St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1890-04-26
FUTURE OF RUSSIA.
Me- NIhlllsm, But Forolgn InterCeFoooo
Needed to Crush Its Bafbarism.

Nss NIhlllsm. But Forsagn IaterSsrsaso
Needed to Crush Its Barbarian.
The disclosure Of q new Nihilist plot
against the life Of the Gar and HIS lam
lily Is only another proof OF tho folly Of
attempting to perpetuate the corrupt
a~bsolutism Of Russia. OF course the
death Of the Gar and the reigning FAM
fly tomorrow would hardly change tho
existing situation, for the Car is to-day
about as completely helpless . creature
OF his own system IS any thing it sus-
tains. The barbarism is bad enough,
but The barbarism rests largely upon a.
intelligent but most corrupt political and
civil administration. Anybody who has
read George Kcnnan's wonderful book
can understand that gross, shameless
corruption in the public administration
has quite as much TODD with the perpet-
uation of the %atrocious penal system Of
S:oeria 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 FLOCK. The
only classes that revolt against the Gar
are the disconnected scholars and stu
dents of both sexes, the malcontent
military, the doctors, literary men and
Enthusiastically persons of fine educa-
lion and noble family. To these must
be added a few Jews, the representa-
tives Of a class that has been most bar
barously prosecuted in Russia with the
tacit approval of the Government. And
vet, while the victims of Russian absO-
lutism have included hundreds OF noble
men and women, nevertheless, it would
avail nothing t. kill the Car
To kill a Gar in Russia is equivalent to
what Ben Butler described when, years
ago he said that "a quarrel among
Democrats was like a quarrel among
cats; il 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, q
gigantic Tartar of genius, like Frederick
the Great of Prussia, found his people in
the cradle, and left them sitting in full
armor on q throne; but, after Peter
until the present, neither intellectual
genius nor moral sense has ruled Russia,
save in the case of Catherine H., who
was a 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 a 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-
Olu6UeU III -NdTCus lcVi. AAtcE Idu1
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 H.. 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 ave a 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 foo in 1901.
Nothing short Of this can smash tho
barbarism of Russia, hat is q blot OF
black blood on the map Of Europe
pnrtland O-o0"~ian-