The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1912-10-04


news bureau. From the various frag-
mentary reports it has become known
that the czarina, who had come to
Russia with lofty ideals and a liberal
western education, is an invalid and a
martyr, alone in the palace of the
car, misunderstood and tormented
with melancholy and fear.
Now a chronicler, intimately famil-
lar with the home life of the Russian
ear, has described wildly the suffer
ings OF the woman who had hoped to
reform the Russian czar and the Rus
sian land, and it may be said without
eXaggeration, that Alexandra Feodo-
rovna is today the unhappiest of all
queens.
Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt,
according to the biographer of the
Czarina, lived amid ideal and idyllic
surroundings throughout her child
hood. The small, good looking prin-
cess, dressed as beautifully as her
dolls, was told that the flowers daily
presented her were so beautiful and
fragrant for her sake, and that when
she was crying, the little flowers were
also shedding tears, and when she
was laughing, the little flowers were
kind hearted and Obedient, and she
did all she could to refrain from cry
ing. for she recalled that every tear
drop of hers would cause so much
pain to all those who loved her
But the tears she repressed in her
childhood days she is shedding now
within the walls of the palace, as the
queen of the long suffering Russian
people. Being of a sensitive, impress
sionable and artistic nature, the prin-
cess was deeply Interested in the best
kind of literature. She familiarized
herself with the most important
works of the masters of fiction in Eu-
rope and she even made some at
tempts at writing poetry and dramas.
AS she was frail the physicians
feared that she was undermining her
health by devoting most of her time
TO books, and she was told that her
health was more important than all
the books in the world and then for
the first time she learned that she
was not free. The books were now Sc
was permitted to read only a very
limited number of such books To
while her time away she took up the
study of drawing, and soon showed
considerable talent in that direction.
Little by little she commenced to
notice the life beyond the boundary
of her fairyland; she saw the life of
the people who were suffering and
starving, and she learned that what
was new to her was not new to her
father, to her mother, to her aunts,
to all those who lived contented in her
fairyland of luxury. And she began to
ask herself the question which she
was for long time unable to answer:
How can they all remain care free
and SO shamelessly cheerful when be-
yond the windows of this palace is
the moan Of an entire suffering ma
tion?"
Princess Alice became the czarina
of Russia. She came to the Russian
land at time when the people. ex-
hausted by the burden of absoIutism.
were returning from the funeral of
Alexander III, and were hopefully
waiting for a more merciful reign on
the part of the new ear Nicholas.
who was reputed at that time to be a
liberal
The first day of the new reign was
marked by the Khodinka tragedy
when thousands of people lost their
lives amid the festivities. The tragedy
made profound impression upon the
czarina 1t seemed to her forebod-
ing Of terrible future.
The superstitious inclinations and
weaknesses of the car manifested in
his eagerness for q male heir to the
Russian throne, filled the czarina with
untold grief
She had to obey the orders of va
rious charlatans who were welcome
advisers of the car. And the in
trigues directed against her in the