in so far as they are ever
discovered, they are traced to the official classes or
the military, or to men of the universities. But
whilst holding their Emperor in highest reverence,
the peasants are wont to regard the under officials
and in some measure the clergy with feelings akin
to contempt. Their ability to discriminate, how-
ever, between their real friends among those
dignitaries and those whom they regard as
mere incumbrances, is quite remarkable. Men
on their knees on the street curbstones pray-
ing before an Icon are examples of their church
loyalty. On entering the door of a post-
office everyone is obliged to remove his hat
and bow before the Icon; and even when en-
tering a bank, business office, or shop, the hat

loo RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

must come off, particularly if there are ladies in
the building.

Among many appreciative letters that I have
received are the following from Counts Paul
and Vladimir Bobrinskoy :

BOGORODITSK, TULA GOVT.,

3 August, 1892.

MR. FRANCIS B. REEVES.
DEAR SIR:

It was with the greatest pleasure I read your letter
and would have answered long before but I had much
work attending the harvest in the farms. I was so
glad to know you had a happy journey and carried
away a good impression of our country. I am sorry to
tell you that since you left us a very strong dysentery
broke out even among the grown-up people; the
babies were carried off in great numbers, as the food
this year was far from being suitable to withstand
this disease.

As regards the crops it is most lamentable; the rye
and the wheat in some localities and in ours also were
dried up from want of rain and next December we
expect the distress to be greater than that of last year.
And to complete the scourge we have already some
cases of cholera in our district. It was distressing
for me to read in today's paper that in one of the
districts south of the river Don, 900 took the cholera
and 500 of them died of it. We are very busy in pre-
paring hospitals and different preventative means to

RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 101

battle with that fearful disease. It was so sad that the
Red Cross and the Zems too had to spend the money
that would have gone towards relieving the hungry
for the cholera preparations.

I am very sorry to give you so many bad accounts of
our poor country, but we feel also that your sympathy
and interest will be a great encouragement for us.
This year I shall not be able to accomplish my great
desire of visiting your beautiful country, as it is my
time of military service. Thank you for your kind
remembrance of us all and believe me, dear sir,

Yours gratefully,

PAUL A. BOBRINSKOY.

BOGORODITSK, GOV. OF TULA, RUSSIA,

12 March, 1893.

MY DEAR MR. REEVES:

I am very sorry that I could not find time until now
to write and thank you on my own behalf and on
behalf of my uncle, R. Pizarefl, for your kind help in
our work this second year of famine.

The Petersburg American Relief Committee, with
the Hon. A. D. White at its head, has sent me 3200
roubles, R. Pizareff 3600 roubles and my cousin Andrei
Bobrinskoy, 3200 roubles, in all 10,000.

I trust you will transmit to the Mayor of Phila-
delphia and to the Philadelphia Committee our very
sincere thanks for this most timely help.

Through you I have also received 70 roubles 50
copeks (37 dollars 37 cents) from a Sunday School

102 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

class. Pray tell the children that their truly Christian
Charity will go to help the sick with hunger typhus,
who are very numerous this terrible year.

Allow me to express once more my most hearty
thanks and believe me

Your most obedient and thankful servant,

VLADIMIR BOBRINSKOY.

Mr. W. Barnes Steveni, special correspondent
of the London £>aily Chronicle, who had made a
tour through famine-stricken Russia early in 1892,
wrote as follows of his visit at the home of the
Bobrinskoys:

On one of their estates they had established a
priute or Children's Home. This the Count took me
to in the afternoon. I found there dozens of children,
whose appearance bore eloquent testimony to the kind
treatment they had received. Some of the parents,
the Count told me, had died from cold, hunger, or
disease; the others were totally unable to provide for
their offspring. /

In the management of this home the Countess
Bobrinskoy — an exceedingly pretty and refined lady —
found plenty of congenial and womanly occupation.
In spite of the atmosphere of the place being anything
but fresh, she, personally, saw that the wants of the
little ones were properly attended to. 'We are care-
ful," she said, "not to admit the little starvelings to

J-l
o

RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 103

the home without first washing them thoroughly with
carbolic and water. We feed them on milk, bread,
and various farinaceous foods, and find that they
flourish so well on this diet that it will be necessary
for us, before we send them back to their parents,
gradually to accustom them to the harder fare which
will be their lot. A sudden change of diet would be
sure to produce disastrous results. '

I am glad to say that the Bobrinskoys practice
what they preach. They are all staunch teetotalers.
I was not, therefore, surprised to find that they were
held in high esteem by the peasantry. To find this
good feeling existing between a Russian noble and his
former serfs gave me the greatest pleasure, especially
as my preconceived notion of the Russian aristocracy
was that that body was an idle, worthless set. My
experiences during my journey have convinced me
that this view was erroneous. The present crisis, I am
glad to say, has proved that there exist in Russia
many nobles of whom any country might be proud.
That so little change should have taken place in the
relations between the Bobrinskoys and the peasantry
since Alexander II. issued his edict of emancipation is
greatly to the credit of this family. It was with much
regret that I left the hospitable roof of the Bobrin-
skoys. I shall never forget the unceasing kindness
which they showed to the distressed around them, and
to me, not only a complete stranger to them, but a
foreigner as well. Such noble-minded people fully
deserve the high position which they hold amongst
the principal families of this country.

104 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

CZAR ALEXANDER III. SENDS BEAUTIFUL GIFTS TO
THE PHILADELPHIA RUSSIAN FAMINE RELIEF

COMMISSIONERS

The 2Oth of May, 1893, I received the following
telegram from Prince Cantacuzen, Russian Am-
bassador to the United States:

WASHINGTON, D. C.

MR. FRANCIS 3. REEVES,

20 S. Front.

I would be very pleased to see you on the 27th of
May, 1 1 o'clock, on board Russian Flagship, Dimitry
Donskoi, in Philadelphia, to tender to you in presence
of our brilliant sailors and on Russian soil a souvenir
his Majesty, the Emperor, ordered me to give in his
name to the American gentlemen who visited Russia
during the trying year 1892, with hearts and hands
full of loving help. Will you kindly pass same invita-
tion to Mr. Biddle and Mr. Blankenburg, as I don't
know their addresses.

CANTACUZEN.

The day named, May 27, 1893, was the tenth
anniversary of the coronation of the Czar, Alexan-
der III.

The flagship, Dimitry Donskoi, was accom-

SHIPS WITH GIFTS 105

panied by another Russian warship, the Rynda,
both of them anchoring in the Delaware River,
dressed in holiday attire with flags from stem to
stern. Cannon roared the Imperial salute, and
Philadelphians were treated to the unusual spec-
tacle of warships of a foreign nation celebrating
one of its most important holidays.

Prince Cantacuzen presented to the Relief Com-
missioners the following letter, all of them being
present excepting Mr. Blankenburg, who at that
time was in Japan:

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL LEGATION, WASHINGTON,

May 27, 1893.

DEAR SIR:

Before leaving my country for the United States I
had the great satisfaction to receive a special order of
His Majesty, the Emperor, my most gracious Sover-
eign, to present tokens of His Majesty's gratitude to
the American citizens, who, moved by philanthropic
and friendly feelings towards the suffering population
of our country, came over to Russia last year and
attended personally the distribution of the aid, for
which they contributed largely with the generous
American people.

I avail myself of the presence of our men-of-war in
Philadelphia, from which harbour sailed the first ship
with flour for Russia/to tender to you, dear Sir, on the
day of the Coronation of Their Majesties, this case

io6 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

containing a piece of Russian art, as a remembrance
of the feelings you left behind you.

Very sincerely yours,

CANTACUZEN.
MR. F. B. REEVES.

Bishop Nicolas, of San Francisco, the prelate
of the Russian Church in America, conducted the
service, which was one of the highest of the church.
He was assisted by Fathers Andronik and Irakli,
the priests of the Donskoi and Rynda.

The portable altar which the flagship carried,
with pictures of saints and other paraphernalia,
was set up on the starboard side of the gun deck.
The crew of the vessel, with Admiral Kaznakoff,
Captain Zelenoy, the Grand Duke Alexander,
and other officers at their head, were ranged on
the deck before the altar. Detachments of the
officers and crew of the Rynda occupied the port
side of the deck. Bishop Nicolas wore vestments
of purple, with the peculiar Russian hat with its
black veil. The best singers of the vessels formed
a choir, and a large part of the service consisted
of the intonation of the liturgy. The service
lasted over an hour and closed with the Bishop's
blessing and prayer for the royal family of Russia.

Heavily Gold- Plated Punch Set.

On top of the case is a brass plate on which is engraved
MR. F. B. REEVES

IN REMEMBRANCE OF YOUR

VISIT TO RUSSIA

1892

SHIPS WITH GIFTS 107

Then, at a word from the Admiral, a round of
cheers for the President and the people of the
United States was given, and the band played
Hail Columbia, while all remained uncovered.

The gifts to the Commissioners were as follows :

For Rudolph Blankenburg, a bowl and salver,
gilt and enamel, the tone of the latter ornamenta-
tion being blue.

To F. B. Reeves, a punch bowl about seven
inches in diameter, five drinking cups, a large
platter and a ladle. All were of silver, heavily
gilded and beautifully figured.

To Colonel A. J. Drexel, Jr., a Russian "loving
cup" of gilded silver, with lid and handle, about a
foot in height.

To Dr. Biddle, a silver-gilt enamelled cup.

Each present rested in a satin-lined box of

polished oak, which bore on the outside a plate

having the name of the recipient and the sentence :

'In remembrance of your journey to Russia,

1892."

Gifts from the Czar were presented also to the
following named gentlemen who had rendered
valued services in the relief work of America for
Russia: C. M. Reeves, S. Klopsch, Dr. Hubbell,

io8 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

W. C. Edgar, E. S. Phelps, and Rev. Dr. T. De-
Witt Talmage.

This majestic event of international courtesy
did not terminate with the presentation of these
gifts.

A luncheon was given from one o'clock to three
o'clock P. M., by Admiral Kaznazoff to the repre-
sentatives of the Russian Government at Wash-
ington ; his American guests (among them all who
had received gifts), and a few of his officers.

The day's festivities were followed by a brilliant
illumination of the Russian ships with coloured
electric lights, which an admiring crowd viewed
from the shore. From the stern of the Donskoi
there was a continual display of fireworks.

On the flagship a large initial "A, ' the first
letter of the Czar's name, was topped by a crown
of coloured lights.

After the luncheon a party of ladies, chaperoned
by Mrs. A. J. Drexel, Jr., was taken aboard the
flagship. One of her officers said that over a
thousand people had been on board and that the
visitors greatly outnumbered those received when
the ship was in New York. " It is no annoyance,"
he added, "we came here to see you and for you

SHIPS WITH GIFTS 109

to see us, and another Russian warship may not
visit the United States for years. Your gracious
help for Russia proves that your city is rightly
named Philadelphia — 'Brotherly Love. f"

XI

The Abolition of VodKa

AT the time of my visit nothing was said about
the peasants' addiction to strong drink and the
resulting drunkenness and desperation.

Vodka had not apparently been given its proper
place in their tale of woe. Its recent abolition
by Czar Nicholas, universally approved by all
his official representatives and Russia's best
people, has proven that vodka should then have
been cursed as one of the real underlying causes
of destitution when a year of drouth was followed
by crop failure.

No greater blessing has ever been conferred upon
Russia than that heavenward march of the Czar
abolishing vodka from his realm.

Its prohibition, adopted as a war measure, is
likely to continue after the war, according to
reports from Petrograd. Before the war, vodka
was almost universally used by the Russian masses.

Many women, and even children of tender years,

no

THE ABOLITION OF VODKA in

consumed the fiery liquor, while men used it in
quantities almost unbelievable. The peasants are
now more prosperous than ever before the war, and
this is attributed to the saving of the large sums
formerly spent for vodka.

