The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-11-21
COUNT WITTE'S TASK
CALLED TOO GREAT FOR ANY
 OTHER R RUSSIAN.
Failure May Re His Lot Believed By Some.-Critic Says ,Egotfsm Is His Sole wcakness.LSeems to be
 Qualified.


 Count Serge Yulievitch Witte. first
 Premier of the Russian Empire, prom
 ises to be the controlling foece in the
 stasesmanship of that land. as he was
 in the recent Portsmouth peace corr
 ference, says the New York sun. He is
 a man of commanding physique as well
 as of dominating intellect, and all
 those who saw him on his recent visit , to this country were impressed wtto
 his innate forcefulpess. His train
 ing and experience have alike quali-
 fled him for the important posts he has
 heen called to fill. If he shall indeed
 succeed in bringing order out of the
 chaotic conditions existing in Russia
 he wil gain a place among the very foremost statesmen in the history of
 the world. It is a task to appal any
 one familiar from the outside with the state of disoi Senization and panic pre-
 valing in the chief cities of the Mus
 covlte Empire, and what 1t mus. be to one who knows the full extent of the paralysis of power of the autocracy and the revolutionary tendencies of the popular mind in that land can only be imagined.
 But Count witte. as the one man in Russia who has grasped the full sig nificance of the revolution which is
 merely in Its inc;piency, and who has persuaded his royal master to affix his signature to thu manifesto which will
 in effect give' the people a voice in
 their government, has the knowledge and ability to do all that is hunianly possible to stem the tide which would sw ,er the throne of the Romanoffs into | the historical Last, as the throne of | tn, Bourbons was swept away in the tide of the French Revolution.
 Count witte is now in the fifty-sixth year of his age. having been born 'n fr- He fat -1,n Ne | Gern al descent, w1s an official there, and his mother descended from the l Dolgorouki family, of Russia, was the | dau shter of Gov. Fayad If, of Saratoff. His youth wes passed amid the wild | scenes of of the Caucasus, and his ,arly l educ1iiCn was secured in the collegs ! or high school of Tfflis. Thence he went to the new Russian University of Odessa fin 1866, where ne devoted him. | self to ma thematics, with the purpose l of sec dring a profossorship. After four years he was graduated with a gold | medal and degree, but yielded to the | persuasions of his family and entered l on $ business career, becoming con- | nected with railway in the south of | Russia as a stationmaster, at $50 a | month. He at once set himself to mas | ter the details of railway traffic, and | one of the first fruits was a work on railway traffic which showed close | StouS siAu b BAs-SP PA tue | of details. This brought him to the | notice os the Russian Steamship Com l rany, which cwncd the linc, ani young l Witte was made assistane superintend- | ent. But the responsibility for se- | rious accident was attributed to hirl
 and was the occasion of his going to | St. Petersburg while a prolonged in-
 vcstigation was in progress. There he was brought into association with | M. Nishnegradski, afterward Minister of Finances, who had charge Of the l Southwestern railroad. andw who
 placed M. Witte at the head of 1t when ] he took his portfolio. In the Russo- | Turkish war NJ. witte did an omport.
 ant work in managing the transpor- | tation of troops to Odessa. Tn 1STo | he was summoned to St. Petersburb by Minister vishnegradski. and put in | charge of the railway traffic of tho | empire and directed to prepare A scheme for the unification of the traffic
 system. So much ability was shown in this that when the post of Minister O. Communications was made vacant by a resignation following an accident to
 train carrying the imperial family, M. Witte was appointed to the post in | 1892. M. Vishnegradski who had be-
 come Minister of Finances, sought to
 have NJ witte associated with hinn, but l the latter devoted himself to carrying | out the CZar'r idea for a trans-Siberian railway, which had long been planned but which no one seemed able to cnni- plete. M. Witte soon had the project well started. and 1t was completed along the lines he had laid out.
 But lorg before that time his field of activity had become enlarged When M. Vishnegradiski was incapac- itated by paralysis in 1894 the post of Finances was offered to several prom
 inent men, and each would accept only | f H~ I~A. This lead the Czar to decide on M.
 Witte himself for the post at the head
 of this important department, and he
 held the place for nearly ten years
 It was as Finance Minister that NJ
 Witte was able to introduce many re-
 forms end familiarize himself with the industrial dGvelopement which led to
 his work for tho social and political
 reform of Russia. His plans, most of which he was able to carry into effect, included the reform of the Imperial Bank the introduction of the gold
 standard, the fixing of the standard of value of the ruble the promotion of
 home industries and the securing of
 Government monopoly in the manu- facture of alcohol. He was also ac- tive in promoting the development of savings banks, the emancipation of the peasants from restrictive regu- lattons, the freeing of the Jews from tdCS iSliOHSi tIl0 spIedu Ol~ tSCu-
 nical education and the extension of
 commercial treaties. He increased the
 home revenues and negotiated large
 loaas abroad, especially In France, to ] secure funds for carrying to comple- ton the Transsiberian railway.
 Tn 1905 M. Witte was retired from the post of Minister of Finances, and 1t was said the enemies he had made
 secured his transfer from it to the post of president of the Committee of Min isters with the hope of restricting his powers. At any rate this result fol- lowed, and It was regarded as a vic tory for his refIactionary opponents when he was forced into comparative
 retirement He did not again come to the front in Russian affairs until last summer, when Nj. MCIavieff. who had been selected as the head of Russian Peace Mission, declined the Post, and
 M witte was chosen. His experiences at Portsmouth and the masterly man.
 ner in which he plucked victory from
 the jaws of apparent defeat in the
 peace negotiations are familiar to all
 who have kept at all in touch with current events. He went home to
 Russia to receive the praise or Eniper- or and people, to receive the title of Count and to~re paced in a position to secure for the Russian people at the hands of the autocIatic Czar the gift of substantial freedom for the people of all the Russias. and to lead them in
 the path of progress to freedom and enlichtenment.
 N1n hn nrll faR