The Tupelo journal., 1906-05-18
DONNA
FORMALLY OPENED
SCENE OF MAGNIFICENT PoMP
AND CEREMONY.
TIE EMPERoR's GREETING
The Members Not Satisfied With b
EmperOr's Failure to So Much
as Mention Amnesty In
His Speech.

st. Petersburg May 1l.-Wttnout q
single hitch, and with only a minor In
cident to mar the memorable day, the
Russian parliament was inaugurated
Thursday. The weather was superb,
and the stage management of the inn
pressive ceremony at the Winter pal
ace, where Emperor Nicholas, sur
rounded by courtiers and all the pomp
and panoply Of power, delivered the
speech from the throne to the members
of the two houses, was perfect. The
message, in reality, was less a throne
speech than a greeting, and required
only three minutes for its delivery.
Emperor Nicholas read slowly. The
admirable and even official tone of the
sovereign renewing his pledges and
asking the cooperation of parliament
for the regeneration Of the country was
only negatively satisfactory.
COurtiers Led the Cheering.
Courtiers and spectators other than
members of the national parliament led
the cheering, but the members were
ominously silent, expressing neither
approval nor disapproval. What ran
killed. most was the failure of the m
peror to mention amnesty, and later,
when the members assembled in the
Tauride palace, away from the spell Of
the throne room, many of them were
with difficulty restrained from precipi-
tating matters by offering resolutions
on the subject. The constitutional
democratic leaders, however, who DOM
mated everything, were anxious not to
weaken the reply which the lower
house will prepare to the speech from
the throne, IN which issues with the
crown will be joined, and succeeded in
staving off premature action.
At the Tnuride Palace.
The scene around the Tauride palace
was in striking contrast with that at
the Winter palace. Each, indeed, was
typical and told an eloquent story. At
the Tauride palace tens of thousands of
people were acclaiming their represen-
tatives; at the Winter palace legions
of military and courtiers by the hun
dreds cheered for the emperor. Never
theless the proceedings of the lower
house were not spectacular; in fact,
they were almost tame in comparison
with those at the Winter palace.
Genuine Flashes of Fire.
The only genuine flashes of fire which
showed the real temper of the mem
bers of the house were when Prof.
Mouromtseff, who had been elected
president of the lower house, invited
government officials and clerks to leave
the hall, and when Ivan Petrunkevitch,
in a few eloquent words from the ros-
trum, told the auditors that the first
thought of the parliament should be
for those who had suffered in the cause
of liberty who 10Y filled the prisons
and whose arms were stretched out in
hope and confidence to the peoples
representatives. More enthusiastic
cheering than that which greeted this
appeal never was heard in a political
convention in the United States.
Constitution and amnesty were the
keynotes of President Mouromtseff's
speech.
The ParIfament's President.
st. Petersburg, May 11.-Sergei An
dreievitch Mouromtseff, whom the con-
stitutional democratic members Of the
lower house of the national parliament,
by a sudden change of plan, put for
ward as their candidate for the presi-
dency, is a member of a noble family
Of st. Petersburg. He was born in
1850 and educated in the law depart
ment of Moscow university.
In 1874 he won a fellowship in the
university and was rapidly promoted to
a full professorship.
Owing to his political authority, he
was soon in hot water and forced to
leave the university and abandon his
educational career. He began the
practice of law and the editing of the
Legal Messenger, but in 1892 the censor
prohibited the paper.
Prof. Mouromtseff was a member Of
the famous delegation which presented
the address of the zemstvoists to the
emperor after the Inauguration Of the
Witte ministry.