Madame La Marquise, now faithfully serving
the Red Cross Mission, in an article recently pub-
lished by the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, said:

One of the transformations that have been work-
ing to make Russia an interesting study for other
peoples deserves universal cognizance. When the
Czar's ukase forbidding future use of the Muscovite
whisky vodka, was put in force la marquise attended
in state to see the execution of the preliminary step
to the "water wagon. '

At a given hour all the casks of vodka stored in
Suwalki were taken to a neighboring hill, where a
formal ceremonial inaugurated the end of the demon.
The enormous casks were "stove in,': the liquor
coursed down the hillside in torrents; the regretful
topers, as a last tribute, flung themselves prone on the
ground and swigged till they were insensible. When
they could take no more, they rolled in the stream
on the ground. Obviously the Czar realized what he
was doing when he ventured to cut off by a stroke of
the pen the cup that doesn't cheer but bestializes, as
the sequel proves, for the Russian economists are
cheering the empire with the incredible word that the

ii2 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

savings bank deposits have gone up a billion rubles
since the water-wagon replaced the bottle. Nor is
the money gain all ; the peasantry left at home, through
age or infirmity, have redoubled in working power.
Russia, the land the Teutons disparage, proves to be
the only nation in existence capable of decreeing and
maintaining a reform which other nations don't
venture to tackle boldly.

John H. Snodgrass, Consul General at Moscow,
said that according to statistics gathered by a
reputable newspaper, the consumption of vodka
during the months of July, August, September, and
October, 1914, was only a little more than one-
tenth what it was during the same months of 1913
— before the Czar's ukase against intoxicants ; and
adds:

It is observed in the manufacturing concerns
that labour has become much more productive
than before.

Formerly at the Moscow mills many workmen
would not appear on Monday, and a number of
those who did were unfit for duty in consequence of
their Sunday excesses. This is no longer the case ;
both the quality and quantity of labour performed
have improved.

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XII

What They Saw in Russia After

VodKa Left1

By Margaret Wintringer

WHILE in London a letter of introduction secured for
me an interview with Baron De Hey kind, the Russian
Consul General. I found the baron a somewhat stern
but courtly man of distinguished military appearance.

I told him how the Czar's ukase had been welcomed
in the United States, and a look of pride, and even
exaltation, softened the naturally stern countenance.
'It is the greatest and grandest national edict since
Moses gave a moral code to the Jewish people,'
he declared proudly. :'Not since the world began
has any people taken such an advanced step. Our
Emperor has taken the place in the twentieth century
that your Lincoln held in the nineteenth century.
Only it is greater to free men from themselves than
from bondage to others. No one, except the Saviour
of men, ever essayed that before.' He spoke with
simple reverence.

'It is a miracle,' he continued, "the strength of
the army and the growth of the nation since indul-

1 By permission of The Continent.
8

ii4 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

gence in alcohol has ceased. Our soldiers face the foe
more bravely; wounds are no longer feared, they heal
so quickly — and those long winter marches, they have
been made without vodka. '

It was hard to realize that I was talking to an officer
of the imperial army and a member of the Russian
aristocracy, when the consul general enthusiastically
referred to the democratic application of the Czar's
ukase to prince and peasant, staff officer and common
soldier alike. It was all so different from the spirit of
military caste and privilege that has grown up in our
own republican army.

The grog ration of the soldiers gave way to a money
allowance in 1912, and early in 1914 a new order
provided for monthly and even weekly temperance
lectures in the army.

The Russian government, which is ecclesiastical as
well as political, has always esteemed the sale of
intoxicants iniquitous and has never recognized the
trade's right to compensation. When as a measure
of protection to her people, Russia took over the
vodka traffic in 1894, she did not reimburse the liquor
sellers; and the present local option laws provide for
the refund of a proportionate amount of the license
when prohibition takes effect previous to the expira-
tion of the license of any retail dealer.

I had just read an article on Russian prohibition in
an American magazine, and I ventured to refer to the
charge that denatured alcohol and other even more
poisonous substitutes had taken the place of vodka, to
the grave danger of the Russian people.

RUSSIA AFTER VODKA LEFT 115

The statement was vehemently denied. ' If it were
so, I would know it," he said, "for I am in daily receipt
of government reports and they all' say that never was
Russia so sober. You manufacture much in America, ' '
said the consul general, "and this [referring to the
magazine article] was manufactured in your country.
It is one of the lies of the trade. It is natural to lie
when the truth will hurt; Madame need not believe
that I know nothing of such evasions. '

"But since I came here I have been told that many
people have died in Russia from drinking methylated
spirits," I urged.

The answer came with startling emphasis.

"Let them die! It is better for Russia that they
should die. They are a disgrace to their country and a
burden to their wives and children. We cannot kill
them. Let them kill themselves. Why weep over
the death of a few old drunkards when, under our
most gracious Emperor's beneficent ukase, Russia is
saving millions of youth from a degraded life and an
ignoble death? When these drunkards go, there will
be no boys to follow them. Russia is facing the
future. She will conserve her youth.'

To my blundering inquiry as to whether he was
following the Cz'ar's example, the consul general
replied frigidly and with hurt pride: "Madame, I am
a devoted and loyal subject of Russia's most noble
ruler."

The woman's viewpoint on this interesting subject
was gained one bright April day in Paris, when Ma-
demoiselle D'Aubigne, daughter of the author of

ii6 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

the History of the Reformation, suggested a call upon
Madame Louise Kruppi, who had just returned
from a tour of Russia.

Madame Kruppi is one of the noted women of
France. Through the establishment of trade schools,
she has enabled soldiers' wives and widows to become
self-supporting. Already classes have been formed in
fourteen trades and professions. Her visit to Russia
was partly a government mission to gain information
from the technical schools for which Russia is famous,
which would advance her own undertaking.

Like Professor Simpson, she prefaced the interview
with the confession that she went to Russia neither a
prohibitionist nor teetotaler.

"And now," she piquantly explained, "I am both.
I am everything that will bring to my country the
blessings I found in Russia. At first it was hard to
give up wine, but if, in a city of two millions, one can-
not get it, one must do without; and it was so in
Petrograd. Moscow was as bad, I mean as good,"
was the smiling correction, "for one could not get it
there."

"Oh, " she replied to my suggestion, "they have
temperance drinks, but they are frightful!" The
statement was accompanied with a charming moue
and with an expressive shrug of the shoulders. And
then madame suddenly became grave.

" It is strange, is it not," she mused, " that in France
we not only drink but think wine. Nothing is good
that is not wine. But that is a mistake, as I learned
in Russia. The temperance drinks were nice, very

RUSSIA AFTER VODKA LEFT 117

nice — if you did not taste them, " she added mischiev-
ously. 'I could drink anything and like it that
would bring to French women the happiness I saw
among the Russian women.

' They seemed to have become young again. Per-
haps, ' Madame Kruppi said laughingly, "it was
because since there is no vodka, marriage is so much
cheaper. When vodka was furnished the guests it
cost from 60 to 100 francs; now the wedding feast may
cost but 30 francs. So now, the young couples can
marry.

" And then family life has become beautiful, for the
Russian is not unkind to his wife and children when
he is without vodka. Since alcohol, the twin sister of
lust, has disappeared, the shackles have fallen from
many poor white slaves; and while war has in-
creased prostitution in all other ."countries, in Rus-
sia the evil has diminished nearly one half. Women
should remember that and enter the fight, for
with one blow they strike the two worst foes of
womanhood.

"And then prohibition will give the vote to women,"
Madame Kruppi added. "Already the Council of
the Empire has actually adopted a bill that would have
given women the right to vote in local option matters.
And to make prohibition secure, the vote will surely
come to woman.

' The people are saving money. They are turning
the empty vodka shops into savings banks. They
are spending money, too, for new clothes for them-
selves and new gowns for the women. Yes, and they

1 18 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

are buying meat twice a week instead of twice a
month.'

Madame Kruppi, who is actively interested in
the establishment of free libraries in her own country,
was greatly impressed by the intellectual awakening
that has followed the Czar's ukase.

"The craving for drink has been replaced by a
thirst for knowledge. The people are reading books
and playing on musical instruments. France, Italy,
Britain, and Germany,'1 she declared, "have given
their art and literature to the world; but Russia has
yet to give and some day she will lead the world.
Because she has cleaned herself and shown herself
strong, hers will be a clean art, and a virile literature,
while the happiness of her people will banish the
sombreness which has characterized both in the
past."

XIII

Russia's Great Revolution — THe True

Story of tKe World's Most Gigantic

Temperance Experiment x

By Margaret Wintringer

A great army drunk and a small army sober, and the dramatic
defeat of that great army, was one of the big factors in
Russia's fight for temperance. America should study
Russia's experience because in the more than twenty years
of that fight the great Empire tried " every restriction which
the frantic friends of a doomed traffic are clamorously
urging in our own country" before the great culmination in
the Czar's famous ukase.

No experiment tried out in the temperance labora-
tory of Europe during the present war has excited
such a world-wide interest as that which has wrought
the regeneration of Russia.

So marvellous and yet so simple, it made a strong
psychological appeal to the strain of mysticism
inherent in the Russian peasant. It was like a fairy
tale, in which the ukase of the Czar was the enchanted
wand which transformed by its magic power that
ragged, sodden peasantry into an awakened princess

1 With permission of the Sunday School Times.

119

120 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

robed in a noble ideal to become his consort iu the
preservation of Russia. The romance of it, the dis-
covery of themselves, awakened in the Russian people
a great patriotism and a depth of religious feeling
never before manifested by any nation.

The story is so athrill with romance, inspiration,
and dramatic action, that it only awaits a master mind
in Russia for interpretation into a great Homeric
epic.

But to us the story of the temperance movement
in Russia is of significant interest, because it is the
most gigantic experiment ever undertaken in tem-
perance reform, affecting as it has nearly two hun-
dred million people and extending over eight million
square miles of territory.

The work began twenty years ago, and never before
was reform inaugurated under more propitious and
satisfactory conditions. Removed from fanaticism
by its conservatism, assured against failure by auto-
cratic power of enforcement, financed by an Imperial
treasury, and clothed with respectability by the
Church, Russia's scheme for temperance reform be-
gan most auspiciously. It was not even hampered
by the necessity of returns on the investment, for the
government took over the vodka traffic without any
form of compensation to the sellers.

Never were such gala days as when Russia opened
her state vodka shops in 1894. Grand-duchesses par-
ticipated in the inaugural ceremony, and bishops
blessed the drink. Princes and princesses and other
titled folk acted as bartenders in serving bottles of

RUSSIA'S TEMPERANCE EXPERIMENT 121

liquor that bore the seal of the state and whose purity
was attested by the government.

In fact, every restriction which the frantic friends
of a doomed traffic are clamorously urging in our
own country was tried out in Russia during the
nationalization of the traffic. The rules governing
its management read like the recommendations of a
Model License League.

Vodka was sold for off-the-premise consumption
only in corked and sealed bottles, and not a cork-
screw or drinking vessel was permitted in a vodka
shop. Its sale was prohibited to children and drunken
persons. Wage-earners were protected through the
early closing on pay-day of all vodka shops near
factories. They were closed also on certain religious
holidays and all days when the village Council met.
The traffic was made so respectable that school-
teachers withdrew from the profession of learning to
become managers of vodka shops. The government
lent its prestige, and patrons were required to remove
their caps on entering, as in other Imperial offices.

The government even provided counter attractions
to its own liquor business. There were restaurants
where beer and light wines were served only with
food orders, and tea parlours, concert halls, and other
places of resort where the people might meet for
social intercourse apart from intoxicants.

A portion of the profits from the sale of vodka
was devoted to an educational temperance campaign;
and during the year that saw the opening of the state
vodka shops, seventy thousand seven hundred tern-

122 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

perance lectures were delivered under government
auspices to audiences totalling seven and one half
million people.

To safeguard the movement from fanaticism, the
government prohibited the formation of societies
advocating prohibition and set aside further profits
from the new venture to the support of a national
temperance society which adhered strictly to moder-
ation. Two uncles of the Czar joined the movement
and the moral uplift of the saloon began under ideal
conditions.

One may wash a black cat, but one cannot make it
white. So the plunge into respectability failed to
remove a whit of the blackness of the liquor traffic.
Within two years the would-be reformers learned
that restriction is a foe to profit. The number of
vodka shops was increased, the restrictions were
withdrawn, and thereafter the business was run for
revenue only. During nineteen years of nationaliza-
tion the revenue from the sale of vodka doubled, but
the consumption increased threefold.

