The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1917-06-22
ALL RUSSIA
IS VOTING
Revolution Brings the
Ballot to Millions Who
Lack Experience
NEW REPUBLIC fERnENTS
Special Correspondent Tells Of CeaH-
tons and the Many Charges
Taking Place
By WILLIAM SHEPHERD.

"a BY WILLIAM SHEPHERD.
'PETROGRAD-All Russia is voting.
Not only the men, but the women.
There isn't any woman's rights bat
tie in Russia Everybody accepts the
feminine right to the ballot as perfect
ly natural.
In all the history of the world, per-
haps, there has never been so much
voting By so many different sorts of
human beings on so many different
subjects, as there is in Russia this
very minute.
Votes Enough for All.
Soldiers are voting; workmen are
voting; noulders, machinists, wash
washwomen, walters, scrubwomen,
servants, cab-drivers, street cleaners,
railroad men, peasants-all are voting.
They are voting for delegates to
meetings; they are voting on hours
and wages; the soldiers are voting
on how to fight and on what orders
shall or shall not be given. to them;
they hold meetings in the trenches,
elect delegates and send them back
to Petrograd to represent them in the
national gathering of soldiers.
Await Popular Will.
And while this storm of voting is
under way the new government, alert
and on its tip toes, waits to know
/, c1 10 10
law. The government has no army be-
hind it; and governments without
armies are powerless. The army is
behind the people-in fact, the army is
the people. So long as the new gov
eminent carries out the will of the
people 1t will have the support of the
army. Wherefore the masters of pub
lie opinion. like Kerensky, keep them
selves in the way of knowing what
the public will on any certain matter
may chance to be.
King Business Suffers.
The first thing that strikes an
American in Russia is the fact that
this new twentieth century form of
wholesale war is going seriously to
interfere with the king business in
Europe. Despotic kings are safe
enough, If they have a professional
army behind them and if their civilian
subjects are not allowed to possess
arms. But professional armies are
killed early in such great wars as this,
and it becomes necessary to put work
ingmen and farmers into uniforms and
give them guns and expect them to
take the places of the professionals.
Things Go Wrong.
This expectation went wrong in
Russia The uniform and the gun
did not change the workingman into
a soldier. They only turned him in
to workingman with a gun and uni |
form, and if there's anything more |
dangerous for 4 depotic monarch or
for any king who thinks he rules by
Divine Right than lot of working
men with guns. the worried little man
who has been planting potatoes in the
garden at Tsarkoe Selo would like to
know about it. The coat may make
the man but the uniform doesn't al
ways make the blindly faithful
soldier.
Nearby was a group of Cossacks on
horseback, with knouts and swords
a grim sight to a Russian crowd. But
out from the group dashed Cossack; |
be was as terrible looking as any
Cossack could be: he wore all the ter
rifying Cossack garb, gift of the Gear:
his face was black with the Cos
sack resolution which the Russian
ear.
The COssack Arrives.
He swung his sword and the crowd
ell back not knowing his purpose.
The steel flashed through the aid and
! crowd of thousand of people beheld,
or the first time in Russian history, II
he sight of a Russian Cossack kill
ng a Russian policeman. The crowd
heered with delight The cry went
Cossacks are with us! The
jossacks are with us!"
This one incident, it is believed by
ONE, marked the turning of the tide
gainst the Gear. 1t developed after
ard that the Cossack with the sword
vas farmer from the Cossack dis
riot. The crowd soon learned that
lmost every uniform was only the dis
uise of some citizen like themselves.
he rest was easy.