Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1905-02-04
AFTER i STORM.

New York Evening Post.-Every one
must have been struck by the way in
which labor agitation and political dis
turbance lave been blended in the
news from Russia. The explanation is
simple. Except for the universities,
the great industrial centers furnish
almost the only indus for the germs Of
political reform. Revolutionaries like
Prince K~uropotkin long ago gave up the
IDEA or doing much with stolid and
scattered ~peasantry. But as great
manufactures brought workingmen to-
gether in increasing swarms, the ma
terial was more and more provided for
q propaganda. This has necessarily
taken on a twofold form. Trades
union notions have been imported and
the need of an organization Of the
workers preached at the same time
that political changes nave been cried
up as necessary. This mingling was
obvious in the petition which the strik-
ers wished to lay before the car on
Sunday. They put their own griev-
ances as laborers In first place, but
they also added their voices to the APP
peal for some kind of national repre-
%sentation. AS the strike is broken lit
is to be presumed 1t will be), the poll
teal upheaval may appear to subside
but a fire has been kindled which can
not be wholly extinguished.
New York Tribune.-It is to be noted
thai popular sympathy in other Eu-
Iropean countries Is strongly on the
side of the insurgents. That is be-
cause 1t is realized that their original
demands were temperate and reason
able and should have been granted.
Ihey did not ask as much as Germans
and Austrians and Italians, not to
mention Franch m an q q ND IL r,, -lf,b~oo
have long enjoyed as a matter of
course. The people Of these other
countries realize perhaps more keenly
thar we can in America the need OF
reforms in Russia and the hardness Of
the lot OF those to whom the common
rights Of other civilized lands are de-
MED. There will, Of course, be no in
to settle her own affairs in her own
way; but the sentiments of other lands
will not be without their effect.
Chicago Tribune.-Certaln classes of
Russians - professors, lawyers, stu
dents, editors, zemstvoists - have
learned the use OF their tongues, and
they never again a be made dumb.
Not long ago they hardly would have
dared to petition. Now they have cour-
age to demonstrate. They have spoken
with a freedom which would have been
impossible q year ago, because 1t would
have meant imprisonment or exile. No
man speaking for the editors would
have dared to say to a minister of the
interior the whole Russian people are
behind the liberal movement" and "the
army, which has its roots In the peo-
pie, will make common cause with
them"
One zenstvo, undeterred by. the re-
Dukes administered to others which
have made similar requests, asks that
representatives Of the nation be SUM
moned to take part in legislation and
financial and administrative control.
Another says that Russia is on the
road to complete ruin and nothing
can save her but freely elected repre-
sentatives." This is the Language of
a new Russia. These are not the arr
guments OF social democrats secretly
printed and circulated by stealth, but
of large property owners in city and
country whom the government does
not now dare to punish.