Restriction illogically forced vodka shops upon
villages that had heretofore been immune from its
ravages; and the inculcation of moderation resulted
in such inebriety among children as to demand
investigation by the Moscow City Council. In a
word, Russia's effort for the moral uplift of its people
through the government control of drink brought
about the degradation of the nation until its drunken-
ness resulted in ignominious defeat by a people whom
it outnumbered ten to one.

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RUSSIA'S TEMPERANCE EXPERIMENT 123

From the mobilization of Russia's troops to their
defeat at Port Arthur, the contrast between a great
army drunk and a small army sober was presented
with such dramatic force that the Russo-Japanese
war might have been enacted as a movie with a moral.

The Czar visualized the lesson and added to the
war films "the mournful pictures of popular debility,
household distress, and neglected business, the
inevitable consequences of an intemperate life"
revealed in a journey through his Empire in 1913, dur-
ing which convictions were formed which six months
later resulted in the famous prohibition ukase.

In a letter to his minister of finance, the Czar
affirmed that the journey which will ever be memora-
ble in the annals of Russia was ''accomplished with
the help of God " — and who can doubt the affirmation?

The beginning of the war found Russia with a
shortage of war materials and without the industrial
means to provide them. The evils of vodka had
grown to such proportions that in one year infant
mortality had mounted to four and a half million;
the ranks of her workmen wTere depleted by one
million deaths from alcoholism and the sequestra-
tion of eight hundred thousand criminals in jails.
The shortage of munitions and the lack of industrial
material could not be remedied at once, but the drain
on the nation's manhood could be stopped by a word.

The word came and it was heard throughout the
world — PROHIBITION !

And yet but a day before you would have been
told in Russia, as we are now told in the United

i24 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

States, that prohibition was impracticable, and
chiefly for the same reasons: the necessity of the
revenue for the support of the government, the
impossibility of enforcement, and the inopportune
time to burden the government with a drastic re-
form. But the impossible was the only possible
remedy.

Under instructions from the Czar, all wine shops,
beer saloons, and vodka shops were closed during
the mobilization of the army. Instead of going off
drunk, as they did during the war with Japan, the
soldiers were sober, and they were moved with a
rapidity that thwarted the plans of the enemy.

While beer held sway in Great Britain, retarding
the progress of its troops and delaying the juncture
with the French army, to the loss of Belgium and
the peril of France, prohibition sent the Russian
army to the front with such despatch that Germany
was forced to divide her forces between the East
and the West, to the salvation of Paris and, it may
be, of London.

Then followed the Czar's ukase prohibiting the
sale of vodka during the war. At almost the same
time the Czar's veto was given to local authorities
to prohibit the sale of beer and wine. This is done
by petition of the people in a prescribed form, and
secures the prohibition of the sale of beer, wine, and
any form of intoxicating liquor in the district in
question, within a maximum period of three months.
There is no question of compensation, only the re-
fund of a proportionate amount of the licence fee in

RUSSIA'S TEMPERANCE EXPERIMENT 125

cases where the order of prohibition takes effect before
the expiration of a retailer's licence.

With surpassing unanimity the country districts,
and even the cities, have availed themselves of this
form of local option. Petrograd and Moscow were
among the first cities to take advantage of entire
prohibition. Thousands of communes banished all
forms of drink, and great stretches of the country
became absolute prohibition territory. Prohibition
in Russia is not an autocratic decree, as some would
have us believe, but a movement of the people as
well. The appetite for drink gave place to a desire
for sobriety; and, enacting the role of Oliver Twist,
the Russian people petitioned their Czar for "more.'
They wanted perpetual prohibiton. The ;< Little
Father" and his subjects were of the same mind,
for he quickly responded with the famous telegram:
"I had already decided to prohibit for ever in Rus-
sia the government sale of vodka.'1

XIV
Teetotal Russia

FROM John Foster Fraser's Russia of To-Day,
I quote the following:

Russia is never going to be drunken again. Alco-
holic beverages have been prohibited, and the Russians
are getting used to teetotal beverages. They are
quite pleased with themselves.

All stores where brandy, whisky, vodka, champagne,
wine, beer, or liquors were sold have been locked and
sealed by the authorities. The liberty-loving Briton,
sitting in a restaurant and fancying something more
potent than mineral water, casts his eyes upon the
glass cases behind the counter where are marshalled
rows of bottles of "the real stuff, " but locked up and
forbidden. He revels in imagination of the time he
will have when he returns to England.

There is a good deal of cold weather in Russia, and
there used to be much drunkenness. Before break-
fast the Russian workman, feeling cold, would gulp
down a bottle of fiery vodka which cheered him and
then fuddled him. Indeed, all classes might be de-
scribed as heavy drinkers. There was plenty of de-
bauchery and sometimes there were horrible tragedies.

126

TEETOTAL RUSSIA 127

But generally the Russian in his cups was not
aggressive. He was not quarrelsome. He did not
want to fight everybody. His mood was rather to
roll around and slobberingly kiss all whom he met —
though it might have been preferable if he had wanted
to fight.

Anyway, Nicholas II., an Imperial Lloyd George,
but with the power to do what he wills, conscious
that a vodka-soaked Russia was not the correct
thing while the greatest war was being waged,
said there was to be no more alcohol sold. And
it was so. Dealers have been ruined. But Rus-
sia is not a land in which to babble about compen-
sation.

The nation was declared, by Imperial rescript
and by the order of the authorities, to be teetotal.
Of course, there was a good deal of groaning amongst
the 120,000,000 white Russians. For now, if any
brandy or wine is needed for medical purposes it has
to be bought at an apothecary's, but only on a magis-
terial permit, and the magisterial permit is granted
only on a medical certificate.

A good many people, used all their life to a little
liquor with their meals, became ill; but they recov-
ered. Those with the hunger of drink upon them
have taken to drinking methylated spirits and other
things that are evil for the inside. Many have died
from excess of methylated spirits. The majority of
folk have to be content with drinking tea and the
number of glasses of tea, deliciously refreshing, the
Russian and his wife can consume puts into dimmest

128 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

shade the lady who "swelled wisibly " in Mr. Dickens's
novel.

For the rest the table beverage is kvass, which
can be made out of soaked black bread, or white bread,
or squeezed cranberries, or indeed anything — and you
can drink quantities of it and never get any forrader.
A couple of centuries ago or more, Mr. Giles Fletcher,
"a quaint author," wrote about "The Russe Common
Wealth" — "the poorer sort vse water and thinne
drink called Quasse, which is nothing els but water
turned out of his wittes with a little branne mashed
with it."

Russians never were alight-hearted and jolly people.
When they drank alcohol they did it after the manner
of all Northern nations, as a serious business. And
drinking a lot of chorni kvass, the swillings of soaked
black bread, is no doubt for their good. But it does
not promote sparkling conversation. My purely per-
sonal experience was that after several stout doses
of kvass with my lunch and dinner I began to feel this
was a sad world, and that I had better get myself to
a monastery. But my depression somewhat evapor-
ated when I abjured kvass, and went the racket on
orangeade.

Night life in the cafes or public gardens used to be
a thing of joy in Russia. With excellent restaurants
and bands and wine there was sparkle about mid-
night. But there is lowered gaiety — not all due to the
war — when champagne has to be replaced by stuff
which is like ginger-pop from which the cork escaped
yesterday.

Philaret (Theodore Nikitich Romanov), Metro-
polite of Moscow. He exerted a great influence
upon the domestic affairs of Russia during the
period of trouble (1605-1682). Being the Most
Holy Patriarch, Theodore became theoretically
a co-regent with his son Michael who then suc-
ceeded to the throne at the age of sixteen. As an
author he compiled catechism, religious books, and
prayers. His domestic services were:

He induced peasants to stay on the soil
instead of migrating to the steppes,
where they became freebooters instead
of taxpayers.

He advocated more equitable (propor-
tional) taxation.

He furnished a nucleus for the Patri-
archal Library and was a founder of

Theological Seminaries.

0

With foreign officers he helped to or-
ganize the Muscovite Army.

Philaret.

Appendix

EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS OF HON. RUDOLPH

BLANKENBURG

Commissioner to Russia to distribute the cargo of S. S.
"Indiana," March, 1892.

THE first impression one gets of Russia is that of
vastness. The country at the frontier reminds one of
some of our great prairie States, slightly rolling and
without limit or boundary. The train, drawn by an
engine larger than those in England or Germany and
fed with birch or pine wood, slowly winds its way
through the snow-clad country, past human abodes
that would seem strange and poor even to the earliest
pioneers of our Western States. Low buildings, with
straw roofs, no chimneys, and one or two small windows
are the characteristics of these villages and hamlets.
Of the people we can as yet see and judge but little.
It is cold and disagreeable and only those who are
compelled are out of doors. Those we do see are hardly
prepossessing. They are clad in sheepskin clothes, the
skin inside, something like a fur cap on their heads,
and enormous boots or footgear that is entirely un-
known with us. The men mostly wear long beards and
hair, and combs seem to be one of the luxuries that
they indulge in only on great fete days. Quite a

9 129

1 3o APPENDIX

number of women act as guards at the railroad cross-
ings. They do not seem to be as warmly dressed as
the men, and are probably not considered of as high
value. This is unfortunately the case even in the more
civilized countries of Europe. Our American women
do not appreciate what a blessing they enjoy, and how
thankful they should be to call America their home.
Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton would find a splendid
field for their labours here ; time will probably produce
their prototypes sooner or later in this country.

I tried to study the faces of the lower classes of the
people as we met them. So far I have been able to
discover but one characteristic that seems to be the
property of all, resignation and indifference. Their
aspirations seem to be satisfied if they have a piece of
black bread, a drink of home whiskey, and a corner to
sleep in. They look at the passing train in quiet
amazement, hardly turn their heads, and are out of our
sight probably as quickly as we are out of their minds.
A study of these people can, of course, better be made
in the interior when we meet them face to face and visit
them in their homes — what a perversion of a sacred

name!

• ••••••

The aid extended from private sources is put to the
very best uses. What would become of these people
were it not for the English quakers, who are doing
admirable work and who have already expended about
$100,000, the private committee working with the
British- American Church. Good work is also being
done by the Russian committee, of which the Imperial

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APPENDIX 131

Crown Prince is the head. They have collected a
large amount of money and are distributing it with
much wisdom. It • is interesting to note that the
highest classes of Russian society are taking up this
work of relief with great enthusiasm. The nobility is
doing admirably, and it is not only confined to the
men of rank; the women old and young, married and
single, are vying with each other in their efforts to
help their stricken country-people.

• ••••••

Many young women of this class are at the head of
the soup kitchens in the interior. They are labouring
day and night, not as ornamental figureheads, but
they lead in the work and set a good example that is
thus more eagerly followed by those under them. The
taste of practical and useful employment that many
of these people of high rank and birth perhaps now for
the first time enjoy may be of immense value to them
and their country in the future. Many men and
women do not know what they are capable of doing.
If they once start in the right direction they will
follow it, and, instead of leading lives of uselessness
and indolence, bound only to seek the pleasure of
this world, they may learn that there are higher aims
in life, and that to ''love thy neighbour as thyself"
gives more satisfaction than not to know that we have
any neighbours at all.

The generous spirit which prompted our people to
respond so liberally to the appeal of the Russian
Famine Relief Committee of Philadelphia, will never

132 APPENDIX

be forgotten by that distant country. In proof of this,
let me quote from a letter I received from Count
Woronzow Daschkow, Minister of the Imperial
Court, who, in power and influence, perhaps, is next
to the Czar of Russia himself:

"It is with great pleasure that I accept the photo-
graphs of the departure of your steamer Indiana from
Philadelphia, and I thank you most heartily for them
and your letter, in which you tell me of the kind
interest you are all taking in us. The friendly feel-
ings of sympathy America shows us now, when so
many of our people are in want, can never be for-
gotten by me or my countrymen, and that you will
believe this is the sincere wish of, dear sir,

"Yours faithfully,
"Cx. WORONZOW DASCHKOW."

