The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1890-03-07
FUTURE OF RUSSIA.
Not NIhflfsna, But Foreign interference
Needed TO Crush Its Barbarism.

Not NIhflIsm, But Foreign Interference
Needed to Crush Its Barbarism.
The disclosure of a new Nihilist plot
against the life of the Gar and his fam
fly is only another proof Of the folly Of
attempting to perpetuate the corrupt
absolutism of Russia. OF course the
death of the Car and the reigning fam
lily tomorrow would hardly change the
existing situation, for the Gar is to-day
about as completely helpless a creature
of his own system as any thing it sus-
tains. The barbarism is bad enough,
but the barbarism rests largely upon an
intelligent but most corrupt political and
civil administration. Anybody who has
read George Remnants wonderful book
can understand that gross, shameless
corruption in the public administration
has quite as much to do with the perpet-
uation of the atrocious penal system of
Siberia as ignorance and natural barbar-
ism. The Russian officers who admins
ter this horrible system are educated
and accomplished men in the private
walks of life; but so, for that matter,
were the majority of American slave
holders These Russians have become
accustomed to be silent under the cor
rupt and cruel land cruel chiefly because
corrupt) administration of the Rus
sian penal system. The Russian
peasantry, an ignorant, superstitious,
drunken class, love the Gar, who
has always curried favor with
them, just as Henry VIII. did with the
English common people, upon whom he
smiled and relied when he schemed to
send the great mobiles to the block. The
only classes that revolt against the Gear
are the discontented scholars and stu
dents of both sexes, the malcontent
military, the doctors, literary men and
thinkers-usually persons of fine educa-
ton and noble family. To these must
be added a few Jews, the representa-
tives of class that has been most bar
barously prosecuted in Russia with the
tacit approval of the Government. And
yet, while the victims of Russian abso-
lutism have included hundreds of noble
men and women, nevertheless, it would
avail nothing to kill the Gar tomorrow.
To kill Gar in Russia is equivalent to
what Ben Butler described when, years
ago, he said that ''a quarrel among
Democrats was like quarrel among
cats; 1t only meant more cats" So as
sassination of Cars only means more
Cars. Indeed, if assassination could
ever have shattered the Russian abso-
lutism, this system would have died
in the last century. Peter the Great, a
gigantic Tartar of genius, like Frederick
the Great of Prussia, found his people in
the cradle, and left them sitting in full
armor on a throne; but, after Peter
until the present, neither intellectual
genius nor moral sense has ruled Russia,
save in the case of Catherine IL, who
was woman of genius, of full German
blood, who murdered her phantom hus-
band to sit on his throne. A woman
without womanhood, she had lovers
without limit, loved none of them, and
sacrificed them all; like Elizabeth of
England, she loved power better than
any lover. Nevertheless, she had a
powerful masculine mind; for her day
she was scholar, and she sent Russia
to the front as no arm had sent her be-
fore or since Peter the Great After
Catherine III. came imbecile Paul, assas-
sinated IN March, 1901. After Paul
came handsome but weak and finally
imbecile Alexander, who furnished Ma
poleon with his great triumph of Aus
terlitz and Friedland, and finally with
his death blow at Moscow. Then came
Nicholas, who died insane from grief
over the Crimea; then came his son,
Alexander IL. assassinated; and then
came the present sullen monarch, with
his veins full of the crazy Romanoff
blood.
What is the remedy? Nihilism? No;
there is no cure for Russia save gigan-
tic foreign war which shall leave Russia
as completely at the military mercy of
Germany, Austria and Italy as France
was left to her German foe in 1S70-71.
Nothing short of this can smash the
barbarism of Russia, that is a blot of
black blood on the map of Europe. -
Portland Oregonian.