The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-03-25
RUSSIAN UNREST.


calls the days of the Nihilist plots when
workingmen and students, scientists and
government officials We're banded to-
gether III resentment of the 1eactionary
policy inaugurated by the emperor The
prevailing disturbances do not appear 10
have any well defined objective point
The cable dispatches indicate that they
had their origin in great measure as a
protest against the accommodation of
Count Tclstoi. But their widespread
operation and the general disposition of
the populace to engage in them indicate
that there is something much more sig
nificant at their root
The face of Russian society is undergo
ing an entire change. 1t is graduals
change; but it is none the less radical
The theories of governmental responsible
ity which prevailed i'll the days of the
father and grandfather of the present
ruler are not those which prevail today.
Industrial advancement, combined with
social and political peace, seems now to
be the principle for which Russian beau
rocracy is striving. The present car is
a man Of concededly liberal opinions;
and the changes which have been
wrought through the construction of the
great railroad to Vladivostock mean in
eVitably that Russia as a whole, in po-
htical institutions as we'll as in the social
life of the people, is undergoing a transit
ton which will during the century result
in placing that people among the great
producing forces Of the world
The Russian moujik is at last begin
ming to understand what it is to have
some existence independent of his i'm
perial master. He is fast evolving into
workingman and farmer. The traces
of serfdom stamped into his being for
generations are disappearing in the
younger generation, and the Russian
mind generally is opening to the funda-
mental conceptions of human rights
which men like Prince Krapotk.n propa-
gated at such terrible cost both to them
selves and to the reigning family of Rus
STA
The past twenty-five or fifty years OF
Russian political life reveal the struggle
Of the masses to higher intellectual
level, accompanied by the violence which
resulted in their endeavor to break the
letters of absolutism which they allowed
to lie upon their energies unquestioned
while yet the nation remained sunk in
ignorance and semi barbarism The gov
eminent which sustains the academy and
university and sets no seal of condemna-
ton upon the effort of both sexes to ac-
Quire the higher education must prepare
itself for the dominion of liberalism
in political science. 1t cannot hope to
maintain even an approach to autocracy
without having to overcome successive
popular upheavals. This is apparently
one of such upheavals,
AS fast perhaps as the nation is quail
fled to approach toward the goal of lib
eral social and political institutions the
present ruler of the Russian empire and
his advisers seem to be urging it for
ward. No nation which is to play a lead
ing part in modern progress can do less.
Popular intelligence is now concededly
the first requirement to ascendency in
productive effort. 1t is of little avail to
Russia that she has virtually extended
her borders to the Amur river,
and united the farthermost recesses of
her vast dominion by bands of steel if,
as the outcome of it all, the Russian
people are to be regulated in the exer-
else of their civil and political rights
only by the bayonet and the carbine