Then listen to the simple words of a peasant, a
village elder in the Government of Samara, a man
without education, but with a warm and thankful
heart. As we left his village on a cold, wintry morn-
ing, he stood at the head of a delegation of villagers,
their eyes filled with tears of gratitude, and exclaimed
with trembling voice, "All we can say is, 'God bless
you and those who sent you. '

• •••••*

Look at this woman! She travels on foot, through
snow and slush, a distance of eighteen miles to take to
the dealers a package of braided straw. Hear her
story: "I work from four in the morning until ten at

APPENDIX 133

night — eighteen hours of constant labour. During
this time I can braid, as an expert braider, twenty
fathoms of straw, or 140 feet. The price paid for this
quantity is nine kopeks, or four and one half cents.
Many braiders cannot do more than ten or fifteen
fathoms in twenty-four hours, reducing their earn-
ings to two or three cents daily. ' There she marches,
the load on her back, calculating probably in her mind
how much flour she can buy from the proceeds of
her labour for the children at home!

Here is the soup kitchen; will you please descend?
We enter an old, dilapidated building. It consists
of three divisions (I came near saying rooms) ; in the
first one, two women are engaged preparing the soup
for the day; in the other two were assembled, closely
huddled together, some 200 of the most wretched
looking beings a vivid imagination can picture. It
would require the pen of a Dickens, a Dumas, a Hugo,
to do justice to the scene ; even they would fall short of
presenting the life we saw. There was the woman with
wrinkled face, past three score and ten, holding in
her trembling hand the stone jug for her share of the
soup ; alongside of her a little girl of twelve, with sweet
face, paled by suffering and from want of sufficient
nourishment; close by her the mother, holding in her
arms the babe of a few months, with its poor, wan
cheeks, trying to keep it quiet; the child is evidently
hungry. There is the man of stalwart frame, but
shrunk to a mere skeleton. There are the boys and

i34 APPENDIX

girls of all ages, men, women and children, waiting to
be fed, their faces pinched and drawn, clothed in
rags, a sight to bring tears to the eyes of the most
stalwart. We uncover our heads. Who can remain
otherwise with such a scene? They receive us with,
"Praised be the Lord, " and fall back into their listless
attitude.

After a short pause the distribution commences ; the
names are called off in rotation ; each person on being
called presents a ticket and is dished out perhaps a
pint of soup, also half a pound of bread. 'Thank
you," "God bless you," "Praised be the Lord,"
or similar expressions, are used by all as they leave
with the precious morsel in their hands.

They take it home, and many make two, even
three pints of soup out of the one received. It will
last longer and make two or three meals instead of one.
Could you, the generous donors of these gifts, have
witnessed these scenes, you would have surely felt
that you never gave money that was more highly
appreciated and did more good to its recipients.

The First of the Harvest.
From John Foster Fraser's Russia of To-day.

RESOURCES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE

(By permission of the American Geographic Soci-
ety, I quote the following, written by E. K. Rey-
nolds.)

One of the far-reaching results of the war in this
country has been the stimulation of an interest in
Russia. This is not exactly a new thing. Americans
have for a long time been interested in the great writ-
ers, composers, and artists, as well as the politics of
Russia. There was a time even, not long since, when
Americans were more occupied with conditions in Rus-
sian prisons than in their own. But all that has little
in common with this new interest, which is pointed
toward the discovery of a new Russia, hitherto un-
sought and unknown — economic Russia. Politics
and fiction are brushed aside, and Russia is being
evaluated in terms of her economic possibilities.
Americans are beginning to study the growth of the
Russian Empire and its wealth in natural resources.

The story of the expansion of a country which has
resulted in the largest compact political organization
the world has ever seen is necessarily an interesting one.
The beginnings of Russian history, like that of every
country, are but vaguely known. The foundation
stone of the Russian state was laid in Novgorod in

136 APPENDIX

862 A. D., but it was a century or two earlier that
a group of Eastern Slavs came down from the Car-
pathians and settled on the banks of the Dniepr.
There they built up a flourishing trading state, with
its centre at Kiev. The Dniepr became the great
trade route; amber from the Baltic and furs, honey,
and wax from the forests along its banks were carried
down to Constantinople, while gold, silver, stuffs, wine,
and fruits were brought up the river in return.

In those days of prosperity, the Eastern Slavs,
later known as Russians, were free to develop their
local institutions, and, according to all accounts,
they governed themselves in an extremely democratic
way. They had their princes, but these constituted
little more than military leaders and were bound in
every way by the will of their subjects as expressed
through their common council. Then came the
fateful day when the Russians had to sacrifice every-
thing to stem the rising tide of Tatar invasion. They
were defeated, but their dead bodies formed a rampart
which checked the yellow hosts and saved Europe
and Western civilization from their onslaught. The
price that Russia had to pay for this and the real
significance of her act are far from being fully appreci-
ated by her western neighbours. Those same nations
who have to thank her for almost their very existence
can find nothing better to do, now that she is emerging
from her bitter, century-long struggle to take her
place in the front rank of the peoples of the world,
than to make faces at her backwardness.

To us Americans, Russia has long been an unknown

APPENDIX 137

quantity. Distorted expressions of her spirit have
come to us from time to time, but of the conformation
and content of her land we have known little and
cared less. Of this one seventh of the world's surface
we have remained in almost total ignorance, but now,
at last, we are trying to see the whole figure of this
youngest child of Europe, both spirit and form, and
we find we have many mutual bonds. We both know
the hunting of game and the felling of trees in the
forests of the north; we both feel the pulse of our
national life as the wind sweeps over the grain fields or
the prairie pastures; we both have our high mountains,
deep mines, and swift-flowing, full-flooded rivers.
Outwardly we are much alike. But there is a difference
— a very great difference. Russia is a country of age-
long culture, a culture which she has preserved at the
point of her bared sword, in the presence of death.
We are the baby of golden-spoon fame; all conditions
have combined to favour the prosperous economic
development of our country. In struggling to
preserve her traditions, she has been unified, and
strengthened. She has lived continually in the
presence of the other world. History has made
Russia into a heart. We have not been knit together
as a race in the face of a common foe; we have not had
to suffer — history is making of us a brain. Yet
given the practically identical geographical conditions
under which to live, it is only natural that we should
lean towards each other and on the basis of what we
share in common perhaps pave the way to an exchange
of those things which we need from each other. Russia's

138 APPENDIX

needs are easily read: she is an all-on-land empire, and
she needs railroads and more railroads; she needs
machinery; she needs the organization and push in
business enterprises for which we have become famous.
All that side of our life could be profitably shared
by Russia; and for us, besides the material gains which
needs must result from such relations, will come a
knowledge of the spirit which has made and kept her a
great nation and which promises so much for the future.
In human beings the balance between head and heart
is known as genius, and something akin to genius
might surely be expected from such a bond.

RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES

The New York Sun years ago, reviewing an article
in the Scottish Review on Russian universities, presented
facts quite surprising to those who have made them-
selves acquainted only with the barbaric side of
Russia. The Sun said that the information comes
from a contributor who has attended lectures at the
University of Kiev. The Russian Empire contains
eight universities, all of them endowed by the state,
and under control of the government, through the
Minister of Public Instruction. These eight univer-
sities, named in the order of their foundation, are
Moscow, Kazan, Charkov, St. Petersburg, Kiev,
Odessa, Warsaw, and Temsk.

The faculties of their universities are four, viz.,
law, medicine, philosophy, physics and mathematics.
Language and literature are included in the depart-
ment of philosophy.

The professoriat of languages has been composed
not only of Russian and German scholars, but also of
native Orientals of high literary reputation.

The -courses of instruction correspond with those of
American and English universities.

More students flock to the universities than can be
accommodated. The University of St. Petersburg
had in 1891, 2087 students; Moscow in 1890 had

i39

140 APPENDIX

3473; Kiev in 1889 had 3088. A large proportion of
the students are young men of small means, and in
many cases students are crowded together, living upon
a very meagre allowance of spending money. Students
have been known to spend only five cents a day to
buy food. The Russian Government, however, offers
considerable assistance to students, and a very large
number of them have their fees remitted, and are
otherwise helped. Notwithstanding this there has
always been more or less conflict between the students
and the Russian Government — many of the most
prominent Nihilists have been educated at the univer-
sities, and many serious Nihilist demonstrations have
taken place among the students.

RUSSIAN ORGANIZATION

(R. Martens & Company, Inc., have accorded me
permission to print the following extract from their
monthly brochure entitled Russia.}

Too little attention seems to be paid to Russia's
power of organization, in the copiously printed specu-
lations of bankers and business men regarding the
prospects of international trade after the war. The
whole world knows, to its cost, the efficiency of
German organization in war ; and it realizes that this
war efficiency is based on a remarkable organization
of trade, industry, and finance under the conditions of
peace; that in fact it was the peace organization that
made it possible for Germany to wage war. There is

APPENDIX 141

no small amount of talk as to what France and Eng-
land are planning to do after the war by way of restor-
ing their trade and industry, and contesting with
Germany the foreign markets. Little is said of Russia
in this connection, save, in a general way, that she
has immense natural wealth, and will need vast
amounts of foreign equipment. The narrowness of
this common view seems plainly to show serious lack
of appreciation of the Russian side.

That the Russian armies have ;<come back'1 has
been evident and the subject of comment the world
over, since the heavy fighting on the eastern front
began. Stop to think what this means, along with
the facts of the Russian mobilization at the outbreak
of war.

Mobilization of the Russian armies in a remarkably
short time was really the first surprise of the war.
That mobilization showed effective planning and
carrying out of an exceedingly complicated task of
supply and transportation.

This year's movements of the rehabilitated Russian
armies showed capacity for performing an almost
infinitely greater task of the same kind as was involved
in the first mobilization. It is needless to cite in detail
all that is covered by the advance and supplying of
the two huge Russian armies in Europe and in Asia
Minor. It has been done, and with brilliant success.

The first point of all this is that it proves the exist-
ence in official Russia of a very high order of organiz-
ing ability, such as had been popularly attributed
almost to Germany alone.

142 APPENDIX

The second point is what the existence and exercise
of this great organizing ability is going to mean to
Russian trade and industry after the war. Here it is
unfortunate that America cannot read Russia first-
hand. Reports of Russian eagerness to push forward
the trade and industry of the Empire after the war are
brought to America by returning visitors. But these
reports are pale and vague in comparison with the
picture of Russian activity that one gets from studying
the various periodical organs of Russian industry and
commerce.

Nothing that is required for a successful forward
march is overlooked, either by the government or by
private business interests. New railroads have been
laid out to ensure a quick mobilizing of the grain crops
for export. New and more adequate lines for the
distribution of fuel are under way. The great lumber
industry and its resources are being made ready.
Vast Siberia, aided by Petrograd, is preparing to get
a larger and quicker income from her riches. The
Pacific ports are being enlarged. The natural wealth
of the Empire is being made more available for use.

Again, Russia is Mobilizing!

RUSSIAN PEASANT GOODS FOR AMERICA

Woodwork and Fine Laces on Market — Aim is to Help

War Cripples

From R. Martens Co., Russia.

The Russian Ministry of Agriculture has opened a
number of avenues in American commercial circles

Toys made by the Instruction Toy Shop of the Provincial Zemstvo of the
Moscow Government, in Sergiev Posad (Hamlet) : and by various
Koustars under the supervision of that shop. The camel, in this
group, is made of papier-mache, from the design of the artist
Oveshkov; price, 45 roubles (about #23.00). The giraffe, cow, dog,
duck, cat, turkey, are made of cardboard. The price of the horse
and sleigh, with passengers, Rs. 38 (about #19.00).

APPENDIX 143

whereby the unique handmade articles of the peasant,
made in the snowbound izbas during the long Russian
winter, will be placed within reach of Americans. The
Imperial Government's purpose in this is partly to
extend Russia's trade, but mainly to furnish a means
of livelihood for the tens of thousands of wounded
and crippled men, forced to return to their peasant
homes as a result of the great war.

The true peasant handiwork, hitherto uncommercial -
ized, is the most original that has been seen in modern
times. In these peasant izbas is being made a lace not
less beautiful in design and fineness than the famous
laces of the Middle Ages. Russia is a land of linens,
and the manner of their preparation and careful
weaving by hand produces textures unlike those of
any other country.

