The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-01-21
RUSSiA's DANGER.

The dispatches from the far east contain one
item this week which is more significant than the
fall of Port Arthur, more significant than>thp de
struction of the Russian feet the defeat of Gen
era KurOpatkin. 1t is the handwriting on the Wall,
and the emperor of Russia and the coter1a arc mi
him should mark it well. The dispatch referred to
Is this: A correspondent of the Associated Press,
interviewing General Stoessel and the officers un-
der him. reports that the officers expressed demand
for change in the government of Russia, de-
nounced the present abuses particularly as they
relate to the army, General Stoessel simply said:
LET them talk They have earned the right to think
and talk as they please" The significant feature
of this is that it shows that the army is in syn
pathy with the masses in demanding reforms. IL
rank and file of the army, recruited from the masses
of course, is at heart ready for revolution. The
have been held in check by the subordinate officers,
who in turn have been under the control of their
superior officers. These subordinate officers after
eleven months hard fighting defending Port Arthur,
have had time for reflection. assisted by having
their minds cleared as the result of abstcmious
living The result is that they find they and all
the other officers of like rank, have been unfairly
dealt with, paid, ill-cquipped, and ill-rewarded
for their services to their country. These officers
not recruited from the peasantry, but from the
nobility, which makes their denunciation and de-
mand more Significant.
The army is the club which the despot wields to
keep in subsection the mass of the people In Rus
STA one hundred and twenty million people are
ruled by less than fifty thousand. This means that
one is holding under subsection upwards of four
thousand people, expressing them, robbing them,
A. Al Al
exiting and imprsoning them even for the OK
pressing of opinion as to the matter How is
this possible Simply by having an immense
standing army ready to act as unit, to shoot down
and disperse The people whenever they meet for the
assertion of their rights. With such an army as
Russia has, the rank and file are held in place by
the subordinate officers and when these subordinate
officers become disafected, the government comes
to an end
Suppose that the sentiment expressed by the
Port Arthur officers should become general
throughout the army (and there is good reason to
suppose that it isl. Then let an uprising or riot
take place, such is likely to occur by reason of
the present strike inst. Petersburg. A regiment is
ordered out to disperse the people. The captains
and Eeutenants politely inform their colonel that
they will not go. The colonel may rage and fume
but he is poweress What will then happen? The
mob will proceed as in the French revolution, and
the Great White Gar" will find himself resolved
into Just what nature made him-an ordinary man,
no better worse than the average, and no
moro powerful. He will be as powerless against
the mob as his recently-born boy, and he can read
his finish in the history of Louis XVI.
The tyranny and corruption of the Russian gov
eminent has been carried so far, the oppressors
have become so few and the oppressed so many that
the government today is holding its tenure by
thread, and any moment may see a revolution far
boodier than that of the French in 1893