The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1913-02-25
XXI.
Copyright, 1913 by Herbert
nni1L

| Idt.
This is true in many senses.
The Russian is more Asiatic than
European. Russian writer's
among them Tolstoi-were until
recently in the habit of speaking
of Russia as non-European. And
| though the Slavic race seems to
have been in Europe as long as
has the German, it has always
been in close contact with Asia.
1t was overrun by the Mongols
and Tartars. It's princes once
were khans. And when the Rus
sian czardom was built up by the
Ivans and BAIL, beginning about
four hundred years ago, the
Prince of Muscovy saddled on the
humble and docile Slav peasantry
tyranny with the unbridled
power and barbaric splendor of
the Tartar court they had dis
placed, and the pomp and display
of the Eastern Roman Empire,
then recently overthrow by the
| Turks.
| put down Russia as the third
of the Seven Perils of Humanity.
AS a passenger on the Good Ship
Earth, whose posterity must in
habit the same whirling ball with
the Slavs, | am not sure that it
should not be ranked as the
hugest peril of all.
And yet, the Russian people
have the qualities that may make
them our greatest blessing instead
of our greatest curse. Seven
| pfphthC nf than fo
crowded slums and fevered city
plague here. Eighty-five per cent
are of the peasant class. And the
question of their part in the flu
ture of the Good Ship Earth lies
in the uncertainty of their being
allowed to develop their virtues,
or being utterly debauched by
their vices-for which they are
not at all to blame.
The Slav peasant is democratic.
He has village communities in
which he governs himself in peas
ant matters, a good deal as the
New Englanders do in their town
meetings. There was a republic
in Novgorod which the Muscovite
czars destroyed in the building
up their Tartar tyranny. The
peasants have a love for village
life, and will not separate into
lonely farms as we do. They
have long known how to associ-
ate into cooperative bodies so as
to hire out, buy and sell to bet
ter advantage. On these founda-
tions there is every reason to hope
that a great and beneficent de-
mocracy might be built up, were
it not for the curse of carbon.
The Russians are increasing
faster than any other race, and
they have more open ground over
which to spread.
| That is what makes them a
world peril.
Fifty years ago there were U.s.
100000 of them. In 1897 they
had increased to 100000. In
1904 their numbersohad swarmed
to lab, 100000. In 1906, the
Central Statistical Committee
counted up 100000. In 1910
the Russian Year Book sets down
their numbers at 60,748,400!
This is an awful, portentious
showing. 1t includes, of course,
all the races of the Russian en-
pire, but the Slavs and the fine
Finnish races make up nearly nine
out of every ten of them. At this
rate, and there seems to be no
reason to doubt their increase,
unless their birth rate is checked
by enlightenment and prosperity,
or their death rate increased by
war, pestilence and famine, there
will be $50, 100000 Russians in
1850; 100000 in the year
1000; 1,O2O,00O,000 in 2O50; and
in the year 21O0-with your chill
dren and mine, dear reader, on
this great Air-ship Earth to voy-
age along with them, there will
be 2,020,000,000 Russians-or
twenty per cent more than all the
world contains in population now.
If they were always a peace
full people, willing to stay in one
place and breed and starve, as the
Hindus, the Chinese and Koreans
do, 1t would be different mat
ter. They would then increase to
the limit of subsistence, as the
Chinese have done, and be swept
off by infant mortality and FAM
inc, so that the swarms would
remain always at about the same
numbers. But the Russians will
not be apt to do this. They have
under their sway one-sixth of the
land surface of the decks of our
great Airship. More unoccupied
land is in their name than any
other people owns. If the scien-
fists are correct who say that for
a thousand years or more, the car
bonic acid gas accommodating in
the air through the burning of
coal will make the climates of
this world warmer and warmer,
the thawing of the frigid north
in Russia and Siberia will make
their lands the most desirable
from the standpoint of producing
a virile race, in all the world.
To me is seems reasonable to sup
pose that this will come to pass.
But no change in climate is re-
quired. The lands open to recla-
nation and occupancy for the
Slavs are almost illimitable.
What ktud IF mamie ara thpy 2