The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-30
AMERICANS ARE EVERYWHERE
DEVELOPING THE COUNTRY,s GREAT
AND VARIED RESOURCES,
And ImpressinE Their Ideas of Prog
ress and Civilization ON the Slug
gish Brains of the People.
Correspondence of the Associated Press.

L.
writing from st. Petersburg, says: when
Sir Robert Morier, one of the ablest of
British ambassadors, was transferred from
the court of Madrid to the capital of Rus
STA, he remarked on his arrival: I have
come from a country which lives in the past
to a country which lives in the future
Since then many years have gone by. Spain
has almost used up it's past in a vain effort
to contend with the forces of the present
while Russia is exhausting the resources
of the present in order to be able to cope
with the immense possibilities of the
future.
Russia is the greatest aggregate Of white
men ever compacted into a state unit since
the world began. The Notwithstanding
family alone exceeds in numbers the Rus
sian but they know no one political allegi-
ance such as that which binds all the Rus
slams to the throne of Nicholas II.
Zone hundred and twenty millions of men
constitute a world in themselves large
enough to absorb their energies and mo-
nopoize their attention. The indifference
of the Russians to what passes beyond their
frontiers is phenomenal. Fifty years ago
one of the aids-de-camp of the then EN-
peror, falling into conversation with an
American, asked him to what country he
belonged, and was told America. 'Ameri-
ca, America said the aid-de-camp. Where
is American An American traveller recent
ly returned from Siberia gravely assured
me that all the war news he could find in
the Orenburg papers were brief reprints of
kilograms describing the war which was
raging between Spain and England
THE Russian peasantry are not apt to
make fine distinctions Mankind for them,
it has often been said consists only of two
great divisions-the. Russians. or speaking
men, and the non-Russian, or those who
cannot speak. The small but highly-culti-
waited minority which forms Russian So
ciety, the larger group which forms the adj
ministration, and the officers Of the army
and of the navy are, of course, keenly alive
to the evolution of events in America.
There is Pobyedonostofi, who is universally
regarded as a kind Of lay pope and per-
secutor general throughout Russia No
milder-mannered man ever closed con-
venticle or doomed a schismatic to exile.
He is keenly alive to the American evolu-
ton, or. as he thinks it, degradation. To
him Boss Croker is a kind of somber por-
tent of the doom that awaits parliament
tarism or representative government. In
his reflections of a Russian statesman
which has just made its appearance in Eng
lish, he expresses profound alarm at the
probable CD triumph Of the Roman Catho-
lie religion in the United States
AN AMERICANIZED RUSSIAN.
Prince Khlilkoff pronounced HilkofD,
minister of ways and communications, is
known the American He served some
time in an American railway shop; ne wears
his beard in the traditional American fash
ion; his letters are written on a typewriter,
and he is simply burning with a desire to
repeat in Siberia the great industrial de-
velopment that the Americans achieved in
the last fifty years west of the Mississippi.
AT the Foreign Office Count Mouravieff,
bluff, cynical, Bismarckian in his ambi-
tions, though not in his capacity, has kept
a careful eye upon the development of
American ambitions. While scrupulously
preserving the most rigid neutrality during
the war, he had bias in sentiment toward
the United States. Great and growing pow
ers have not much sympathy with states
that are moribund and Spain had few SYM
pathizers among the ministers of the Gar
But the Spanish war interested them but
little. 1t was waged, as it were, in q dis
tant planet. Astronomers might watch it,
but it was not the business OF the everage
man.
Americans are coming we'll to the front
In Russia. as they are discovering more and
more what immense and undeveloped
field the lands of the Car offer to West
ern enterprise. Russia is but at the begin
ming of epoch of industrial develop
ment. Before the new century closes she
hopes to have achieved progress as great
as that which the United States has accom-
plished in the closing century. No one ado
quately realizes the immense agricultural
resources of the immense prairie through
which the Car and Prince Khilkoff are
running an iron highway eight thousand
miles long. Americans are supplying many
of the rails, American engineers are every
where. One American is experimenting the
construction of new steel works near st.
Petersburg. Bates dredges are to deepen
the Voga, the Dnieper, the Don, and l
know not how many Russian rivers besides.
The representative of Messrs. Worthington
is LAYING down two hundred miles of eight
inch piping in the transeaspian region,
through which the Rothschild oil combina-
ton will pump petroleum by means OF four
pumping stations, all of which will be sup
piled with the latest American pumps.
The other day l met an American geolo--
giSt and engineer. who, having quit the post
of city engineer in a great American city,
had been spending the summer examining
the gold mines of northern Siberia, and pc
fore the day was over stumbled on another
who had been reporting or copper mines IN
the khirgis steppes. The testimony or these
Americans was favorable to the labor value
of the Siberian workman, The Russian is
dOcile, quick To learn and does quite as good
work as any but the skilled artisan in the
States. AS craftsman he is past master
with his only tool, the axe, and my Amer
lean friends seemed to think that he would
be equally deft with other tools if he had
the other hand. another American declared
quite as positively that the Russians en-
ployed in his works work quite as mechan-
fcallY as the machine they tend. They
never make a suggestion or propose an i'm
proVement. Their minds are sluggish ana
they are the most conservative of men.
LEAVENING THE RUSSIAN MASS.
There is manifest in certain quarters
suspicion that after a time the cordiality
OF Russian and American friendship may
undergo some little change The American
element IN the country is a little yeast
leavening the Russian mass with American
ideas. Already Russian workmen here and
there have been heard to observe that they
had no use for a Tsar a phrase which seems
almost pure American. No greater con-
trast could be conceived than that between
the feverish newspaper lit, electric driven
democracy of the United States and the
SLOW, patriarchal despotism OF Russia. The
mere influence of Americans bringing In
their train their American mail, is in itself
breaking down the Chinese wall or archaic
censorship.
Consul General Holloway. of whom was
delighted to receive the best accounts, sub
scribes regularly TO nine American news
papers. AS the mails do not come In every
day 1t is easy 20 imagine the perplexity of
the unfortunate Russian censor, who has
20 examine every column OF every page or
every paper that passes through the post.
So the censor capitulated and. taking refuge
gladly in the rule which allows certain OFF,
ctal personageS to receive their papers un-