Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-29
George Remnants Critic

SOMETHING IN REGARD TO COL. DE ARNAuD AND
HIS POSITION.
Correspondence Springfield Republican.
The inquiries which have come to me since
last week regarding Col. de Arnaud's reply to
George Remnants Century articles on Siberia
seem to justify some further allusion to the
matter. Col. de Arnaud has history worth
telling in itself. Born Russian and educated
in the fine military school in st. Petersburg, he
took part In the Crimean war at the age of
eighteen, and in six months had by gallantry
and intelligence risen through grades which it
usually takes years to pass. He in this
country when the civil war broke out, and was
instrumental in holding Kentucky to her 10y
atty to the Union. He was offered the
soon exchanged it for a position on
Gen. Grants staff, where his abilities as
an engineer officer made him the valued aid
OF Grant, Fremont and other distinguished
commanders He had much to do with plan
ming the Tennessee campaign. In making a
reconnaissance one day he was so severely
wounded that he still feels the effects of it. He
spent eighteen years In Europe after the war,
but for the last few years has lived in Washing
ton in the winter and at his country house in
New Jersey in the summer. His house and that
of William Walter Phelps are said to be the
finest summer residences in the state Col de
Arnaud does not look like a man who was an
officer in the Crimean war. One would take
him for at least ten years younger than he is.
His hair and moustache are black and his fig
ure is as erect and his movements are as agile
as when he stood on the parapets at Sebasto-
pol.
Col de Armand does not dispute many of the
statements of Mr.. KEENAN,, which 1 quoted in
last Fridays Republican, but he thinks that Mr.
KEENAN, fails to understand the situation in
Russia. The Russians, he says, are not in a
position to make representative government a
success, nor is there any reason why they
should be servile imitators of our institutions
The centralized bureaucracy which has grown
up under the car is the result, he SAYS of the
union of the Russian people against the Tar
tars In the first instance, and then against their
own great barons. Peter the Great and his
successors down to the present car represent
the people against the aristocracy. The COM
mon people of Russia have been steadily
gaining in wealth and power, and Russia has
been gaining prestige since the scattered
units of the Russian population were welded
into nationality by the early cZars. The
middle class is now wealthy and intelligent
although not so well educated as in the
United States. The path is open to the poor
est man to make for himself a career, and many
men who begun as serfs and can only keep their
accounts by means of beads on a string, now do
business to the amount of millions of roubles a
year. These men, Col de Arnaud SAYS are
not revolutionists. The revolutionary propa-
ganda is confined to the class which has moth
ing to lose and everything to gain by civil tur-
moil-broken-down gamesters, briefess barris-
tiers, and penniless sons of nobility. No doubt
Mr.. Kenn an found these people sharp witted,
well read and possessed Of good manners, and
no doubt they assured him in all seriousness
that their exile in Siberia was a great wrong
That would be the judgment of the victims Of
the law in all countries; but Col. de Arnaud
maintains that they are properly punished for
offenses which are criminal by the code Of any
nation, and would be much more severely pun
ished in every other civilized country.