The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-08-30
Assassination versus Reform.


Inspite ofthe appalling list Of murders
committed inthelast fortnight by order
Of a faction Of the Social Revolutionary
party, the Stolypin Cabinet oleaves to its
programme Of agrarian and political re-
form. Under the circumstances the fact
reflects credit onIthe Premier's sincerity
and resolution, and kindles a hope that If
his life be spared the promise Of a new
Duma will presently be fulfilled.
The mistaken belief that political con-
cessions can be eItorted by terror has
been exemplifed In Russia in the last
two weeks on an unparalleled scale.
According to a computation made by a
st. Petersburg newspaper, the Reich, the
number Of officers, soldiers, policemen
and private persons killed or wounded in
the ten days following August 10, when
the collapse Of the proposed general strike
provoked the advanced revolutionists to
fall back upon wholesale assassination,
reached the astounding total OF nearly
four hundred, which, moreover, does not
include the victims Of homicidal attack in
the Caucasus, from which region definite
information seems unattainable. The
ftghtful list does not include. Of course.
the killing OF General MEN, Colonel Of
the Seminovsky Regiment of the Guards.
within the grounds OF Peterhof, or that
Of the Assistant Governor General Of
Warsaw, or Of the many guiltless victims
Of the bomb exploded in the Premiere
country house. The CHASTITY turpitude Of
such a record is not morepatent- than its
stupidity. s~
Social Revolutionists must have short
memories II experience<has not taught
them t~hanrecourse to crimes Of violence,
far from promoting the I'LL Of reform,
is almost certain to assure the triumph
Of reaction. The murder Of ALExAN-
DER II. in 1881 unquestionably caused
the postponement OF representative in
situations for a quarter Of a century.
Not only had that sovereign freed the
serfs, reorganized the executive and
judicial machinery, remodelled the GRIM
inal code and granted a large instalment
Of local administrative autonomy, but he
war on the eve Of signing, II indeed he
lad not already signed, a constitution
By which a Parliament would have been
established. The death Of the Gear
Liberator was forthwith followed by the
Reputation Of his political programme,
by the delegation Of the powers of a
dictatorship to a reactionary committee
Of security, and by the suppression Of
the improvements that had been made
in the judicial and administrative sys-
TENS. Like cause generally have like
effects; and the T~errorists should have
taken for granted that their resort to
sweeping and indiscriminate butchery
would enable the Reaction SITS to regain
the ear of the present Gar and persuade
him to renounce the idea Of convoking
a new Duma and to put of the distribu-
ton Of land among the peasantry to a
more convenient season.
They had no reason to suppose that
Premier SToLYPIN could exercise more
restraining influence over NICHOLAS II.
than naturally should have been yielded
by ALEXANDER III. to LoRIs-MELIKoFF,
who had been his fathers devoted and
trusted friend. That they entertained
no such snpposition is evident from the
fact that the Premier himself was the
object Of a malignant attack which had
the proportions of q massacre. That
the Premier IL a man Of extraordinary
s~teadfastness Of purpose must be recog-
nized when we sec that instead Of letting
himself be Frustrated by the fearful and
doubtless fatal mutilation Of his daughter
and by the discovery that his own life
hangs by a thread, he abated not for a
moment his zeal for reasonable reform,
but combated with success the argu-
ments Of panic stricken Re%actionists,
and prevailed on his imperial master to
hasten instead Of p~ostponing an attempt
at the solution Of the agrarian problem.
On the very day when the attempt was
made to kill the Premier O ukase had
been signed transferring $500. goo acres