Danville intelligencer. [volume] (Danville, Pa.) 1859-1907, 1905-02-03
AMERICAN SYMPATHIES.

NJ element of the Russian population is without
~ sympathizers in the United States. Russia has
nihlsts, we have anarchists. Russia has Sc
cialists have There are radicals, liberals
and conservatives among the people of Russia, and
these parties compose the mass of the American
people, under varying party designations Russia
has plutocracy corresponding to ou:7, but less
fuentlal than the capalistc elements of the United
States. There are good many American
who sympathize with the bureaucracy of Russia in
its naughty, insolent overbearing attitude toward
the mass of humanity. They not very good
Americans, and happily they are not typical Amer
icans but they flourish under the American flag.
But what is the attitude of the American peo-
pie as whole toward Russia-the Russia of
''Bloody Sunday'-the Russia of Gopon, Gorky,
Tolsto and Mirsky. What is the feeling of the
average American he reads of the cars perpleX-
tiles, the Russian empires difficulties and the Rus
sian peoples aspirations for self government and
fair chance in the world
1t is only necessary to state the question to OBJ
tain the answer. The American people unquestion-
ably sympathze with Japan in her heroic effort to
safeguard the gates of her island empire. They
broad enough too, to regret that Japan cannot
satisfy her reasonable desires without shutting out
Rnssia from an ice-free port on the Pacific. There
is large American element which would be glad to
see both Russia and Japan working side by side for
the development of the East-each realizing its
legitimate national aspirations.
The last sentence expresses it. The American
people would be glad to see the Russian nation de-
veloped along natural, spontaneous lines of social,
political and economic evolution. Americans are
great travellers and greater readers They also
cosmopolitan in their present national composition
They know all the world because all the world has
representatives in their own population. The great
expositions of recent years have made our people
less arrogant, less given to boastng, sensible
of the merits of other nations than they used to be-
We are capable therefore of entering more or less
sympathetically into the life of Russia any other
country.
1t is too early to gauge American sympathies
| accurately. The facts are not at hand for final
judgment. Yet it is safe to say that as WHOLE
| our sympathes against absoutsm, against bu-
| reaucracy and with the democratic elements of the
| czar's subjects. We may not be positively convnc-
ed that the Russians are ''ready for sef-govern-
| ment;" but want them to have all the freedom
| they are capable of securing and cujoyng. We
sympathze in their desires for freedom of speech,
freedom of the press and representative government
| We would welcome the overthrow of the absolute
| monarchy and the establishment of constitutional
government. We should be glad to see parliament
at Moscow or st. Petersburg, voicing the national
| aspirations of great people. We should rejoice
even at the declaration of a republican form of gov
| ernment, if we were that it would be perman-
ent and accompanied by the blessings associated
with free institutions in our own and other coun-
| tries