The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-01-24
RussiA's UPRISING.

~
IN judgment approaches with swift
ness as appalling as it is terrible, and
What that judgment shall be no man
can say except as he reads events by
the light of history.
A giant in strength, colossal in ter
ritory, in potential wealth and in mere
mass of population. the nation has been
bound hand and foot by a, corrupt
autocracy. blindly worshippinE the ira
ditions Of a dead past and closing her
eyes to the march of events east and
west which foreboded the awakening
which has finally come.
Within a year, Russia insolentIy de-
hant of her pledged word to evacuate
Manchuria, invited the attack which
came from her pigmy opponent of the
far east. Apparently ignorant both of
her own weakness and her enemy's
strength, the retribution which her de-
hance of moral law invited, has over
taken her at every step since. First
ruined fleet and the loss of the prestige
on sea which had been hers since the
days of that Peter who studied ships
that he might build a great nation.
Then a series of crushing defeats on
land which added the bitterness of
NORWOOD to the cup of humiliation
she had already drained to the dregs
And last, the exposure Of a criminal
administration whose corruption and
incompetence has cost the empire its
thousands of lives, millions of treasure
and the respect of the nations.
The incipient revolution of the last
ifG
grievance of the wOrkmen employed in
the Putilof ship building and iron
works which are employed in govern
ment work 1t ia more than a coinci-
dence that these thousands of work.
men should have risen in revolt lust
when an uprising would be most peril
Gus to their government, and in lust
such way as to cripple the navy
of Russia. Their demands for higher
wages cover more than the dispute as
to the value of labor; it means that
the artisans Of the nation. the plain
common people, have endured wrong
and misery and expressions: have seen
their car deceived by his advisers:
have borne the injustice of a life which
knew nothing but hardship, until they
could and would bearino more.
The country peasants. the moujiks
types of nearest human approach to
the beast OF burden, have murmure.i
and made their wrongs heard through
the zemstvos, only 10 be put off as they
have been put off for long weary years
For time it looked as though the new
regime, ushered i'm by the appointment
of a known liberal as minister of the
interior. might justify hope of better
things, of a reform in courts, in tax
alton. in administration of Justice in
every form. The hope was brief and
the reaction terrible.
Now come the worzingneu of the
city, bearing in mind the fate that has
befallen the appeal from the peasants
They have asked 70 be heard and have
been received with bullets and bay
cnets- They have apparently reached
that point where death to them is pre-
ferable TO life without hope, Il by their
death they can force the car and his
autocratic bureaucracy to recognize
something Of the rights which are just
~ theirs.
Whether the ruler of all the Russias
Is strong enough to emancipate himself
and his people from the thraIdom which
enslaves them is to be determined. 1t
may be that the people viii gain moth
ing now but death and worse oppres-
sion than was theirs before the upris-
ing No man may foreten what the
immediate future Will bring: but as
surely as there is a Divine ruler Of the
affairs of men. as certainly as human
rights demand the punishment Of cruel
wrong in Individual or nation. so surely
will Russia some day pay the price of
the accumulated debt TO humanity she
has been mourning through centuries
Of brutal injustice She has already paid
a heavy price for her fatal blindness
in the far east. she must inevitably
pay dearer still before she can extricate
herself from the intricate web of 'ad-
ministrative crime which has paralyzed
her army. her navy and her civil life.
Sympathy may be due the car whose
burden is so heavy, but the whole world
viii rejoice when a just judgment is
melted out to the scOundreIs who have
misled him, kept a nation in bondage
and invited the scorn of all the world.
in order that they might batten on the
spoiIs of an empire.