Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-08-09
WITTE A MAN OF WILL.
Russia's Chief Peace Envoy One
 of Her Leading Intellects.
ABSOLUTE COMMANDER OF RESPECT

man, Says He Would Be . Dictator if Revolution Were to Place Him at Head of Repubhc-H His Eyes . Striking Feature-Biggest Man of His Generation In His Country.
 When Witte's eyes take on dead
 fish look and his bearded face grows
 like graven stone the peace conference
 will adjourn for the day-theres no
 doubt about it" said Major J. G. Pang-
 born, who has travelled extensively in
 Russia, to correspondent of the New
 York World in Baltimore recently, in
 speaking of M. Sergius Julievitch
 Witte, Russia's ranking peace plenipo- tentiary.
 'Witte will easily be the striking
 personality of the conference, both
 physically and in his general manner. He is tremendously large man and in remarkably we'll balanced propor- tions. He measures in every way al- most up to Alexander IT., father of the present czar, and giant among
 men. As straight as an arrow, he car
 ries himself with a consciousness of his superiority that is most irritating to good many people in Russia and
 is overwhelmingly impressive to the masses.
 "I have been pretty we'll over the empire, know something of Russia and the Russians, and of all the men I came in contact with throughout the vast domain not one impressed me comparably with Witte.
 When I reached St. Petersburg, after eight months journeying through Siberia, Manchuria and Mongolia, the United States minister there, Mir. Breckinridge, made it most pleasant for me, and among other attentions he asked an interview with Witte, then minister of finance, for the purpose of presenting me to him. Witte promptly declined the request
 "A day or two later President Kir- betz of the Valadekafkas railway and one of the few railroad men in the em- pire intimated that Witte would be glad to see me. Acting upon the hint. I went the next morning to call at the ministry. The spacious anteroom was crowded with generals and civil serv- ice officials in uniforms. civilians in full dress and wearing brilliant decora- tions. I felt insignificant in plain United States togs. Sending in my card, thought I should have long, possibly fruitless, wait, but to my sur prise the flunky almost immediately returned. saying with profound bow that his exceIlency would see me at once. .
 'I had been told the evening before by a dignitary who knew the great minister's peculiarities that upon be- ing seated opposite him I would feel as if looking upon the eyes of a dead fish, and that later should he prove interested in what I might be saying hls cigarette case, always feature of his desk trappings. would be pushed toward me with an invitation to smoke. Then. should be so fortunate as to bring all this about, would see facial transformation such as had never before been my experience.
 "Sure enough. such an absolutely impassive expression I had never be- fore seen. The man is a statue, only you sort of hold your breath and won- der as to what will come when the electric current is turned on.
 ''The cigarette set came my way. smoked. as did he, and with the light ing of the match you would not have recognized that 1t was the same face with the same pair of eyes. never have known so amazing control over expression and features. He extended the interview beyond an hour and a half and said did not need the inter- vention of my minister or any one | else to see him whenever I came to St | Petersburg.
 should the present dynasty be over thrown in a revolution and a republic 1 be declared Witte inevitably would be | chosen its head, Not that there has | ever been a question of his loyalty or | that he would lend himself to a thought of the dizzy thing. but he is the only really big man In the country and he has the courage of his convic- tions. Nothing could keep the people if they had the say from demanding he should go to the forefront. but he wouldn't be a president or any such sort of head. He would be a Die tator. with a very big D.
 ''Witte dares. and that is more than can be said of most men in Russia when in the balance are position and power. It cost him his ministry- shelved him. Very rarely does any former minister so relegated ever aft erward come again to the front
 When Witte was the finance min ister he was pretty nearly the whole ministry. and while ordinarily his col leagues would have had some sym pathy with him in the effacement that was the foreshadowine of their own eventual destiny there was none in his case. On the contrary. he carried into his retirement an intensified quality of the exceeding bitterness created by his force when in the height of his power. Towering as he did both in mental and physical stature above them all he fairly reveIed in the sn- tagonism he provoked That the czar himself stood in awe of him. as was 90