Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-13

appealing equally to men and women
of all classes and all nations, ana
everywhere producing the same result
Tolstoy Is now the most loved man
the most touchingly loved MANN the
world
/ quote this noble tribute and place
beside it the fact that Immediately aft
err Mr.. Roosevelt had swept in triumph
to the presidential chair John Sharp
Williams, the leader of the Democratic
minority in the house, gathered his fol-
lowers together and acknowledged that
he had been guilty. of a profound mis-
take Il find," he said, that | greatly
overestimated Roosevelt as literary
man and greatly underestimated him
as a practical politician"
Mr.. Roosevelt recently has turned his
attention for a moment from the ab-
sorbing pastime of shooting animals
and has pointed his guns at Tolstoy.
In the outlook of May Is he devotes
himself to the task of demonstrating
that the great Russian writer can have
no influence with men of action and
'has swayed or dominated only the
feeble folk, the fantastic folk" One
may remark, en- PEASANT, that before
Mr. Roosevelt was born the man he
thus criticises had stood at the right
hand of kings, was known in every
European court and had stamped deep
MS marx as a mere man OF dCllOA. L
quote again from Kropotkin:
However, the great Crimean war be-
gan toward the end of the next year,
1858, and L. N. Tolstoy did not want to
remain inactive in the Caucasus army.
He obtained his transfer to the Danube
army, took part in the siege of Ills
tria, and later in the battle of Bala-
klava. and from November, 1854, till
August, 1856, remained besfeged In Sc
bastopol-partly In the terrible fourth
bastion,' where he lived throug all the
dreadful experiences of the heroic de-
tenders of the fortress. He has there
fore the right to speak of war; he
knows it from within. He knows what
Il is. even under it's very best aspects,
in such a significant and inspired phase
as was the defense of these forts and
bastions which had grown UP under the
enemy's shells. He obst1natelY refused
during the siege to become an officer
of the staff, and remained with his
battery in the most dangerous spots.
Doubtless these facts have slipped
Mr. Roosevelt's memory, as the fact
that he himself has no knowledge of
war from within must have slipped his
memory, although there is in circula-
ton a heroic statuette in which he is
represented as charging on horse back
wildly up San Juan hill to slaughter
the foe, although he never so charged
and neither ne HOI HIS lllOl NNAS
mounted, while in reality they were res
cued from probable humiliation by
company of negro cavalrymen who
were also on foot.
It is not little strange and suggest
i've of that weakness with which he
charges Tolstoy that our late president
should have begun his attack with what
is really a defense of himself-Theodore
Roosevelt For the criticism starts
with the words zone of the comic feat
ures of the political campaign last fall
was the letter which Count Tolstoy
wrote on behalf of Mr. Bryan" In
fact Tolstoy did write, as Herbert Spen-
Ger wrote shortly before his death, that
all other subjects fade into insign1t1-
canse as compared with the recrudes-
cence of militarism, beneath which the
world is staggering today. And in fact
Tolstoy did express the opinion that
Bryan seemed to him to be essentially
a man of peace and Roosevelt man Of
war. Is that so comic?
Is it so comic that some of us, nause-
ated by the picture of Mr. Roosevelt
charging on horseback up the hill, of
Mr., Roosevelt as a Rough Rider, or
Mr.. Roosevelt beaming from the deck
of battleship, of Mr.. Roosevelt with
eager face and outStretched arm SUI
perintending the shipping of the fire.
arms destined for the determination OF
African nuadrupeds-is 1t so comic that
we have come to regard our strenuous
ex-president as a distinctly warlike fig
llre, who scents the battle from afar.
while Mr.. Bryan is known to us as d
gentleman who lectures tndefatigably
on THE Prince of Peace? However,
in Mr. RoOseveits judgment, the faet
that the Democratic platform on Whlch
Mr.. Bryan ran contained plank urg-
ing the exclusion of the Japanese is
,.rooe ,oeitfva that Mr. BRYAN is the