Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-09-08
WHEREIN TIE EMPEROR IS MIsTAKEN.


itself but little significance, except as it
serves to show the confidence reposed by
the Emperor in the final triumph OF force
over principle. 81 think it my duty, as a !
" patriot and faithful subject to your
+" Majesty, to warn you that a great move
q ment will be made by the Nihilists in /
q two or three months, said the Baron. |
The Emperor coolly turned his back upon
the ex-Prefect, saying, " Your successor, !
an. Kaslofi, has energy and wit enough
g to triumph over them" The Emperor's
disdain of his old servant is born Of his |
confidence in the successor. But NJ. Kas-
loft, however energetic and cunning, will
not triumph over the Nihilists. A higher
civilization reyolts at Nihilist methods and
stands horrifed at the brutality and saw
agery of the kind of political warfare they
wage; but the political revolution in
progress in Russia will not be stayed by
the energy or wit Of Project of Police.
For ages absolutism and imperialism have
found in Russia their stronghold. To this
time Russia has been q grand empire of
force. The present century has nothing
more wonderful to boast than the progress
made by this semi barbarous people toward
higher civilization. It has been a
mighty force welded by single imperial
hand. The progressive forces which made
Russia powerful did not stop at the point
OF conferring strength. Imperialism en-
couraged the development Of all material
things because national wealth is a source
of national power. Imperialism emanci-
pated the serfs, built railroads and tele-
graph lines, encouraged learning, promoted
the arts and sciences, built up commerce
and established manufactures because the
source OF national power resides in these.
The stronger the empire the more resistless
its soepter. Bat it is not possible for any
people to make progress in material and
intellectual things without making adj
vancement in civil and religious liberty.
Imperialism sought to make Russia great,
and this greatness viii make Russia free.
Whoever would extend over any people
the sway of Imperialism must first debase
and impoverish them. Whoever would
| keep a people in subsection must keep
them ignorant and poor. The rising tide
of civilization in Russia bears upon
its crest the coming era of civil
liberty. The throne is master of
the people only while the throne
is strongest. The strength of the people
is the weakness of the crown. National
growth and progress in Russia made
it certain that sooner or later the
people would demand and obtain their po-
litcal rights. Contemplating the rising
power of this empire, Napoleon the Great
said, 8" Europe will become all republican
g or all Cossack." The prophecy ignored
the existence of forces within Russia her.
self that would change from Cossack to
republican. In denying to the people a
! Constitution, Alexander III. wars with the
resistless forces of national progress, and
opposes the scepter OF a receding imperial
ism to the rising tide of modern civiliza-
ton. The new Project of Police cannot
arrest the growth of intelligence, nor i'm
prison the evolution of 4 higher idea of civil
liberty. His energy and wit, now the
boast of his Sovereign, are no match for
the subtle forces which in Russia are fore
ing the unfoldment of higher national
life. However crude its methods or bar
barous its manifestations, Nihilism is the
primitive protest against imperialism in
Russia. It's weapons are the natural resort
of semi. civilized men. However brutal they
may appear, Nihilism is not as barbarous,
cruel or relentless as Imperialism has been
and remains. The Nihilists have en-
ployed assassination on behalf of civil
equality the Car and all his ancestors
have employed the same weapon and the
colder cruelty of Punishment in defense Of
Imperialism. Both are revolving to the
sensbilities OF our higher civilization, but
it must lie remembered that both the I'm.
perialis of Russia and the rising protest
against it move on primitive plan of
civilization. In such a contest between
such forces both will exhibit brutal ferocity
and both must be judged by the same
standard. However crude or barbarous
their manifestation, the principles at war
are the political rights of the people
against the usurpations of Imperialism.
The sun of civil liberty is rising on Russia,
and its light cannot be extinguished.
Whenever in all history and among all men
the people have reached that eminence in
progress and intelligence from which their
political rights were clearly perceived, they
have marched steadily onward toward the
perfect recognition of those rights. Russia
will not prove an exception. The contest
will rise to higher planes and will embrace
broader principles, but in all its phases it
will be and remain the same contest be.
tween absolutism and civil liberty.