Edwin A. Grosvenor

“ Better fitted is he for the routine of an office and a desk than for the perils and responsibilities of a crown. Then, when the day's work is done, what joy to reach his home and toss his children in his arms, and picnic on a holiday or a Sunday in the suburbs with his family. Such, they tell us, is the gentle, homely, wife loving nature of the present Tsar. Whatever the destiny of the autocrat and of the autocracy, the Russian people remain. ”

“ No other country of Europe has ever been subjected to such horrible and long-continued suffering. The only alleviation to the awful distress was found in the efforts of the royal Russian family—itself tributary and a vassal, always weak, but determined and shrewd—to modify the ferocity of the conquerors and to keep the sense of nationality from dying. ”

“ The dumb popular heart makes no harsh or hard demand upon its sovereigns. It asks that the autocrat shall be profoundly Russian, Russian in feeling and sympathy, in orthodoxy and faith, in fidelity to old tradition, in heart-whole devotion to her whom the peasant reverently calls "Holy Russia." ”

“ It has seen Russia staggering under such humiliation from a foe, once despised, as no other European nation ever endured at the hand of an Asiatic. In the monotonous story of a dozen months there is not a single alleviating feature to salve Russian pride except the admirable working of the trans-Siberian railway and the stolid, unbroken valor with which the Russian soldier has faced continuous defeat. ”

“ It is not unusual to speak of these men as irresponsible autocrats and to regard the Russian system as an irre- sponsible autocracy. But an irrespon- sible autocrat never has held the scepter, and irresponsible autocracy never has existed, even in phlegmatic Russia. An irresponsible autocrat among people of Indo-European stock is an utter impossibility. Each autocrat is weighed in the balances and judged — if need be punished — by those over whom he reigns. This judgment no Russian autocrat from the accession of Michael Romanoff has escaped. ”

“ There is no other reigning house that does not trace its origin back to some successful warrior and owe its earliest advancement to the sword. In every other country, on some bloody plain, a Hastings or a Marchfield, William the Conqueror, the Hapsburghs, the Hohenzollerns, have carved for themselves and their descendants a title to the crown. The father of Michael Romanoff was no brilliant soldier, only a faithful parish priest, who was renowned for piety and ability, and who because of his noble qualities attained high ecclesiastical distinction. ”

“ Not all the sovereigns since Michael Romanoff have been great. More than one has been deficient in private virtue. In some there flowed not a drop of Slavic blood. But they all bore the test of being supremely Russian, only Russian, at the core. Save the execrated two, each down to the accession of Nicolas II, in 1894, contributed his full share to Russian power and prestige, both at home and abroad. Like the concentric rings of an oak tree were the territorial accretions of the Russian Em- pire. ”

“ But this advantage is more than counterbalanced by the difficulty created in our minds through the rapid progress of our political life. We have not yet attained, nor are we altogether perfect. Sometimes things are done in this our boasted country which cause us shame. Nevertheless, we have represented during the last 125 years the foremost constitutional, self-governing experiment of mankind. Only a little more than a century ago did our fathers draw up that Constitution which is still our organic law. ”

“ The Tsar may be called the infinite unit. In Russia there is another or an atomic unit, just as real, but in compar- ison infinitely small. This is the mir. None the less mir is the most important word in the Russian language. It means the village and the village assembly. To the mind of the peasant it means the world. European Russia is made up of 107,676 communes or villages. Each is and has its mir. As in national af- fairs the Tsar decides or acts through his senate or council or synod, so in local affairs the mir acts for him. ”

“ In other lands there have been other autocrats, but always alike in this : each has fallen or stood according to his ultimate military failure or success. Had the mass of the people on whom his power rested really desired equal rights and personal liberty and self-government, the autocrat would not have been tolerated for an hour. The fore- most autocrat of all time is the great Na- poleon, child of the French Revolution. ”

“ From its very cradle, through the more than thousand years since, the Russian branch of the Slavic race is, in whatever per- tains to government, the direct antith- esis of our own. It is as difficult for the average Russian to appreciate our modern, twentieth -century sentiment as it is for us to appreciate their docile, submissive sentiment, which has been wrought out in the interminable forest and steppe. ”

“ After the barbaric invasions ceased in western Europe, for generations count- less Asiatic hosts roamed over Russia, sparsely populated and difficult of de- fense, and devastated the land at will. Moreover, the sunless forest and dreary steppe wrought upon human nature their repressive influence. ”

“ The council melted away. Autocracy reigned again as in all the days since the time of Rurik. Thus ended the first, if not the only, genuine attempt at a liberal government in the Muscovite Empire. This is the most important, the most significant, event in the history of Russia.
Through another century successive sovereigns sat upon the autocratic throne. In 1822 the childless Alexander I was Tsar. His brother, the Grand Duke Constantine, had been acknowledged as heir. Constantine desired to marry the Polish girl Jane Grodzinska. ”

“ From stereograph copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Latest Picture of the Tsar of all the Russias and His Interesting Family, including Baby Tsarevitch
us search for a prince who will govern us." They decided on a foreigner, the Norman Rurik. To him and to his brothers they sent messengers to say, "Our country is large and abundant, but order and justice are lacking. Come and take possession of it and rule over us." It would be difficult to recall a similar instance in any other country. Rurik vouchsafed a favorable reply, and founded the first Russian dynasty. ”

“ For we are in the very midst of the progress, and meanwhile receive and share all that is being achieved . The fleet-footed are not tolerant of the slow. Scant pa- tience have we for the tardier progress made by nations in less favorable con- ditions than our own. The same step must they keep and push on with the same tireless speed. Great Britain, sur- rounded by the inviolate sea, and safe from even the threat of a hostile foot, has wrought out farther than any other people, perhaps farther than ourselves, the application of principles to civil and constitutional government. ”

“ There did not then exist a single other written constitution, defining civil functions and regulating the relations of different departments of state. We were the first who ever em- barked upon the sea of national self- government under the aegis of a consti- tution formed by the people. Hence it is difficult or impossible for us Ameri- cans to fully realize how rapidly we have advanced under the guidance of a brief but an enlightened experience. The rapidity with which we have rushed for- ward since astounds the beholder, but is barely perceived by ourselves. ”

“ Thence were devel- oped those traits of sluggish patience, of long endurance, of morbid self-sacri- fice which distinctly mark the Russian people today.
ADVANCES BEGIN AT THE TOP AND WORK DOWNWARD
In most countries each political or economic advance has derived its first impulse from popular feeling which swelled into a resistless demand upon authority — that is, the progress has begun from below and worked upward. In Russia the very opposite is true. There almost every advance has re- ceived its first impulse from the Tsar — that is, the progress has begun from above and worked downward. ”

“ The nations move on like troops of soldiers in a long and weary march Some reach the place of bivouac and light the camp-fires while others are straggling far behind. Some of the seeming loiterers have been pressing on all the time toward the bivouac as the rear guard, with their faces to the foe ; and others are struggling forward, wounded and disabled, with slow and uncertain step ”

“ That burden is "sole sovereignty over the people." He personifies the theory of the father who never grows old and never dies, and whose national family is made up of children who never reach maturity and are always young. A few weeks ago at Tsarkoe Selo the Tsar received the deputation of workmen. ”