The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-08-23

had many varied experiences of his own in Russia, has written a book describing
 Russia and the revolution as he saw 1t
 going on during the greater part of two years that he spent there in order to get rounded view.
 MT. -Walling says that no one who has seen and understood the social upheaval
 now going on in Russia can doubt that the Russian people have message to the rest of the world. "It does not need to be written down; it is carried abroad
 by every telegram" MT. Walling states that he has undertaken In his book to make a plain statement of the situation in Russia as he saw 1t, emitting no fea- ture of first importance and relating all together as a single whole. That he has
 not written suggesting what he can do for Russia, but rather what Russia has to offer us; that he has concerned him- self with the universal qualities of the Russian people rather than with any aspect of their character and situation that is peculiar to themselves. Nor does Mr. Walling claim to have written his- torically for the benefit of the academic student nor sought to dwell on the pie turesqueness of those sections of Russia
 and aspects of Russian life that are most strange; that he does not dwell on per- sonal experience, as the situation Is too large to be presented in all of its aspects in any personal narrative. But MT. Walling has sought rather through per- sonal acquaintance with a majority Of
 the most important leaders of all par ties and elements of the Russian nation, to put himself in the most immediate contact with the inner ideas and spirit
 of the great struggle and to present the
 Russian struggle to the reader simply as
 seen through the eyes of the leaders themselves.
 In his book the author has not writ
 ten appeal to the casual reader look ing for the melodramatic aspects of the Russian situation, but rather to those who are seriously interested in the Rus sian revolutionary movement for the light 1t sheds on that all-inclusive problem,
 namely, the future of human society.
 MT. Walling spent the greater part of two years in Russia. He says that his first attention was drawn to the absorb ing interest of this great struggle by Polish and Jewish Russian exiles met while he was living among them in the University settlement In New York. MT. Wa1ling left New York after the massa- ere of January 22, 1905, and spent several
 months in London, Paris, Geneva, Cra-
 COW and Vienna, among leaders of the revolutionary parties of all factions and races. Within a week after the Czar is- sued his October manifesto MT. Walling
 was in Warsaw, and a few days later in
 St. Petersburg, where he met Count Witte and the chief members of the lat ministry a ha gor fJy,,a MT. Walling put himself in touch with
 the most conspirative of the revolution
 ary organizations. MT. Walling spent the larger part of his time in Russia from that date until the opening of the third duma. Near the close of Mir Walling's last visit to Russia the press of the
 United States and the leading European countries announced his arrest also that
 of his wife and sister. and their deten- tion for 24 hours In prison through the acknowledged mistake or as MT. Walling
 puts it, Hack of consideration of the
 Russian government. MT. Walling
 explains, however, that it was not true
 as stated in the press, that the Russian government made either direct or indi-
 rect request through the American am- bassador that he and his family should leave the country. MT. Walling had only wished to follow Russian events closely hheii tiC ihcctihS ol luc lllTu QuIfla, ana his party left St. Petersburg on the day
 on which they had previously arranged
 to go. It was explained to MT. Walling and his party by the Russian government
 that their arrest was due to their friend
 ly relations with certain revolutionists; Mir. Walling admits that he had such re- ] lations with hundreds of leading persons
 of that movement, as he had also with
 almost an equal number of their oppo-
 nents.
 MT. Wallng has confined his attention
 in "Russia's Message" to the discussion
 of the Russian part of Russia, leaving
 aside entirely all Asiatic Russia, the Caucasus and Baltic provinces, Poland and Finland. MT. Walling states that the
 crimes of the Russian government are so monstrous and so manifold that he
 has despaired of giving any satisfactory
 picture of them as a whole, In his first chapters the author dwells at some length on this subject but he devised the economical measure of taking the Jews as his central theme, not because the
 author considers that the persecution of
 the Jews are any worse than other peo-
 pie in Russia nor because they are more
 important than other nationalities as for
 instance, the Tartars or the Poles but
 because they have themselves been se- lected by the Russian government as
 the center of the whole persecution sys-
 tenn.
 MT. Walling lived among both sides of
 the Russian struggle. In his book he mentions number of the revolutionary leaders as well as government officials from whom he gained facts and figures,
 now covered in his book. The author claims to have written simply according
 to the possibilities of the moment The
 time is ripe. the author says, for only
 a general review of the first act of the great Russian revolutionary drama. The
 second act, he says has not yet begun.
 and it will be years. he adds, before the whole drama has been finished. few
 months ago we are told, 1t would have been impossible to guage accurately the real intentions and policy of the Czar. the court and the government after th, great events through which Russia has Just passed; few years hence if will he
 possible to write a full and satisfa ctorv
 history at least of a large part of tbe revolutionary movement. "Tn the neap
 while" Mir. Walling adds If have heer
 able to give general understanding or
 the first act, to spread the conyictiopa that Russia has messsge for huna n,ty and to suggest what thisN.messape co,, tains. the reader will be enabled to on
 preciate coming events at their tr,a
 value and to feel that the Russian strugs
 gle is not so far away as we sometime.
 imagine, but nearer to us in the end than
 any of the smaller spectacles that ara
 taking place in front of our own door.
 ways.
 "Russias Message" is a book of 4ss
 pages. containing an appendix AS splen- did photographs and a map The author
 hac dfxrfd tba t,k.