Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1915-07-09
A RUTHLESS CAR
Peter the Great Was a Savage,
but He Made His Country.
BIRTH OF MODERN RUSSIA.

II Began With Beard Reform In
Which the Monarch Himself Acted as
Hair Cutter For His NobIes-Tri-
umphs of the Giant Barbarian.
The chief mobiles Of Russia, summon
ed from all quarters of the empire on
April 26, 1893, sat around table in
the cars palace at Moscow. They
were a rough looking lot with their
Shaggy boards and unkempt hair and
with their dirt incrusted bodies swath-
cd in gold embroidered oriental robes.
At the tables head stood a thick set
young man whose i'll fitting European
robes sat oddly on his giant body. He
was rugged of face and was the only
bcardless member of the conference.
pair of barber shears.
The man was Peter l., car of all the
RuSSiaS. father of modern Russia and
known to tine as Peter the Great He
had just returned from tour of Eu-
rope, and the journey had taught him
a lesson. 1t had taught him. he said
to the mobiles, that he ruled barbaric
and primitive realm that was about
thousand years behind the times that
Russia had slumbered while all the
rest Of the world had pressed forward.
He announced that he was going to
pen a new era for his country; to civ
ilize and modernize 1t and make 1t as
30 Iafn tha fnh
laughing at 1t. He further informed
the assemblage that the reform was
going to begin then and there. Modern
folk, he told them, did not wear enor-
nous shaggy boards and long robes.
European dress must henceforth be
worn by the Russians, and boards
must so.
To show he was in earnest Peter
went slowly around the table and with
his own hand cut off the beard Of
every man there. To a seventeenth
century Russian the beard was as
sacred as is a pigtail to Chinaman,
and nothing but Peters ircn authority,
backed by his army's loyalty, prevent
ed a Wholesale revolution. Until Pc
ter's time 1t had been the custom to
wear the coatsleeves at least a foot
longer than the arms. These sleeves
he ordered cut off to conform with Eu-
ropean fashions AS 1t was, the clothes
and beard reform stirred up a dozen
hot little rehellions.
And thus modern Russia was born.
Nor did Peter rest until he shad made
his formerly despised country world
power. He was a strange man, this
ear, who undertook to awaken II
sleeping nation to life and activity
Voltare paints perhaps the best pic
ture of the cars many sided charac-
ter in the words
"He gave a polish to his people and
was himself a savage He taught them
the art of war, of which he himself
was ignorant. From the sight Of a
small boat on the river Moskwa he
erected a powerful fleet. made himself
an expert and active shipwright, sailor.
pilot and commander. He changed the
manners. customs and laws of the Rus
slams. and he lives I'm their memory as
the father of his country"
One change followed another. Edu-
cation, mechanics. yhe arts, were intro
duced into Russia. armies of practical
teachers being imported Then came
wars which won some long needed sea-
ports for the awakened land and new
territory as well.
Peter decided that Moscow was
wrongly built and In bad location for
his newborn country's capital. And
against an avalanche of opposition he
picked out a tract of ground in the
midst of swamp for a new capital.
Here with his own hands he built
wooden hut and summoned every ar
tisan he could get hold Of to help him
erect monster city, to be known, in
his honor, as st. Petersburg.
He superintendent the work of dredg-
ing. digging and building, doing much
of the labor in person, working side by
side with hts underpaid day laborers.
In 1903 the city was begun. In I'LL
Peter laid the foundation of his own
brick palace there. land 203 years
later one of his successors renamed the
capital Petrograd, to get rid of the Ger
man word burg" in its title.) In 1713
the seat of government was moved
hither from Moscow.
Peter the Great died in 1925. Mod
ern Russia Is his true monument and
epitaph. He found his country semi
savage. and he. a savage at heart, left
1t civilized and progressive. He added
six mighty provinces to the empire,
and he made 1t leading political, COM
mercial and naval power, respected
by the very nations that had so lately
derided It, hated and feared by most of
them.
All through the work of one giant
barbarian who had begun his miracu
1ous task twenty-seven years earlier by
acting as barber for his own nobles.-'
Milwaukee Sentinel