Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-02

less actions Those vine induced you to
address this petitinm to me desire to see
you revolt against me and my government
After few more words of the same COM
placent character, this representative of
God on earth said tosthee delegation:
Pardon for the Innocent.
IT am convinced of the innocence of the
workingmen, and believe that they are well
disposed toward me. L will pardon those
transgressors. Retnrn again to your work.
May God assist you.'
The history Of this world has so many re-
voting passages that cannot say that this
Russian episode suEpaSsas others, but when
the head of grea6 CHRISTIAN government
tunes his tongue to the sformula of Divine
right which was current during the dark
ages and gives ussa dash of medievalism,
to be reported by Especial correspondent in
the daily newspapers, there is something
SO anomalous about the situation that 1t
makes a peculiar impression of its own.
At least 1900 of this emperor's children
had been butchered in cold blood for the
high crime Of wishing to present petition
to him for shorter hours of labor and
more liberal recognition OF their status as
human beings.
May God assist you' says the car
leaving it to the benighted minds of these
untutored workmen to find out how 1t Is
that God is going to assist them. when the
representative of God on earth shoots them
down by the thousand, tramples them be-
meath the hoofs of Cossack horses, slashes
them with Cossack sabers, pierces them
with \Cossaek lances, lashes them with
Cossach= seeurges, and sends them bleeding
and bowling back to their hopeless homes
and miserable lives. for no offense other
than the wish to kneel at his feet and pray
for better treatment.
Nicholas Forgives.
II forgive your! says the car.
Forgives them for what?
For being denied the right to petition the
throne, for being driven back into serfdom,
for being hacked and slashed and trampled
and bullet-riddled by the hireling savages
of barbarian government!
"As the Great Father above forgives, so I,
your little father, forgives."
Amen. Let the whimpering wretch who
nurses saber-slashed head recover in
peace. He is pardoned for having been
Cossacked.
Let the father who drags his Iifeless
daughter from under the hoofs of the war
horse go weep over her in comfort-he and
she are forgiven for having dared to hope
for mercy from the car.
And the nameless dead who went forth
that Sabbath morning, following the heroic
priest whose baton was the Cross Of Christ
went forth in the glow of lofty purpose
and pathetic hope, and whose bodies are
now feeding the fishes of the Neva-let them
also rest in peace-their little father has
forgiven them.
How do 1 know that you have not in
jured my horses?" asked Dickens marquis,
while the frantic peasant was lamenting his
crushed child.
Let the woman come to my house; she
shall be paid. Drive on, coachman," said
the Duke of Bethune
Served you right" says the czar
Served you right" says the grand dukes,
Vladimir.
You should not have quit work. You
should not have asked a hearing. You got
crushed by my troops. L forgive you for It,
Go back to your work, Be content with
your lot. May God assist you"
Thus the voice of class-rule speaks in
Russia to-day it spoke in France on the
eve of the revolution. and as 1t always has
spoken In every part of the world since man
learned the trick of 'enslaving his brother.
AS everybody knows, the real governors
of the vast empire of Russia are the grand
dukes. The car is a mere puppet in their
hands. When he is obedient they control
him. When he is disobedient they murder
him. Thus they killed Paul, the father of
Alexander the First, because he favored an
alliance with Napoleon Bonaparte, while
the grand dukes favored an alliance with
Great Britain. They would remove" the
present emperor if he were to pit his will
against theirs
The spokesman of the present cabal of
grand dukes is Vladimir, perfect a type
of the cruel, obstinate, narrow minded aris-
tocrat as Europe ever saw in 1t worst days.
Speaking to Michael Davitt, the Irish
member of the British parliament this
grand duke declared that the reason why
representation could not be given to the
common people of Russia was that they
were not fit to exercise it.
He regarded andTintended this to be an
indictment against the common people. On
the contrary, it Is a tremendous Indictment
against the government.
The Russian people, as distinguished from
the Russian aristocracy35 have been COM
pletely under the control of the laws and
the administration which the ruling class
saw fit to establish. The altar and the
throne have supported each other. Church
and state have been firm and fast allies.
Ever since the days of Peter the Great the
minds and the conscences of the common
people of Russia have been absolutely DOM
mated by the ruling class.
The shepherds have had full control of
the flock. The guardians have had no in
reference with the education of their wards.
If after SO many hundreds of years the
mass of the Russian people are so STEPPED
in ignorance and superstition that they are
unfit to exercise the common rights of man
hood, that fact, if 1t be fact, damns the
Russian aristocracy with the deep guilt of
having debased the nation committed to it's
care and guidance.
No substantial reform has ever been con-
ceded within state governed by king or
aristocracy until the blood of sacrifice has
first been shed.
Spain would grant no concessions to those
who claimed freedom of conscience In the
Netherlands, until years of warfare had
drenched the soil of Holland with the blood
of heroes who fought and died for those
principles, which We carelessly and unap-
preciatively enjoy today.
France would loosen none of the chains
which CALLED the peasant. until that peas
ant rose In his desperation and paid with
his life for the liberty his descendants in
herit. The king was deaf to all prayers.
The aristocracy drove from power with
insults and persecution every enlightened
minister who proposed to better the condi-
ton of the common people by conceding
moderate reforms. 1t was only when the
desperation of despair reused the people to
a furious attack upon time-honored abuses
and vested wrongs Of every conceivable
kind, that privilege would harken to rea-
son, and right could find place on the
statute book.
In England the story has been the same.
In the long procession of the ages in which
the common people have wrung, one by one,
from the grip of aristocracy those liberties
upon which we now pride ourselves, the
price of blood has been always demanded,
and invariably paid. Never has king or
aristocrat conceded a single demand of the
reformers until those reformers had either