The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-12-07
Assassination in Russia.

if they were indicative of degrees of politi-
cal oppression and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
events in Russia might give the world an
impression that that country was in the
worst conceivable condition as to all the
points Of relation between the sovereign
and the people. But before we can accept
political assassination or attempts at 1t In
that light we must give up all received
opinions of the comparative hberality'
honesty and justice of the various gov
ernments of great States, for we
find in all lands this same appeal of
mad party passion. despair or frenzy
to the knife, the bullet or the
complicated explosive apparatus. Russia.
Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the
United States are all classed together i'll
the view that the political murderer takes
OF political systems, which seems to indi-
cate pretty clearly that the utmost possible
guarantees of popular freedom, the extrem-
est imaginable concession of political power
to the people, the wisest known adaptations
of administrative machinery to given social
conditions, cannot guarantee the recognized
head of the nation from desperate attempts
against his life. If a well ordered admins
tration of justice could disarm attempts of
this nature England might have been
spared. If the possession of such liber-
ties by the people as to leave it I'M
certain where the existence of authority
begins, or whether it begins anywhere.
could satisfy the fury that inspires this
variety of murder, the United States might
have escaped it's effects. If the confidence,
admiration and affection Of people for
the sovereign were q guarantee, the pic
turesuue German headsman would have
had less labor in recent years. II the ex-
istence in the breasts of monarchs of the
geperous impulses Of youth and its fervid,
patriotic spirit could placate this modern
savagery, it would not have shown itself in
Italy and Spain. But the histories of Queen
Victoria, of Kaiser William, of Humbert
and Alfonso, rs we'll as those of Andrew
Emperor Alexander prove that the political
murderer is nowhere satisfied with the pos
session of that to gain which, rs it is pre-
tended in some countries, he plots and
strikes.
Nobody can suppose--we do not believe
that even the most frenzied revolutionist
is sufficiently shaken in his wits to sup
pose-that II is possible to extort conces-
sions from that strange mass of political
vitality the Russian Empire by threats or
the sense of apprehended danger to the life
of any individual. Neither could the Cars
will, nor the system which is more power
full than the Gar, be reached in that way.
If there is sovereign anywhere in the
world who in great concerns is beyond the
reach of personal motives we believe the
Car Alexander is that one. He has certainly
seemed in all those phases of his history
which have brought him before the world
in such way that his conduct could be
measured by ordinary standards to be in
fuenced by an enlightened and consci-
entious regard for the greater duties of
the most difficult position held by any
man in the civilized world. But he has
different view of his duties from those that
might be urged upon him by committees OF
nihilists or other men Of that Sort Revo-
lutionists, as they appear in Europe in
modern times, are seldom or never men of
political sense. Even in France, where
people seem to be born with some political
| conceptions, the most famous revolution
without the capacity to understand poll
| tics. But it is far worse in Russia, where
| we find people who have inherited the con-
| ceptions of patriarchal systems, and to
| whom all the ideas at the basis of the po-
| litical government of countries are foreign
and practically incomprehensible. Russian
revolutionists have this simple theory of the
| State-that in order to make all the people
free it is only necessary to smash the
existing administrative machinery, and that
| a patriotic sovereign ought to show his
wisdom and self-denial by putting this
machinery where it can be smashed with
the least difficulty, and that if he does not
| do this he ought to be killed. But the
Emperor Alexander knows that if the throne
were cast down in Russia nobody would be
free there; that the present order, poor as
it is, would give way to scenes of indescrib-
able anarchy, carnage, butchery, cruelty,
| injustice and oppression such as have not
been seen in recent times such as have
scarcely been seen anywhere save in the
days when there was no controlling author
| ity in Russia and the ancestors of the nj
| hilists INDUCED their own sweet will as
chronicled amply in Russian history.
Alexander is a sovereign who apparently
is conscious of his obligations in both di-
rections, with respect to the advancement
of the people on the path that leads
toward political liberty, - well as with re-
spect to their protection from their own
ferocious impulses, which would have full
play in a free State, and from those forces
in the Russian system which are radically
inimical to good government or to progress
of any sort. 1t is but few years since