Morris tribune., 1905-11-04
OCTOBER 80, 1905.

6 o'clock, in small inner room in the castle Of
Peterhof.
In that room we're Nicholas and Witte.
In that room were absolutism and liberty. 1t
was the final struggle betwaen these two forces
which have been pitted against each other for
a century, fighting the battle wherever they
found themselves, face to face on the frontier
of the past and the future, Nicholas the
heir to all the governmental i'll of the ages, for
not only Nicholas sat there, but Peter the
Great and Ivan the Terrible and the reactionary
Alexanders even more, Louis cf France, George
of England, old Phillip of Spain, yea, and
more, the Herods and the Caesars of the past,
the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns, of an
inheriting present And Witte there,
Witte the father of new and potential great
est country. Witte, with devotion to his
country as loyal his vision is clear; Witte,
who has dared in all the murk and all the suffo-
cation enveloping Russia to be man as we'll
las Russian to ring the demands for lib
Ierty of person, of people, of press. Nicholas
represented the past past which is dead
from the ange1us of yesterday past which,
please God, the God of all the Russas, and of
the western world, yea, and of the world, shall
never again darken this earth ball. Witte re-
presents the future of universal liberties which
are not license for lawlessness.
The picture of those two men in the room
at Peterhof. Nicholas the importent, a
full statured man in mind body, and Witte
the potent, splendidly representing the magnif
cence of his duty in his very person and in the
dominance of his mind-we know more
mighty moment in the drama of history. Yet
the drama had tremendous background.
There was the seething, tremulous, doubling,
but determined Russian people, out in the
Russian dark The entire empire, "all the
Russas," was in the throes OF the revolution,
everywhere there was a strike, everywhere
there was grim determination, everywhere the
paralysis of industry and of arteries of trade
made a symbol for the Russian people To
consider what might have come out of that
psychologist moment is to repicture the red
Reign of Terror as it held carnival sway over
France in 1889, but manifo1ded with all the
more brutal vigor, the denser ignorance of the
Russian people. Had Witte failed, there
could have been nothing left for Russia than
his. Had Wtte failed in forcing the abdication
# Nicholas and of the czars back to the TER
BILE, there would have fallen on Russia car 1
and it's carnage, and perhaps after :
hat the "absolutism tempered by assassina-
ion," which has rested like a pail OFT darkest {
russia for a quarter of a century. But Nicho Is
as has abdicated, and he can never again sign Es
imself "by the grace of God emperor and Es
utocrat of all the Russias" He and his de- ID
cendants, if they keep the throne, but g
hare the government with the Russian peo- q
le- And today the people singing their .
ational hymn instead of the car1ragnole.
Russia has ceased, by this stroke of the pen, q
, be an Oriental nation. It is admitted among q
he democratic nations of the West. The pro- :
lamation tells the story; there oriental 5
there occidental straight :
orwardness in the very wording. Yet it is an
oriental" nation which has made Russia. :
hat the empire of the czars will not have to
ndergo French revolution is exactly because :
the battles of I.iao Yang and of the Straits Of .
'ushima, Japan fired the gun which reused
russia to intelligence, delivered the blow :
which forced it to become nation. The
2usso-Japanese war created Russia,
The basis for belief in the new Russia lies
n the fact that the ezar has changed the doume
rom a consultative to legislative body The
2nssian people may now say what laws they
,bey under what regime they shall live. They
ire under tremendous obligation to them
selves, to Witte, to the world. Long live