, 1880-05-24
The Cars Anniversary.

The Cars Anniversary.
The twenty fifth anniversary of the
accession of Alexander II. to the throne
of all the Russias must have been cele-
brated with fear and trembling. The
apprehensions caused by the plots and
threats of the Nihilists cannot be dis
PEELED by glitter of pomp or affectatlcn
of loyalty. The Government having
once given way to its panic terror, finds
it impossible to regain it's self-posses-
sion. The army is'untainted with trea-
son and the peasantry is too inert to be
influenced by revolutionary ideas, but
the disafection of the townspeople and
the educated class is steadily increas-
ing. Authority is now grounded on
Intimidation rather than the traditional
devotion of the masses for the sover
eign, and after two years of reactisnary
zeal ard military compression the Gov
ernment finds itself too limp to stamp
out disloyalty. After reigning for q
quarter of century. the Czar virtually
confesses his inability to govern his
subjects any longer, and, casting about
for suitable proxy, invests the son of
an Armenian merchant with the abso-
lutte power of a military dictator. Him
self the victim of a melancholy which
has darkened the lives of so many of
his ancestors, he shrlnks back from the
windows of his palace, and orders his
soldiers to ransack the cellars for dy
Mantle. 1t is sorry anniversary for
Alexander the Liberator.
For on this day it must not be for
gotten that no sovereign of modern
times has undertaken SO many and such
radical reforms as this same Alexander
the Liberator. He not only set free
twenty millions of serfs and endowed
them with the rights of citizenship in
the communes, but enabled them to
become 2ded proprietors. In no other
reign and in no other country has an
experiment of equal magnitude in po
litical and social science been made
In the United States the freedmen were
given the right of suffrage, but in Rus
sia emancipation was accompanied by
radical change in the conditions of
land tenure. At the same time trial by
jury was established, the judicial tri-
bunals were lifted above the level of
provincial administration, and every
department of the government except
the secret police was reformed from the
bottom and while parliame entary in
stitutiors were withheld, the peasantry,
which formed nine-tenths OF the popu-
latlon OF the Empire, were allowed to
exercise all the functions of local self
rule. The Gar was a practical reform
er at a time when reforming zeal was
rnn ynt ND hn 1f
his reign an era of national regenera-
ton seemed to be opening. Twenty
five years have gone by. and the mon
arch who was once Liberal of the
Liberals, heading the movement for
free labor, local independence and ad-
mlnlstrative reform, is now pris Onef
in his own palace, with military die
tator outside.
1t may be that the Gar will recall to-
day what his father, the iron handed
Nicholas, is reported to have said al
most with his last breath "My sue
cessor may do as he pleases, bst l
cannot change" The humiliations of
the Crimea did not modify the theory
OF absolute monarchy and military
compression to which he had adhered
for thirty years. He died as he had
lived, with his faith in the efficacy of
military despotism unshaken. His sue
cessor did as he pleased and left moth
ing unchanged but it has come to pass
that he has abandoned Liberalism and
reverted to his fathers methods of in
tolerant administration. The illusions
OF reform have been dispelled. The
serfs whom he enfranchised have not
been transformed into sober and thrifty
farmers. The people whom he sought |
to serve and bless with remedial meas
ures are disappointed and ungrateful.
Ii the father placed too implicit reli-
ance upon absolutism, the sons expecta-
tions OF the immediate results of re-
form policy were overwrought and illu-
sive. Yet were those reforms benefcent |
and enlightened. If Russian regener-
alton has not been accomplished in
quarter of a century, it is because ma
tlons are doomed to work out their sal
vation with fear and rembling-not |
with the panic terror and vacillation
manifested in tho Emperor's council
chamber, but with wholesome dread
OF economic conditions and race i'm
pulses, and with a resolute, determined
etfort-sometimes an agonizing strug-
promote the progress of civlli-
zation.-N. 7. Tribune. ot