Connecticut western news., 1892-11-24

J faults or your virtues? All people, ex cept ourselves, have faults.
 The pessimist attempting to write your biography would take you in yonF weaker moods, and the picture of you on the first page of your biography would be as you looked after some meanness had been practiced on you and you were tearing mad. Now, as 1 am all optimist, give you fair warning that if ever write your biography will take you as you looked the day your divi- dends came in twenty per cent. larger than you ever anticipated, or the morning on your way to business after your first child was born, or the morning afteI your conversion, when heaven had rolled in on your soul. The most ac- cursed homuncuh of all the earth are the pessimists, who whether they judge individual or national character, and whether they wield tongue or pen, are filled with anathematization, and who have more to say about the freckles on the cheek of beauty than of the sunrises and sunsets that flush it.
 It is most important that this country have right ideas concerning Russia, for among all the nations this side of heaven Russia is Americas best friend. There has not been an hour in the last seventy-fve years that the shipwreck of free institutions in America would not have called forth from all the despotisms of Europe and Asia shout of gladness wide as earth and deep as perditipn. But whoever else failed us, Russia never did, and whoever else was doubtful, Russia never was. Russia, then an old government, smiled on the cradle of our government while yet in it's earliest in- fancy. Empress Catherine of Russia in 1776 or whereabouts offered kindly inter
 ference that our thirteen colonies might not go down under the cruelties of war. Again, in 1913, Russia stretched forth toward us merciful hand When our dreadful civil war was raging, and the two thunder clouds of northern and southern valor clashed, Russia practi- cally said to the nations of Europe, Keep your hands off and let the brave men of the north and the south settle their own troubles. Prince ,Gortsc ha- koff, the Russian statesman, diplomatist and prime minister, during that war looked earnestly into the face of Bayard Taylor, our minister plenipotentiary. to Russia, and said: Russia alone has stood by you from the first, and we will continue to stand by you. You know the sentiment of Russia. We desire, above all things, the maintenance of the American Union as one indivisible Union. We cannot take any part more than we have done. We have no hos tility to the southern people. Russia has declared her position and will maintain it. There will be proposals for inter- vention. We believe that intervention could do no good at present. Proposals will be made to Russia to join ill some plan of interference. She will refuse any invitation of the kind Russia will occupy the same ground as at the begin ming of the struggle. You may rely upon it, she will not change"
 rehearsed someof those scenes to the emperor last July, saying, You were probably too young to remember the po- sition your father took at that time" but with radiant smile he responded, "Oh, yes; I remember, I remember" and there was an accentuation of the words which demonstrated to me that these occurrences had often been talked of in the imperial household.
 I stood on New York Battery during the war, as suppose many of you did, looking off through 8 magnifying glass upon fleet of Russian ships. What are they doing therep' I asked, and SD every one asked. 'sWhat business have the Russian warships in our New York bor1,orY, Word oo,ro fbot opotbor Aoat of Russian warships was in San Fran cisco harbor. "What does this mean?' our rulers asked, but did not get imme- diate answer. In these two American harbors the Russian fleets seemed sound asleep. Their great mouths of iron spoke not word, and the Russian flag, whether floating in the air or dropping l by the flagstaff, made no answer to our l inquisitiveness. William H. Seward, secretary of state, asked j the Russian l minister at Washington the meahing of | those Russian ships in American waters l and got no satisfactory response. Ad- ] miral Farragut said, to Russian officer | after dining in the home of the eminent politician, Thurlow Weed, that maker and unmaker of presidents, What are | tCo- l sells of warp
 | Not until the war was over was it 1 found out that in case of foreign inter
 vention all the guns and the last gun of | these two fleets in New York and San Francisco harbors were to open in full
 diapason upon any foreign ship that
 should dare to interfere with the right of Americans, north and south, to set
 tie their own controversy. But for those
 fleets and their presence in American
 waters, there can be no doubt that two
 of the mightiest nations of Europe
 would have mingled in our fight. But
 for those two fleets the American gov
 ernment would have been today only a
 name in history. I declare before God
 and the nation that I believe Russia
 saved the United States of America
 Last July stood before great throng
 of Russians in the embarrassing position
 of speaking to an audience three-fourths
 of which could not understand my Ian
 guage any more than could understand
 theirs. But there were two names that
 they thoroughly understood as we'll as
 you understand them, and the utterance
 of those two names brought forth an ac
 clamation that made the city hall of St
 Petersburg quake from foundation stone
 to tower, and those two names were
 George Washington" and Abraham
 Lincoln"
 Now is it not important that we should
 feel right toward that mighty, that Goo
 given friend of more than one hundred
 years? Yea, because it is 8 nation ot
 more possibilities than any other excep
 our own should we cultivate it's friend
 ship. There is vast realm of Russia a.
 yet unoccupied. If the population of tht
 rest of Europe were poured into Russia
 it would be only partially occupied