The government has been careful to perpetuate the
original ideas of each of these Koustar centres, and
every region in Russia is marked by some typical and
self-expressive industry. From the Caucasus come
rough ornaments and exquisitely chased silver works;
from the north comes a whole industry of unique
woodwork made in the richly grained Russian birch ;
from Little Russia come some of the most beautiful
laces and linens.

In modern trade, where almost every avenue of
production has been commercialized to enable the
easy supply of popular demand, this opening to
America of the hitherto unknown peasant handiwork
of Russia is the entrance to unsuspected beauties in the
common things of life.

144 APPENDIX

RUSSIA AFTER THE WAR

(From John Foster Fraser's Russia of To-Day I

quote the following.)

A belief prevails that with the close of the war,
Russia will have a rebirth. She will cast off her
sluggishness. She will bestir herself in the science of
industry and commerce, and not rely so much for her
necessaries upon the foreigner. The war has taught
Russia that there is danger in being a commercial
colony of Germany, and the temper of the people
is "Never again!'1 . . .

Enormous advance has been made within recent
years to ameliorate the condition of the small land-
holder, more proportionate advance than in any other
land, though the great improvement is not recognized
by outsiders. Frankly no government has done
so much in recent times to give the peasantry ac-
cess to the land. The Duma, though without much
power in itself, has enormous power in the ventilation
of grievances, and here again public opinion shows
itself. In London there is a Russia Society, the chief
function of which is to provide enlightenment to Eng-
lish people of things as they actually are in Russia, and
to Scotch popular errors. In Moscow there is an
English Society, and its aim is to boom English institu-
tions; so there are not a few men in Russia who believe
that under the guise of international friendship its
real aim is political propaganda.

Anyway, I am right in saying there is a general

APPENDIX 145

conviction that with the settling down after the war
there must be immense changes in the method of
government. I have run across strata of opinion.
"If Russia loses there will be revolution and a repub-
lic be set up, " and "If Russia wins there will still be a
revolution if the old state of affairs be reinforced. "
Appreciating the volatile nature of the Slav, I venture
to say there will be no such unfortunate consequence.
Firstly, Russia is not going to lose. Secondly, Russia,
like the rest of the world, will adapt herself, not franti-
cally but gradually to new conditions. The close
alliance with France and Britain will count for a
great deal. Russians are not braggarts. They know
that in innumerable respects they lag far behind
other countries. They are their own most severe
critics. They feel there is much way to be made up,
and running right through the people is a determina-
tion to seize their opportunities and advance Russia to
the place she ought to occupy amongst the nations of
the world.

The Russian is calm over the war. He is not quite
sure what it is all about, but when the young men
are told to go and fight they 'go by the million. They
are brave; but the German guns are big and powerful.

Yet the Russians are not a fighting people. They
are not arrogant. They are kindly. Amongst the
educated classes there would be much more interest
in a new opera than in the invention of a gun which
will throw a shell forty miles. They love their coun-
try, but without chauvinism. They are sure of the
destiny of their land — and it is different from the

IO

146 APPENDIX

trade thirst that animates nations which consider
themselves more enlightened.

The Russian, cultured and travelled, speaking
several languages, does not bluff himself that he is the
equal of Britons, or Germans, or Americans, in the
mechanical arts. No people I know are so childishly,
lovingly frank in the recognition of their own short-
comings. But they possess something which they
would not sacrifice for all the mechanical skill in the
world — a soul, imagination, a deep love of beauty in
sound and the written word. They are mystics ; they
are dreamers. That is the Russian temperament,
provided by Providence.

A strange, weird, fascinating land of extremes is
Russia. The Tartars from the East gave it a system
of government; the Greeks from the South gave it
Christianity; it gathered modernism in thought from
the Germanic races, followed by a flood of affection
for Latin elegance, and then back it went to Germanic
influence again. The nation with the most autocratic
government in the world is yet the most democratic,
not as an outcome of politics but because such is a
Slav condition of mind.

• »•••••

The American workman thinks himself as good as
his boss and he isn't taking off his hat to "any darned
other fellow. ' The Russian boss never thinks himself
any better than his employee, and he always takes off
his hat to his workmen. The talk between a magnate
and a moudjik is with the easy familiarity of equals —
not due to these democratic times when rank must not

Buffet Made by the Koustars of Sergiev Posad (Hamlet), in the Shop there of
the Provincial Zemstvo of the Government of Moscow. Design by
the Artist Suvorov.

APPENDIX 147

expect subserviency from labour, but because it always
has been so amongst Russians. There is no shyness
about poor relations. The Russians are tremendously
fond of family gatherings and feasting, and there you
will see the man of high official position, in his uniform
and wearing his orders, giving the kiss of greeting to
his cousin from the steppes, who has long hair and top
boots and who has never worn a white linen collar in
his life.

In saying the Russians are children, I have got the
right description. We hear stories of peculation, of
misappropriation of funds, of large secret commissions
in government contracts, and for all I know to the
contrary the stories may be perfectly true. But I
have yet to visit a country where there are not hund-
reds of flies around the golden honey pot. I daresay
there are just as many 'grafters" and 'boodle'1
hunters in Russia as there are in the United States.
It is a mighty mistake, however, to imagine that
every official in Russia has his price. There are
gentlemen in Russia just as honourable as there are in
England, and the generous outpouring of our own
people to assist those who have been stricken by the
war has its counterpart all over Russia. Heaven
defend us; and let us judge a country by its virtues
and not by its lapses, for, after all, it is the good
men of a nation who mould its destiny, and not the
others.

148 APPENDIX

MISCOLOURED RUSSIA IS A DEMOCRACY

(By permission of the Public Ledger, I insert the
following.)

(By Vance Thompson)

I have no intention of writing an article on Russia.
That were absurd, when the subject howls aloud for
folios. But there are one or two misconceptions I
should like to knock on the head — mildly.

Democratic Tradition and Reality

First of all, Russia is not a military nation. Its
government is not militarist. Its civilization is not
based upon a military conception of the state. It is
built upon an exactly different basis — democracy. I
think it is the oldest democracy in Europe ; certainly it
possesses the oldest tradition of democracy. Russia
is not that girl in pink satin and chains, staggering
through a paper snow-storm; Russia is the peasant.
Bear in mind that the Russian peasants own a large
part of the arable land — nearly three fifths of it. To a
great extent the land is held in common; that is, each
little community of farmers — each mir — is independ-
ent. The peasants work the land together or, more
often, divide it themselves, according to laws of their
own.

I remember talking with an old peasant once. It
was at that famous first Duma. He was a calm old

APPENDIX 149

man, Khevilenko of Poltava. He took my hand in
both his big paws and held it firmly during our
entire conversation — a friendly, reasonable old man
And when I asked him what he wanted he said: "I
want the land for my people — I've been sent here to
get it, and I sha'n't go back until I do. ' I found out
his trouble. It was simple. Every man, woman,
child, and babe in his commune had ten acres of land ;
but near by lay a well-watered meadow, which at the
time the landowners were dispossessed had been left in
possession of the owner. Khevilenko's village wanted
it; and I am tolerably sure they got it. For that year
over a quarter of the land remaining in the hands of
the "nobles'" was turned over to the peasants. To-
day a peasant can own his land individually or leave it
in the self-governing community, as he pleases.

The village commune has home rule. A group of
these Communes forms a canton, as in Switzerland. It
also is self-governing. It has an assembly made
up of one man, chosen by the peasants, out of every
ten families. In the cantonal court the peasant first
comes into touch with the law of the land — and in
that court sit five peasant judges selected by the
peasants themselves. Above that is the district
assembly, which is another elective body. Bluntly
stated this is democracy of no bad sort.

No Aristocracy in Russia

"But the aristocracy/1 said the big doctor, whom
you met in the beginning of this article, "that ruthless
Russian aristocracy!"

150 APPENDIX

I smiled, and blandly, patiently, as one instructs a
child in the rule of three, I said: "In Russia there is
no aristocracy.'

"No aristocracy!'1

"No aristocracy,' I repeated, "except, of course,
just such an aristocracy as we have in dear old
Virginia and Massachusetts and New Rochelle — an
aristocracy which is made up of certain old and
illustrious families who trace their blue blood back
through the generations. To be a Dolgoruki or
Troubetskoy adds just the same lustre it gives a
Yankee to be an Adams or an Endicott: but it lends
neither place nor power. It's a mere thing of family
pride. '

And that is true ; in Russia there is royal blood with
its privileges ; but there is no aristocracy. There is, of
course, a nobility. But that is an admirable thing
and essentially democratic, because it is open to every
Russian.

The son of the peasant or the son of the merchant —
or any man's son — can be a noble if he will. He has
but to go through the schools, pass the civil service
examination, and then — at a given point in his career —
he is automatically ennobled. The rank goes with
the grade he has won in the civil service. So there
is a perpetual flow of plain folk up into the class of the
nobility; and a return current, of course, gradually
carries the descendants of the unfit back into the
people. It is a life-giving circulation; and it is demo-
cratic. It is democracy in essence — reward and dis-
tinction for services to the state.

APPENDIX 151

The Government to Be

Now and then this huge iron framework of govern-
ment sags at one corner and pinches one race — some-
where on the 3Oth degree of latitude. It does not
always fit. Perhaps no government does; but of one
thing you may be sure, when it sags too much it will
break apart. Every nation, as it mounts the long,
steep road of evolution, has to fit itself every now and
then with a new garment of government. And
Russia, based on democracy, — with age-old habits of
democracy, — will establish a government in accord
with its new needs and ideals.

For Russia has ideals.

You may not believe either in compulsory -education
or in compulsory sobriety, but Russia believes in both.
The new law which has banished strong drink from
Russia — from its eighty nations — is an epoch-making
event. It is the second step in a long-planned reform
that I have watched for years. The first thing the
government did was to introduce the so-called
Swedish system of handling the liquor question. It
closed all the taverns and groggeries — sinks of corrup-
tion— and took charge of the traffic itself. Where the
village groggery had been it set up a shop of its own,
where vodka could be bought in the original package
— and that way only. It could not be drunk on the
premises. There was, however, a room where the
villagers could gather and drink tea. Hot water
was provided free, and there were warmth and light
and cheer. All this made for sobriety, but the chief

152 APPENDIX

benefit was the fact that the peasants could not
drink on "tick" — pawn their ponies and ploughs and
clothes and mortgage their future crops to the dirty
traffickers in vodka. That was a great reform. Then
when the hour struck the Duma passed that new law
which — just the other day — prohibited the sale of
alcoholic liquors over the mighty land of Russia.

You may not like that sort of thing; you may not
like democracy; but you cannot know Russia unless
you know that these are the foundations on which
she is building her future.

National Corner-stones

Compulsory education, compulsory sobriety, and
democracy — these three.

There's one other corner-stone of the new Russian
edifice. I don't know that it has any place in a news-
paper article, though it is the sort of thing that is sup-
posed to be quite innocuous — even for children. It is
this: Russia is a religious country — it is more than
religious ; it is a God-haunted country. He who would
sketch the future of Russia must reckon with that
enormous fact. And so you may see the Russians as a
grave, wise folk, notably given to song and prayer;
friendly, with rare humanity and a sense of world
brotherhood quite inconceivable in a Europe of clash-
ing trade competitions and craving military ambi-
tions— a kindly, mystic land.

You can't judge Russia by the cheap and tawdry
melodramas of other days; nor by the ranting of the

APPENDIX 153

"intellectuals, " who are mostly declassed proletarians
educated above their brain power, and wandering
without place or work, in a world they do not under-
stand. Some of them are dreamers and martyrs —
without hungry personal ambitions; and they, like the
peasant, are making the future of their amazing land.

