The Liberal democrat. [volume] (Liberal, Kan.) 1911-1924, 1915-06-04
Arprenticed to Mars at Birth


were the Spartans before them, the
Cossacks, survivals from a young,
non-industrial world, are the most
picturesque fighters on Europe's bat
tie fields A frontiers folk like the
people of our early West, mixture
of many adventurous elements, and
constituting within their own coun-
try class more distinctive than
that of the American cowboy, they
have finally been subdued to the
needs of the great imperial govern7g
ment of PetrOgrad, taken over just
as they were into its machinery ana
preserved as a soldier caste. A wild,
conquering, freebooting folk, the Cos
sacks have been brought within the
fold of Russian civilization as sol
diers, descendants of warriors and
progenitors of generations of sol
diers to meet the future needs OF
Slav Empire.
These Cossacks, in the leisure OF
national peace, conquered the vast
empire of Siberia for Russia and in
each Russian war for the last hun
dred years, have formed the cars
irresistible first line strength.
The Cossacks are people OF the
limitless steppes, people of Gloss
corporation, situated in Russia as q
race apart, soldier caste, their
state a military organization, their
connection with the great empire
maintained through the imperial war
department. the administration OF
their internal affairs practically in
their own hands, and their privileges
az a caste almost as pronounced rs
were those of the Spartan soldier
citizen, or more comparable to tho
soldier caste of the older Indian or
ganiZatiOn. The Cossacks came of
the original Slav stock, but they
were those Slavs who never bowed
their heads beneath a yoke, foreign
or domestic, who lived a free life on
the borders of their races civilian
ton, wandering, fighting, buccaneer
Slav tribes, who penetrated deeply
into Tartar and Georgian lands, who
lived by the hunt and by plumber
and who maintained themselves on
the borders of Asia and Europe free
of all serfdom.
These sturdy Russian wanderers
assimilated many adventurous ele-
ments, took up among them many
Tartars and Slavs, and, so today the
COssack type is a more or less dis
tinct one. The total Cossack popula-
ton of Russia is more than mil
lion. Some years ago they owned
near 146,500,000 acres of land, of
which 105 million was arabic and
100000 forest land. This land is
held by the Cossacks in community
partition as a state reward for their
military service. 1t will be seen that
the Cossack holdings amount to
about fifty acres for each man, wo-
man and child of the people. There
is an admiring, half envious Russian
'catchword about being as free and
as rich as a Cossack."
The Cossacks are the rough riders
Of Europe. AS the cowboys Of the
American plains and the gauchos OF
the pampas, the Cossacks are an in
tensely interesting, wild, free plain
folk who live in the saddle in the
open places, and whose rough dem
ocracy is the expression of the same
naive, rudimentary culture as that of
their New World brothers in spirit.
None of their members are allowed
to starye, and none of them has sue
ceeded in winning over-mastering po-
sition through the laying up of great
wealth.
The Cossack is favored by the
state and is a main prop of the
states authority. To be born a
COssack is to be born a soldier. Ev-
cry Cossack bears the obligation OF
twenty years military service. lie
enters into this service at the age of
IS, spends three years in prellm-
mary Cossack division, next passes
twelve years in active service and
spends his last five military years in
the Cossack reserve. 1t is the picked
men from his ranks who constitute
the imperial guard, body of the
finest type of fighters, whom the
car can trust, when he can trust no
one else around him. These Cos
sack soldiers have been the greatest
terror with which Russia has been
able to threaten Europe. They have
been the empires most efficient in
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