New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-03-14
ASSASSINATION OF THE CAR.

police. 1t has borne the weight OF q hhRMy
organized military system, aud resisted inc
pressure of the most absolute monarchy I'll
Cbristepdom. Mechanical force has not
STAMPED it out of existence; chemical
agencies have not destroyed 1t. Nell
koff, with his brides and concessions,
his diplomatic tact and promises OF
reform. his fnesse, audacity and sagacity,
has failed precisely as the secret police and
the military staff failed before him. Only a
few months ago he was bOastlng that the
whole series of assassinatiOns had been planned
by o comparatively small number of con-
spirators, every one of whom had been hunted
down and pounded out of life; and
only last week he was cOngratulatng
his Imperial master upon the complete restora-
ton of public order. Suddenly a dersive
shout is heard from the outer darkness.
Nihilism has breath enough left in its vile
body to hiss defiance in his face. The Car Is
assassinated in broad daylight.
Not with the aid of those diabOlical tools,
dynamite and electricity. Not by secret
mine exploded as the Imperial train was trun-
ding into Moscow, nor by an awful catas-
trOphe in the dining-rOOm OF the Winter Pal-
ace. The last device of Nihism is the
clumsy trick which Orsni introduced in 1858
when three shells were tossed like nOscgays
under the Third NapOleOn's carriage, and the
baff1ed cOnspiratOrs were Immediately arrested.
| 1t failed then but 1t serves the purpose now
after the most intricate ald costly mechanism
| which the ingenuity of assassns has ever de-
signed has been tried in vain. The wretched
inmate of the Winter Palace is shot down like
| a cur in the streets of bis own capital after
receiving the accamatons OF his army
and the populace. Yet even so death comes
almost like release. A Roman historian has
drawn graphic picture of an Emperor who
dreaded assassination with every breath,
| even in the seclusiOn of his own pal
| ace and during the silence of the
night. The crowned coward is described
| as ranging nervously through his palace,
sometimes throwing himself on couch,
"sometimes wandering along the vast cOrri-
| doris, watching for the earliest dawn and anx-
"iously invoking its appearance" SO, too. the
msanthropic Alexander ii. has passed his days
IN gloomy suspicious and his nights in sleep
Iessness. On his dressing bureau when he
! awoke ne would sometimes find a circular
from the Revolutionary Committee, and when
the Governor of the Palace came
for an audience he would be told
that his most faithful servants had been
sketching plans of the palace and keeping
diaries of his daily habits and routine. What
refuge could he find when his foes could
| creep into his own bedroom and undermine
his private dining hall
| Yet this was not the Calgula of Suetonius.
| Alexander III. has been a thoroughly progress
siye monarch. No sovereign III modern or
ancient times ever ventured to undertake
so much reform work for his subjects.
Twice during the reign which has now
been brought to so disastrous close
has he placed himself at the head of ma
tiOnal movement and directed it with master
hand The reform agitation which he had to
| face upon his accession to the throne
was little short of political frenzy.
The nation had been Inundated in the
| CrImea its military system, which hat been
looked upon as nvincble, had broken down !;
and the popular demand was that every de-
nartment of internal administration should be
reformed from the bottom. The monarch be-
came the sturdiest Liberal in his own
realm. lie not only introduced sweeping
! changes in the administration and the judiciary,
but he planned and executed social and
agrarian revolution. He emancipated the
| serfs. invested them with the rights of COM
munal citizenship, and enabled them with
| State aid to become peasant prOprletOrs.
| Twenty years after, when his enthusiasm for
| social and political reform had been chilled,
he allowed himself to be swayed a second
time by O national impulse and gave dircc-
| ton to the great Pan Slavist movement by
which the rights of the Southern Slavs were
indicated on the Balkan Peninsula.
Alexander the LiberatOr it is who has
| been foully murdered in his own capital.
| 1t is the sovereign who shared twenty-five
wears ago that adherence of militarism
and that warming for internal development
which found expression in the rising litera
ture of the nation and in the debates
of the university students. 1t is the Gar
who, after giving liberty and land to millions of
serfs, restored the territory and prestige which
had been lost in the Crimea, and extended
| his frontiers in Armenia and Central Asia. Why
| have the closing years OF such reign ended IN
gloom and despair Why has there been an
| outburst of reactiOnary zeal Why has the
son of the naughty Nicholas intrusted his
supreme authority to an Armenian adven-
turer2 Mainly because he attempted to do in
! twenty five years tine work of hundred. I'm
happy monarch! Americans have no cause to
| revile him, for he was good friend to
| them in an hour of need. He did not break
| up his fathers infamous system of police sur
| VIGILANCE and arbitrary arrests, but he did
enough-mOre than enOugh-tO entltle him to
the respect and compassion OF the world AS
| for the crime itself and the nefarious plots
| which have preceded it, there can be only one
feeling here and in EurOpe-utter adherence
and detestation.