The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-03-16


HE ELEGRAP on Sunday gave us the
startling announcement that the Car of Rus
STA had been assasinated by the Nlhilists, who
have at last accomplished their design by ex-
ploding a bomb shell under his carriage as he
was returning from church. Alexander IL.
was the best Of the Romanons, and his reign
forms q startling contrast with the rule Of
blood and iron Of his father Nicholas.
Reared in the camp, and surrounded with
an atmosphere OF military despotism, the
gloomy traditions Of his race casting their
dreary shadows over his future, instilled
with the legends and precedents Of 8 barbar-
Gus epoch and forecast in q mold formed by
Monaghan supremacy, he came to the throne
in 1855 with everything predisposed for the
continuance il the repressiye policy of his
predecessors. But he was by nature the very
antithesis Of all this, for he had imbibed.
with his military IDEAS and %autocratic train
ing, the liberal views and broad sympathies
which the French literature then represented
in its purest form and highest type. There
was no MuscoVite literature except the Ian
guage Of the aukase and the requisition, and
French had almost driven the Sclavic from
the Russian c~apital-French Astounding with
the glorious traditions and useful lessons of
| the great revolution before its free impulse
| had been s%trangled by the coup de etGt. These
sentiments were magnified as he saw the
r,,r 71,1av v,.,c of h1o nrYoxr ornrnhlo -, tho
Crimea from official rottenness and lack of
national conference and social organization
more than. from allied bayonets. He had
seen the commissary depleted and destroyed
by his own generals, his transportation SER
vice SO inefficient as to render his army i'm
movable and worthless, and he found him
self with a million bayonets, unable to stop
petty p%ilferiDg in the palace. The people,
without social organization could not assist
him in the work Of regeneration nor protect
themselves from the otficialism that plundered
those above and those beneath with equal i'm
punity. There was no Russian nation, only
a mere expression, with its terms expressed
in bayonets and ignorance and poverty:
There was no society and no public opinion.
The public had not yet emerged from be-
meath the crushing weight of the Tartar wave,
though il was just emerging and doing a
little thinking Of its own through the medium
Of the Bible which Nicholas compelled ey-
cry family TO have on hand the day he ex-
PEELED the Jesuits.
All this Alexander saw and lamented. His
armies were shattered and his finances de-
ranged. He saw that ii Russia must ever be
a nation and ready TO cope with organized
nations in the march Of progress or the for
tunes Of war, she must be organized from
among the people and not from their op-
p~ressors; Che had overlooked that this must
be done 6y the people if it were to have vi
tality-(but it was q great advance for 8 Ro-
manoD. At this time the people themselves
had just aWoke to 8 realizing sense that they
were a necessity to the government, and this
they had learned while fighting the French,
for many prisoners had been taught the relig-
ion of Jean Jacques, and in the brotherhood
Of arms many Russian officers had told the
story Of human rights coyertly gained in their
unive1s ity life. But thespeople were too true
to the Gear and the communal instinct to COM
plain of him, although they complained
loudly Of the landlords. he had the tate of
Louis vi. in his mind, and found q porten-
tious similitude in the conditions Of the two
epochs, and he resolved IL remodel Russian
society on q purely Russian plan. Ills IN
tentions were good and besides he really
liked the doctrine Of q prosperous and power
full people and detested petty despotism. Il
will, !" he said, 'sdestroy the petty despots, 1t
is better to have one good king than a hun
dred little ones Louis ~. had taught him
that, and he set himself about to the task of
regeneration. In 1861 he freed 81, O0O, 900
people from the bonds of serfdom and alien
ated tWo-thirds Of the soil of Russia from the
hands of the Russian nobility and landlords.
He said liberty without the meas OF main
tanning it is q fatal gift, and then he fas
tened the land tenure on the people as a
6ef Of the crown. People might use 1t
without rent but could not acquire it.
But the Russian nobility and the landlords
did not take kindly to this, and an intense
hatred Of the Carbon here took deep root
and has slowly expanded into the upas Of
Nihilism and borne its deadly fruit. They
formed the only educated class in Russia, and
were reduced to a condition of ridiculous I'M
becility but thoroughly imbued with 9 So
perfcial education gathered from the French.
U'r..- -.~o t,orof&# oE III s.q.-onno for tho