RUSSIA'S FUTURE NEEDS FOR CAPITAL

(By Samuel McRoberts
Vice President, National City Bank, New York City)

No individual or collection of individuals can
undergo a great test of strength and come out of it the
same as before the ordeal. If the draft upon the vi-
tality is too great, the result is a lower order of life,
or even death. On the other hand, if there is sufficient
strength to successfully meet the crisis, the contest
brings added physical ability and a quickened spirit.
The great war in Europe has set all minds to consider-
ing the effect upon civilization, and the utility, if
there is any, of war in the abstract. Whether it is an
unmitigated evil, to be borne as one of the defects in
human affairs, or an evil that must be endured that
good may result, is a question that will continue to be
debated. When we see the high civilization of Eng-
land being cut down from the top, or Germany's
peaceful conquest of the world abandoned for a mili-
tary conquest, war takes on the aspect of disease
and a menace to the constructive forces of civilization.
When we turn to the case of Russia, the matter is not

154 APPENDIX

so clear. Dean Swift once said, in reference to his
critics, that unless the asses ate off the ground leaves of
certain plants, they would never grow tall, and cer-
tainly Russia has had a tendency to sprawl. Occupy-
ing one seventh of the land of the globe, she includes a
wide diversity of people, and is not entirely a homo-
geneous nation. National spirit has been lacking, her
circulation has been slow. Individualism and personal
initiative in the great mass of her population have been
at a low ebb. It is idle to attribute this condition to
the character of its government, for no government
has failed to reflect the status of its people for any
great length of time. This internal condition of
Russia has been improving, very rapidly so during
the last ten years, but the effects already observable
seem to indicate that the war is going to accomplish
for Russia within the few years of its duration what
would have ordinarily required many years. Already
the greatest social evil in Russia, drunkenness, has
disappeared, with startling effect upon the economic
and moral status of the people. The Russians are
united in this titanic struggle, and a genuine national
spirit is in evidence. Old customs are being broken
up, and a new experience brought to every individual
in the Empire. No final judgment can be formed
at this time, but it would appear that the quickening
of the spirit of Russia may eventually be considered
worth its terrible cost.

APPENDIX 155

Russia's Problem in Financing the War

In 1914, at the commencement of the war, Russia
had a rapidly increasing foreign trade, which produced
a credit balance for meeting the service of her foreign
loans. Her public debt was decreasing, and was
largely offset by revenue-producing property owned
by the state. Direct taxation throughout the Empire
was declining year by year. The financial position
was sound. The government debt, considered on a
per capita basis, was the lowest of any European
country, and if considered in relation to its natural
resources, presented an even more favourable compar-
ison. This advantageous financial position and the
latent wealth of her resources did not save Russia,
however, from the severest possible difficulties in
financing the war. Internal loans were promptly
forthcoming for internal needs, which were the greater
part of the demands of the war, but her ports were
closed and commercial intercourse with the world
practically cut off. Not being able to export goods,
and not owning foreign securities, Russia found herself
practically without foreign resources. The unprece-
dented character of the war imperatively demanded
huge expenditures of materials, which her own manu-
facturers were unable to supply, even if the raw pro-
ducts could be obtained within her own borders.
The enormous depreciation of the rouble exchange,
inevitable under these circumstances, intensified the
difficulties in many ways. The situation could be met
only by foreign loans. Russia and the basis of her

156 APPENDIX

credit were little known or understood in the United
States, and therefore her requirements have been
financed by England as a war measure, excepting negli-
gible amounts furnished by this country and Japan.
It thus turned out that the one country in Europe best
able to stand the strain of a great war, both as regards
men and natural resources, was for its immediate needs
in the weakest financial position. This has all made
a deep impression in Russia. What individual
economists and thoughtful business men have been
thinking and saying has suddenly become the con-
viction of the entire country. The people are united
in the purpose to develop, completely and as rapidly
as possible, the natural resources of their country.

The public debt has increased from $4,500,000,000
in 1914 to about $12,000,000,000 at the present time,
and the annual debt charge from $218,000,000 to
about $600,000,000. These figures will continue to
increase until the end of the war. Russia faces the
necessity of raising immensely greater revenues than
she had ever contemplated as necessary. To do this
the wealth of the nation must be rapidly increased, and
the ability of the individual to pay taxes greatly
augmented.

These three factors in the Russian situation — the
quickening of the Russian spirit, the realization of the
economic follies of the past and the importance of
commercial and financial independence, and the spur
of necessity — are combining to bring about a great
program of development throughout the Empire.
It is everywhere being discussed and advocated where

APPENDIX 157

thoughtful Russians congregate. It is presented in the
reports of the ministers, made the topic of speeches in
the Council of the Empire and the Duma, and is a
recurring subject in the daily press. The government
has announced that it receives almost daily from all
parts of Russia, from members of the legislature, from
noblemen, priests, peasants, civil service employees,
officers, merchants, physicians, lawyers, workers, etc.,
suggestions as to how Russia should solve her financial
problems after the war and that all these suggestions
breathe lofty patriotism and faith in the strength and
splendid future of the country. Plainly the signifi-
cance of industrial development for the future of the
country is felt and appreciated everywhere through-
out Russia.

The Extent and Importance of Her Natural Resources

The basis, in the way of natural resources, for
Russia's economic development is very broad. The
population is officially stated to be 174,000,000, the
largest of any country, except China and India, with
a normal increase of about 3,000,000 per year. The
land area is four times the area of Europe and about
three times the area of the United States and includes
every variety of territory, from the highest mountain
ranges to the most fertile of alluvial plains. The
climate ranges from arctic to the semi-tropical of
Turkestan, Trans-Caucasia, and the Crimea. The
country can produce within its own area all the essen-
tials to modern civilization. For agriculture, it has

158 APPENDIX

the most extensive acreage of first-class farm land
anywhere found on the globe. It has about fifty per
cent, of the timber north of the equator. It has large
known deposits of iron, manganese, coal, oil, copper,
platinum, gold, and silver; while minerals of lesser
importance, such as asbestos, graphite, lead, mercury,
salt, tin, and zinc, are being produced. Eighty-five
per cent, of the population live in the country. The
remaining fifteen per cent, make up the population of
the cities, of which there are over two hundred in the
Empire. Sixty-five of these cities have a population
of over fifty thousand, and twenty-four a population
in excess of one hundred thousand. One hundred
and fifty-three million of the 174,000,000 inhabitants
live in Russia in Europe, which in area is only one
sixth of the Empire. Twenty-one million occupy
Siberia and Central Asia. Siberia, more than one
half of the Empire, has only ten million people.

In many ways Russia, today, presents an enlarged
picture of the United States at the close of the Civil
War, with its population then occupying the territory
east of the Mississippi River, and with a great unoccu-
pied and undeveloped public domain lying beyond.
Just as the United States then turned to the develop-
ment of its public lands and mineral deposits in the
West, and to the organization of industries in the
East, Russia is now taking stock of her great timber
resources, her fertile unoccupied lands, the hidden
treasures of her mountain ranges, and turning her
attention to the organization of industries in her more
thickly populated sections, for only in this way can

APPENDIX 159

she produce the greatly increased wealth which will be
necessary to enable her to meet her war obligations
and give her an increasingly greater position in world
affairs. The increase of grain production by the open-
ing up of new farms and more intensive cultivation
will require capital, but not more than the surplus
wealth of the present agriculture will supply. The
basis for this extension is made apparent by the fact
that in 1913 Russia planted to cereals alone over
215,000,000 acres. Of this, 82,600,000 acres were
planted in wheat, yielding 1,024,000,000 bushels. The
average yield for winter wheat was 15% bushels per
acre, and for spring wheat n^ bushels per acre.
This was a good year in Russia, and might be com-
pared with the same year in the United States, when
there were planted 49,601,000 acres, producing 15.2
bushels per acre, or a total of 753,000,000 bushels.

These figures demonstrate that there are ample
financial resources for the extension of Russia's
agriculture, such as the opening up of new territory,
the improving of live-stock, the planting of orchards,
the developing of fertilizers, and all those things di-
rectly incidental to a larger acreage and more scientific
cultivation; but there are incidental tasks which
will require large units of capital that cannot be taken
directly from the agricultural community. The
country has insufficient facilities for the economical
transportation and storage of grain; and up to the
present time the losses from this source have been on a
tremendous scale. However, at the outbreak of the
war the government had under way a construction

160 APPENDIX

program for eighty-one elevators, of a capacity of
34,860,000 bushels; and an additional program of
seventy-seven elevators, with a capacity of 37,650,000
bushels, has been agreed upon and authorized. But
even as now planned, the elevator system is by no
means adequate, and the whole system of grain han-
dling and transportation will need radical reformation.

Cotton, Fruits, and Meat Products

Russia today is producing in Central Asia more
than two thirds of the cotton required by Russian
spindles. To grow her total requirement, and develop
an export industry, necessitates the extension of the
irrigated territory in Turkestan. The climate, soil,
and water are there, and even the engineering has
been done to a large extent, so that all that will be
required to make Russia independent of foreign
production will be capital for the extension of an
existing and successful industry. Even when this
is accomplished, the need for capital will be only in-
creased, as Russia will occupy a geographically favour-
able position for supplying the great cotton textile
demands of Central Asia; and if sufficient cotton can
be produced, there is no economic reason why her
textile industry should not be correspondingly ex-
tended. This reasoning applies also to the other
textiles. Today large quantities of flax and wool are
exported in the raw state. To convert the export of
these raw materials into manufactured products will
eventually call for large expenditures.

APPENDIX 161

The Crimea, the Caucasus, and Turkestan are in
every way adapted for the growing of all kinds of
fruits, but the fruit industry cannot be extended and
the products marketed without the establishment of
refrigeration service, which is today practically
non-existent in Russia. This would also apply to the
dairy and poultry industries of Siberia. The raising
of food animals is an important activity throughout
the Empire; and Russia has more sheep and goats
than the United States, nearly as many cattle, and
about one fourth as many hogs. Recently much
attention is being given to scientific breeding, and some
progress has been made in feeding for food results, but
there is no organization of the industry beyond the
farms. Australia can put mutton on the market in
Russia cheaper than the home-grown product can be
obtained, because in Russia all animals are sent as
live freight to the point of slaughter; the economies
from centralized slaughtering plants and the handling
of the dressed product under cold storage having
not been yet introduced.

Opportunities in Lumbering and Mining

Russia is practically the only country in Europe
having an excess of timber over and above its own
requirements. While Sweden, Norway, and Austria-
Hungary still have a surplus, of recent years it has
become so small as to be almost negligible. Russia
is the great timber reserve of Europe, and while in
1913 she exported timber to the amount of $84,000,000
she still has not begun to realize upon the possibilities

1 62 APPENDIX

in her timber trade. The Englishman's definition
to the effect that timber was "an excrescence growing
upon the earth, chiefly useful for paying off the debts
of one's ancestors, " will be particularly applicable
to the Russian forests. The demand for timber in
Europe following the war must necessarily be greatly
in excess of normal. It is stated that after the earth-
quake in Messina, in 1913, Italy's timber import
increased 22 per cent, over the average for the previous
five years. If this is any indication, Russia will have
a wonderful opportunity to realize the latent wealth
of its forests. This will mean an enormous outlay
of capital for the building of railroads, port facilities,
steamships, sawmills, pulp mills, and all of those things
incidental to the manufacture and transportation of
timber products.

Russia has already taken steps to attract foreign
capital to the mining industry, by reforming its taxa-
tion laws and granting more liberal concessions, and
by facilitating, as well as granting government aid to,
the importation of improved mining machinery. She
will necessarily continue to stimulate in every way
the production of gold and the other precious metals.
Her known copper deposits make her practically
independent of international production, and the best
authorities agree that her mineral fields have not
begun to be exploited.

The Need for More Railways

One of the chief essentials underlying the whole
problem of economic progress and realization of na-

APPENDIX 163

tional energy and labour is the expansion of the rail-
way net of Russia. An adequate railway system is
absolutely indispensable for bringing out the natural
resources of any country, and the extension of the
railway system of Russia cannot be economically
accomplished without a full development of her metal-
lurgic industries. Even before the war there was a
growing feeling in Russia that her railway system
was not commensurate to the economic needs of the
country; and since that time this has become too
self-evident to be questioned. The total railroad
mileage in Russia is 47,000 miles. An idea of what
this means, in the way of unserved territory, can be
obtained by comparing it to the railway mileage of the
United States, which country, while only one third as
large, has 260,000 miles of road. This means that
Russia, on the basis of square miles, has only 5 per
cent., and on the basis of population, only 10 per cent.,
of the railway mileage of the United States. This
has been fully discussed, and its importance under-
stood, in Russia; and it seems to be considered as the
initial problem to confront the country at the close of
the war. The government commission has already
examined and sanctioned the building of a total of
16,776 versts, at an estimated cost of 1,466,000,000
roubles, and at the beginning of the present year this
program was further enlarged by the sanctioning of an
additional 3000 versts, at a cost of 266,000,000 roubles.
So the country is already officially pledged to the con-
struction of about 20,000 versts, or 13,333 miles, while
projects are under consideration for official action that

1 64 APPENDIX

will bring this up to about 17,000 miles, at an esti-
mated cost of over a billion dollars.

