The Washington times., 1905-06-06
Peace and Freedom.

There will be peace for Russia and
the people of that overgrown empire
will have freedom. But when and
how? Not by the enlightened intelli-
gence or wise selfishness of her rulers,
nor in the Immediate future.
The cessation OF hostilities between
Japan and that country will not bring
peace to Russia, and her rulers know
it; they are possessed by that most
fatal of all political errors, the dec
trine OF divine rights-which is mere
ly the theory of vested privileges.
divorced from its logical mate, vested
obligations. All Russia is divided in
to three parts, the rulers, the clergy,
and the people; to the rulers and the
clergy God has committed the people
for exploitation and oppression. Bet
ter that million children be kept
in ignorance than that one beautiful
superstition of the church be doubt
ed: better that hundreds of thousands
Of mujiks go to their death in the
Far East than that a grand duke lack
diamonds for his mistress; better the
wreck of the world in universal war
than the admission by Gods anointed
that Holy Russia has lost prestige.
Official and clerical Russia is today
groaning with the burden of wealth
accumulated during long centuries of
robbery Of the soil, and the enslave-
ment of man. Her State Golfers are
bursting with hidden wealth Her rul-
ers, from the Gar down, own more
land and more treasure than the ran
som of an empire. Her churches are be-
decked with gold and precious gems,
the money value of which would not
only pay all the indemnity Japan is
likely TO ask, but would cancel the
war debt AMI go far to the purchasing
OF the freedom Of the Russian people;
but these treasures are devoted to the
glory of God and the glorif1cation
OF the church. and the church, from
the days of Annas the High Priest, has
crueified the spirit CT God in order
that the flesh Of her dogmas might
live.
There is no hope OF peace 10 the
Russian people from Nicholas-tile-
Little, the apostle Of peace and the
proposer of disarmament: there is no
hope IN any Romanoff or in any de-
pendant upon that family; the only
hope is in the Russian people them
selves, and in their ability and will
ingness to accept the baptism Of fire
and blood which must initiate their
entry into the ranks Of freedom, and
which is the only thing that can make
them worthy of self-government.
These are dark views; pessimistic
and cruel. perhaps; but they are not
a 1.-THE as black, or hundredth as
hopeless, or thousandth as bloody
as the policy Of Russia's S ruling classes
of the State and Church. Against the
thousand years Of oppression, rob-
berry, and spiritual damnation Of
race they put the short, sharp, violent
fever Of a reign OF terror And they
are not the vain imaginations of a
student sitting in his closet; they
are the invariable course Of human
events; they have happened in the
past, they will occur in the future.
Nicholas, in endeavoring to save the
empire for his son, will lose the
Romanoff control of Russia; the graft
ers of the empire in grasping for fur
ther spoil viii drop what they now
hold; the people will pass through
the fiery furnace which will burn
away their superstition, their ignor-
anee. and their stolidity; and the
world will have taken one step more
toward liberty and enlightenment.