It is the declared purpose of the government, pro-
vided capital can be obtained from the international
money markets, to enter upon a policy of construction
that would produce approximately 5000 miles per
year. It is highly improbable that any such exten-
sive program can be carried out, with the result that
only those projects presenting the most attractive
opportunities to capital will be taken up. What this
means to the steel industry in Russia is apparent
when we consider that each mile of road requires
approximately two hundred tons of metal. Further-
more, the existing railroads, while well constructed,
are designed to bear only a light unit of transportation.
With long hauls and heavy traffic, Russia is being
forced to the large unit of transportation adopted in
this country, which will require re-laying the existing
roads with heavier rails and the strengthening of all
right-of-way structures. It will be prohibitively ex-
pensive for Russia to import railway metal, owing to
the high cost of transportation, therefore the pace of
her railway development will be determined not only
by the readiness with which capital is obtained, but by
the extent and speed of the enlargement of the steel
industry. The country is fairly well supplied with
coal, and it has iron ore in very great abundance. At
the present time the development of both coal and iron
is by unrelated and comparatively small units; ade-
quate and economical results will not be obtained until
the whole industry is organized along comprehensive

APPENDIX 165

lines and the raw materials linked together by special
transportation facilities.

The Steel and Coal Industries

In addition to soft coal, which Russia is seeking to
conserve for the steel industry, the largest anthracite
deposits in Europe are located in European Russia.
The production of anthracite has been comparatively
small. During the year ending July, 1914, the output
was only about five million tons, although there was a
shortage of fuel at Moscow, but 650 miles distant.
The production of these coal fields has been by one-
shaft mines, by small companies. There is no resident
mining population, the work being done almost entirely
by farmers coming to the mines at the season of the
year when they are not employed upon their farms.
As a result the cost of producing anthracite is about
twice what it is in this country. The government has
recently adopted the policy of conserving soft coal for
the steel industries, and to that end has made regu-
lations requiring the use of anthracite for all industrial
boilers and railroads, after a certain date. This will
greatly stimulate the use of anthracite and necessitate
the placing of the mining upon a more comprehensive
and economical basis.

The foregoing are simply isolated illustrations of the
needs for capital in Russia. There are other impor-
tant ones, such as hydro-electric development, muni-
cipal and interurban transportation, harbour works,
canals and ship-building, and possibly still more im-

1 66 APPENDIX

portant is the additional general working capital
necessary to finance the incidental commerce and
trade that is a part of a great progressive movement.

RUSSIA'S FINANCES AND COMMERCE

The Guaranty Trust Company of New York has
published a brochure with the above title and has given
me consent to incorporate extracts from it in my book.
Russia's financial, agricultural, and manufacturing
conditions, as they loom up at this time, October,
1916, are very important and interesting. Following
are the extracts.

It is probable that Americans know less of Russia
than they do of any other country with which they
trade. We have learned little about her except
through hostile powers whose advantage lay, for one
reason or another, in dwelling on what was bad and in
passing lightly over what was good in the Empire.
Few of us have more than a vague realization of the
great strides in industry and civic development made
by the Russian people before the war.

It is undoubtedly wise in estimating the future of
Russia to use the past as a measuring stick, but in
doing so it is well to bear in mind the probable effects
of the present war.

The volume of export business which has been
developed from the United States to Russia during the

APPENDIX 167

present war is arousing among our bankers and
manufacturers a spirit of very thoughtful interest
as to the advisability and possibility of establishing
the foothold they have gained, so that they may con-
tinue their connection after the restoration of peace.

• ••»•••

In spite of the Revolution and the Japanese War
the gold reserve in the Treasury and the State Bank
increased from approximately 1,100,000,000 roubles
in January, 1904, to approximately 2,175,000,000
roubles on December 31, 1913.

The following table shows the^amount of public
Russian debt at the nominal value of the securities
outstanding at the end of each year from 1903 to
1913:

Roubles Roubles

1903 6,651,836,000 1909 9,054,619,000

1904 7,081,746,000 1910 9,030,206,000

1905 7,841,164,000 1911 8,957,875,000

1906 8,625,560,000 1912 8,858,054,000

1907 8,725,523,000 1913 8,824,523,000

1908 8,850,782,000

Thus, after 1909, each year showed some reduction
in the net amount of the outstanding debt of the
Empire.

The following indicates the increase in receipts in
ordinary state revenue in Russia:

Roubles Roubles

1867 415,000,000 1912 3,105,917,000

1897 1,416,000,000 1913 3,417,000,000

1908 2,418,000,000

1 68 APPENDIX

It is interesting to note that the first increase of one
billion roubles after 1867 required thirty years, the
second increase of one billion roubles between 1897
and 1908 required eleven years, while the third in-
crease of one billion roubles between 1908 and 1913
required only five years.

For the year 1913 there was a general surplus
of 69,600,000 roubles of all receipts both ordi-
nary and extraordinary over all expenditures in the
budget.

Deposits in Russian banks and state savings
banks increased almost steadily from 2,500,000,000
roubles in 1904 to almost 6,000,000,000 roubles in

In the same period the number of State Sav-
ings Banks increased from 6417 to 8160, and the
number of depositors increased from 4,854,000 to
8,597,000.

Per capita state expense of Russia as compared
with other important European powers in 1903 and
1913 is indicated in the following tables:

1903 1913

Germany 58.9 67.3

France 36.0 52.6

Austria-Hungary 27.7 42.1

Great Britain and Ireland 35.1 40.0

Italy 2 1. 1 28.1

Russia 15.2 19.5

Per capita size of state debt of Russia as compared
with other important European powers in 1903
and 1913 was as follows:

APPENDIX 169

1903

1913

France

291

308

Great Britain and Ireland

145

179

Italy

143

150

Germany

116

142

Austria-Hungary

H5

132

Russia

48

52

The increase in her national debt should encourage
the development of her vast but hitherto almost
untouched natural resources, so that that debt may
be promptly and easily paid.

The tremendous effort being put forth to manu-
facture munitions and supplies for her armies should
mean the establishment of a domestic manufacturing
organization incomparably superior to any that
existed before the war.

The decrease in state revenue due to the abolition
of the vodka traffic has been accompanied by an
unparalleled increase in savings bank deposits and
efficiency of labour.

The withdrawal of the Teutonic organization that,
before the war, practically conducted the industry
and finance of Russia at first almost paralysed the
operation of the Empire, but taught the people the
folly of depending in peace too much on citizens of a
foreign country which might become at any time an
enemy power.

Railway y Postal and Telegraph Service, etc.

The amount of freight carried by the railways of
Russia increased from 164,484,000,000 Ibs. in 1904 to

1 70 APPENDIX

255,168,000,000 Ibs. in 1912; during the same period
the freight receipts increased from 457,000,000 roubles
to 736,000,000 roubles.

The number of passengers transported on Russian
railways increased from 107,500,000 in 1904 to 192,-
600,000 in 1912, and the cash receipts from passengers
increased during the same period from 117,100,000
roubles to 193,000,000 roubles.

The revenue from state railways increased from
567,937,000 roubles in 1909 to 8 13, 604,000 roubles in

In 1914 there were in course of construction 1907^
miles of state railways at a cost of 427,61 1,505 roubles.

In addition to the state railways, the total length
of joint-stock and private railways authorized for
construction in 1913 and 1914 was 8218 miles at a
cost of 977,394,062 roubles.

It is true that the financing of many of these joint-
stock and private railway companies has never been
completed owing to the war and other causes, but the
figures indicate the activity in railway construction
which existed before the outbreak of hostilities.

The share of the state in the profits of certain pri-
vately owned railway companies increased from
i ,720,000 roubles in 1909 to 26,584,000 roubles in

The income from postal revenue increased from 58,-
176,000 roubles in 1909 to 79,065,000 roubles in 1913.

The income from telegraph and telephone revenue
increased from 29,613,000 roubles in 1909 to 40,733,-
ooo roubles in 1913.

APPENDIX 171

Agricultural Products

A comparative table of the production of four cereals
in the United States and Russia in the year 1913
follows :

Russia United States

Bushels Bushels

Wheat 955,98o,ooo 763,380,000

Oats 1,222,875,000 1,121,768,000

Barley 562,800,000 178,189,000

Rye '999,514,285 41,381,000

The harvest of potatoes in Russia for 1913 was
78,246,000,000 Ibs. (1,304,100,000 bushels).

The output of sugar from the beet root in Russia in
1913-14 was 3>325>595472 Ibs. (1,662,797 tons).

The output of tobacco in Russia in 1913 was
248,472 pounds.

The output of cotton in Russia in 1913 and 1914 was
1,025,640 bales.

Attitude of the Russian Government towards the Development
\of Education and Industry as Evidenced by Appropriations

1903 IQI3 Increase Per Cent, of

ROUBLES ROUBLES ROUBLES Increase

Government Railroads 416,300,000 591,700,000 175,400,000 42

Department of Trade Industry 40,200,000 60,900,000 20,700,000 51

Department of Transportation^
exclusive of Government Rail-
roads 32,900,000 52,800,000 19,900,000 61

Department of Posts and Tele-
graphs 39,100,000 80,000,000 40,900,000 105

Department of National Edu-
cation 39,400,000 142,900,000 103,500,000 263

Department of Agricultu-e 31.500,000 135,600,000 104,100,000 330

172 APPENDIX

From the New York Evening Sun, January 19,
1917.

COUNT ILYA TOLSTOY TELLS THE STORY OF
THE GREEN LITTLE STICK PLANT-
ING THE WORD THAT WILL PUT
OUT THE FIRE— UNCHRIS-
TIAN TO KILL

Count Ilya Tolstoy, who resembles his father in his
stature, blue eyes, nose, and beard, and is in the
United States to expound the ideas of the great
Russian novelist, says that the answer his father
would give for the solution of the burning problems
that vex the world today is in a word of four letters.

The failure to comprehend this word is responsible
for the form patriotism takes and the European war.
It is a word carved on a green little stick, which is said
to be buried in the Yasnaya Polyana, and about
which the Count talked in an interview today.

Count Tolstoy, moved by this word and a growing
understanding of America, spoke out in a way that
was unusual for a European on American soil for the
first time. That very popular question, "What do you
think of New York?" was not put to the Count in that
form. His comment in answer to another question
as to the similarity between America and Russia was
gentle and sympathetic.

"America," he said, "is young, as young as Russia
and equally unsophisticated. Your people are very
impressionable, readily moved. It is in marked con-

Copyright Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

Miss Florence Fair Giving her Aid to Alake the Russian Bazaar a Success.

APPENDIX 173

trast with the terrible moral decline of old Europe
in all domains of spiritual endeavour, art, music, litera-
ture, which was so prophetic of the present war. In
many ways I feel that Russia and America are very
close. "

A RUSSIAN FAIRY STORY

Count Tolstoy has written a fairy story about the
green little stick, a story which his father heard, one
which concerns the woods where his father is buried.
The story is all about the one all-important word —
love.

"My story has no setting in time or space," said
the Count today. "It was long ago when mills were
on the spot and men dug ore from the depths of the
earth. Ages passed. The soil became black, mixed
with slag. Two boys roamed through the woods tell-
ing each other stories. They were talking of love,
how all men will some day become brothers. Niko-
lenka wrote a word on a green little stick, and said
that before men could become brothers this word must
be known. That was ages ago, when the stick was
buried, and the boy said that whoever found the stick
would make all men happy.

"After the passage of time peasants came to the
slope and dug a three-yard grave at the summit and
the next day when a multitude of people gathered,
they lowered the corpse of a gray, robust, old man.
Behind the slope a hare builds his lair.

'Then night comes. The whole western horizon
is purple-red with fire. The sky is bathed in blood.

174 APPENDIX

War ! Shadows of the oaks lie upon the snow when a
ghost rises from the grave. In his hands he holds a
little green stick. The ghost roams through houses,
humble huts and hamlets, speaking the word to every-
body and everybody understands. But the West still
burns: is still aflame. The ghost hurries his steps to
the westward. Confused and disconcerted people
rush by. He wanted to tell them the word, but his
feeble voice was drowned by the roar of thunder
in the fumes of smoke. After gazing long on the
furnace the ghost wended his way back to the slope of
the seven oaks. And the fire will be extinguished
because the green little stick is there.

"I cannot express in any other way the message of
my father to humanity. The ideas of Christ that
were understood as my father understood them are
eternal ideas. They are not ideas that change with
time, so I cannot speak about what should be a
message to the people with reference particularly to
America. In such an effort I should be obliged to
restrict my ideas. That is why I do not speak about
peace between nations and the politics of nations —
because the idea of Christ is wider. His teaching was
not peace simply. His teaching was love. All political
questions are changed by time and space and Christian
ideas as my father understood them are eternal and
they do not change with time. So I would say to
Americans or any other people, the only way to
understand my father's ideas is to rise to the height
of a moral understanding of life in the terms of eternal
truth, which were given as a guidance for all.

APPENDIX 175

KROPOTKIN GRIEVES HIM

"I must say that I have been astonished by Prince
Kropotkin, who has been many times quoted as say-
ing that a defensive war is justifiable. I am very
much astonished. He was very close to the ideas
of my father, and I am sure my father would not
approve any war because his views on war were the
result of his understanding of the gospel, of the idea of
love and non-resistance.

"After The Hague Conference he said that it had
become evident that so long as there existed govern-
ments with troops the abolition of wars and of arma-
ments would be impossible. These words sound as
though they were very close to all Europe, which now
seems to wish the abolition of militarism.

"I am here to speak now at a time when the ideas of
Christ have been forgotten. I find it my duty to
remember these ideas and the teachings of my father,
which were the ideas of Christ.

"It is too deep a question to consider now whether
the men in the war are in their hearts growing toward
or further away from Christianity. But broadly speak-
ing, one can only exclaim that men cannot be Christians
who are engaged in killing others. How can one hold
that men who are engaged in killing are Christians
when Christianity itself is the principle of love. The
only way to be a Christian would be to refuse to fight.
As war is evil I do not believe the war can lead to any
good, and I do not look forward to reforms as a result
of the war. "

176 APPENDIX

Count Tolstoy's first lecture is scheduled for to
night at Carnegie Hall.

" I am not unaware, " he said, "that there is a very
great spiritual movement in America, because I know
my father had many friends here, and he received
many, many letters showing that there are many
people here who hold the same views on religion as he
held. "

He referred to the fact that his father was always
more interested in America than in Europe, and to his
own eagerness to understand America better by com-
ing into close contact with the people in the workshops
and conditions under which they labour.

Postscript

12

177

Postscript

JUST at the closing of the printers' work on
this, book cablegrams from Petrograd came to us
day and night with the startling revelation of a
great revolution overtaking the Russian Govern-
ment under the inspiration of a people believing
that their day of redemption from a monarchial
government has come. Upheld as they were by
the Duma, Czar Nicholas peacefully surrendered
his crown and decamped.

Never in the world's history has there been so
great a triumph of democracy over aristocracy,
of republicanism over a Kingdom with so little
sacrifice of human life.

The Czar's quick, peaceful abdication of his
throne, his unavoidably by hereditament, is evi-
dence of a head and heart inherited from his
father, Alexander the Third.

It is well known that the revolt was the resultant
of the conviction that the Czar had purposed a

separate treaty of peace with Germany.

179

i8o RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

Russia's emancipation from the dreadful scourge
of intoxicants had changed their vodka-soaked,
rum-dumb subjects to sober, clear-thinking, patri-
otic reformers, the force of whose nationalistic
power, wrought through the Duma, has freed
Russia from what threatened to be a surrender
to Germany.

The following letter from my esteemed friend,
Mr. Wharton Barker of Philadelphia, throws light
upon the situation up to its date, March 21, 1917,
and I am indeed pleased to have it in the conclu-
sion of my story as it relates to Russia of today.

LETTER FROM WHARTON BARKER

March 21, 1917.

MY DEAR MR. FRANCIS B. REEVES:

Because you ask me to make a statement for publi-
cation in your book upon Russia about to issue, of my
views of the cause and consequence of the revolution
in that country, I do so. For forty-two years I have
known Russia and Russians in a way open only to a
very few Americans; in a way not open to Europeans
at all. Because of German influences on the Emperor
Alexander II. Russia was silent and inactive while
Prussia fought and despoiled Denmark, Austria and
France. Bismarck made Russians believe that an
Imperial Germany must be to stop British aggressions

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POSTSCRIPT 181

upon Russia, and so came the Triple Alliance of Ger-
many, Russia and Austria immediately after the crea-
tion of the German Empire. German influence made
Russia accept defeat at the Berlin conference after the
war with Turkey and so the Treaty of San Stef ano was
cast aside and almost all that Russia had fought for
was denied her. It was German influence that forced
Count Witte to negotiate the famous German-Russian
Commercial Treaty that reduced Russian manufac-
turers to almost ruin and that brought no relief to the
Russian farmers. It was German threats that held
in Russia armies that should have been sent to Asia
to fight the Japanese and made the Czar Nicholas II.
accept at the Portsmouth peace conference a peace of
humiliation. It is not necessary to speak of more
sinister German work, in international politics. The
Russian Emperors, The Russian bureaucrats, — more
properly called German-Russian bureaucrats, — have
dominated for centuries the Russian government and
policies, not only without, but also within, the Empire.
The Army and the Navy have too often been used to
further plans of the German intriguers who came to
Russia with the German Princesses who became Em-
presses of Russia. All of these intriguers had to be
given places of power and wealth and of course high
standing at the Russian Imperial Court. So long as
British statesmen, bankers and merchants were blind
to the aggressions that they thought Russia made
upon British rights, they did not see that when the
Emperor Nicholas I., prior to the Crimean war, pro-
posed the division of Turkey between Russia, France,

1 82 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

Great Britain and Italy, that he saw the German
menace and sought to secure permanent peace from
his proposal. When Edward VII. came to the throne
of England he concluded not to be only a figurehead
and, appreciating the German purpose to destroy the
British Empire, he sought and succeeded in establish-
ing the Entente between Great Britain, France and
Russia and so came the alliance. When Germany
failed because of the resistance of Belgium to overrun
France before Russia could mobilize, Germans knew
that defeat in the war was inevitable unless Russia
was taken out of the alliance they fought. For more
than a year the German entourage of the Emperor
Nicholas II. has been hard at work to accomplish this
end. Russians who believe that this German influ-
ence must be cast out have fought this Court intrigue
until the climax was reached when they demanded
the abdication of the Czar Nicholas II. and of other
Romanoffs who were heirs to the throne, and the es-
tablishment in Russia of rule by the Duma, the crea-
tion of a democratic republic, with religious and civil
liberty secured.

The whole Russian people knew that this internal
condition could not be unless Germany and her allies
were conquered and Prussian militarism destroyed
and so they have pledged themselves to Great Britain,
France, Italy, Belgium and Servia that they will con-
tinue the war with a vigour so sustained that victory
for the allies will be sure.

The democrats of Great Britain, France and their
allies know that victory for them in the great war is

POSTSCRIPT 183

sure because democrats are now and will continue to
be in control of the government of Russia.

I believe this statement will answer your purpose.

Yours very truly,

WHARTON BARKER.

EVOLUTIONARY REVOLUTION

A good thing about the Russian revolution is that
it is not revolutionary.

No reports come of confiscations or chateau burn-
ings. The gutters of Petrograd are free of blood.
There is no guillotine. The czarina, under suspicion
as another Marie Antoinette, lives safely within her
palace. Life and property are secure. The army
is urged to greater loyalty to national self-defence.

The Russian people have rid themselves of the rule
of an essentially alien autocracy. They have scat-
tered the archives of the secret police. They have
made a beginning toward eliminating internal race
hatreds, and Russian, Pole, Finn, and Jew are to have
equal rights. But so far — no further. The change is
great, but Russia is not to be made over at once ac-
cording to the principles of social revolutionists. A
republic Russia may have, but a republic that the
extreme Socialist fumes at as of the bourgeoisie.
There are political democracy and liberalism, but not
yet communism.

The less the haste of Russia the greater is likely to
be her speed. If a Jacobin party shall arise and over-
throw the Girondins of the Duma, it is almost certain
a counter-revolution will occur, even as it occurred in

1 84 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

France. Liberty is beautiful, but to man order is the
primal necessity. In the hard task of choosing be-
tween liberty and order the human animal selects
order as of the greater value. The old conditions in
Russia will never come back, but if there is to be a
steady pressing forward toward the realization of the
dream of social justice it is to be by recognizing the
expediency of conservatism rather than by emphasiz-
ing radicalism. Man is many things, but never
wholly consistent or rational, and the Russian shares
the defect of the species. The way to attain 100 per
cent, justice is to get 50 per cent., and then 60 per
cent., and so on with gains whose slowness maddens
the logical.

In America, where many victims of Russian auto-
cracy have found refuge, a disposition exists to mis-
read what has occurred and thus to lay the foundations
for disillusionment. Liberalism won in Russia be-
cause it slowed up enough to get in step with the ideals
of an army whose officers are of the classes and whose
rank and file is largely composed of ignorant and
superstitious peasants. The Russian intellectuals,
having exploited theory, will do well if they play in
practical affairs the role of opportunism. The evolu-
tionary revolution of Russia is brilliantly successful,
but its prospects will darken if its leaders accept the
advice plentifully given to them by American friends.
Realism is the keynote of Russian literature, and
realism should be the central thought of Russian
politics. — The New York Globe.

POSTSCRIPT 185

FOUR GOOD DEEDS OF THE CZAR

No event of the war has pleased us more than the
news that Mr. Nicholas Romanov had retired to
private life. We trust that he will be able to spend
the rest of his life in peace and quietude, for as an
individual he does not deserve the enmity which
progressive Russians have felt toward him as a czar.
Few czars have been better; most of them have been
much worse. It is impossible to say in how far he
has been personally responsible for the good and evil
of his reign, but there are at least four acts that are
ascribed to him for which Russia owes him a great
debt of gratitude.

The first was the calling of The Hague Conference.
This did not accomplish what he hoped for : the reduc-
tion of armaments, the elimination of the brutalities
of war, and the maintenance of world peace, but it was
a great step forward in the promotion of international-
ism and the idea of it is now dominant in all plans for
future peace.

The second was when he called the representatives
of the people to assemble in a Duma. It may be said
that this was forced upon him by a threat of revolution
but, nevertheless, it was against the advice of the con-
servative court party that he made this concession to
popular demand. The first Duma was a chaotic and
incompetent body, but from it has grown the present
level-headed and efficient parliament.

Thirdly, on the outbreak of the war he exercised his
autocratic power and banished vodka from Russia.
This meant, as his financial advisers pointed out, a

186 RUSSIA THEN AND NOW

loss of nearly half a billion dollars just when money
was most needed. But it was a wise act, for it saved
the country much more than the cost of the liquor and
made the people prosperous in spite of the war. That
the revolution was effected with so little rioting was
due to the elimination of alcohol.

Finally he deserves credit for the last act of his
reign — his resignation. When he was met at the
ancient free city of Pskov by the representatives of the
Duma with an edict of abdication ready for him to
sign, General Ivanov advised him to refuse, saying:
' There is only one thing to be done. Open the Dvina
gate and let the Germans clean out the canaille of the
Duma. ' But the Czar said: "No, I will never betray
my country to maintain my throne. ' Not so did
Louis XVI. and Louis XVIII. and Francis Joseph and
many and other sovereign act in similar situations.

Against the long list of crimes which are charged
against czardom these four beneficent acts at least
are to be credited to Nicholas II.

The Independent.

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