New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-08
No Separate Peace for Russia
Government in Control and Popular Demonstrations Are Only odeV
Vabcs American Engineer Asserts

Russia ia safe in the hands of the present
Provisional Government; difficult problems
face her. but she is capable Of working them
out with the friendly aid and advice OF the
limited States; she will make no separate
peace-this is the message brought back TO the
United States by Captain David LeaVlIt
Iougb. soldier. engineer and for the last
six years an inhabitant Of Petrograd' VINO
arrived here from the Russian capital lew
days ago
Captain Hough was well known here as a
evil engineer before he went to Russia IN
1911. Since then he has become an authority
upon railway matters in Petrograd and IS
also connected with one Of the banks there
lie believes firmly that republican Russia
will triumph, and is certain that Elhu Root
who was appointed senior member Of the
American commission, will be entirely &C
ceptable to the Russian people in general
Feeling Flares and Goes Out
According to Captain Hough, the disturb
ances which arise now and again in Petro-
rrac are evidence of the fact that the Pro
visional Government is managing the stua-
ton in the most far-sighted way possible
The men at the head Of Russia, he said, are
keering in mind the peculiarities of the Rus
star people.
"Whle they are essentially doclle, order
~ and quet-loving people," he said, they
are easily aroused, and, naturally, their ig-
norance of public affairs, heretofore carefully
guarded by the autocratc government, leads
them TO believe the things they hear; there
fore they are easy victims of agitators, but
they fare up and go out. Should the present
government throttle free speech, immediate
~ arrest and imprison any man who started
any unpleasant movement the people would
at once lose confidence in the idea that the
so-cAlled revolution had brought about their
freedom. 1t is the avowed and evident policy
Of the present government to let the people
talk, and talk themselves out.
"A demonstration is started, and instead
Of being suppressed it is merely guided into
safe channels, and as is always the case IN
Russia, the people soon tire, disperse and go
TO their homes, and that is the time to send
reasonable proclamations and appropriate
agents among these people to explain away
;he exciting and false statements of the
extreme radicals, who think this is the OPP
portunity to impose their views, and OF Ger
man agents whose ingenuity is diabolicaL
"Ge one reads and keeps careful tabula-
ton of the news cablegrams from Russia
Captain Hough remarked, zone will see that
there has been a succession of demonstra-
tions in Petrograd, each one of which sub
sided and was set straight few hours later.
If one stops to think, this is precisely the
thing to have been expected and the govern
ment is following precisely the right plan in
dealing with it.
Sees Nothing to Fear
LET an excited or angry man talk him
self out and it is finished; but if he IS OPP
posed he will keep at it. The correspond
cnts are there to send news, but there is
absolutely nothing TO fear that the present
government will not handle the situation ap-
nropriately and that the war will be con-
tinued to a successful conclusion on the
part Of Russia as on the part of the other
Allies"
Captain Hough said he had been much
panied by certain adverse comment as to the
appointment of Mr. Root as senior member
Of the American commission which is to 90
TO Russia.
as it possible that any one thinks that
one of the chief magistrates of a republic
would be going to Russia to advocate an
autocratic form of government, or even
democratic constitutional monarchy, unless
the latter were preferred by the Russian
people?" he asked "These criticisms ema-
nate from men, some of them at least, with
respected ancestors in Russia, but these an
cestors. perhaps, belonged to the old school,
the men who thought that revolution could
only come by the overturnng of the govern
ment through the rising of the people, with
its accompanying bloodshed and assassina-
ton. These men have not been in Russia
recently, and what information they have
comes from men who belonged to the same
school and who apparently have not been in
the councils of those great Russian states
men who for the last two years, with the
frank support of the Allied governments,
have been trying to work out some plan that
would forestall such bloody revolution as
was expected TO follow this war, as it did
the japanese war Along with this was the
necessity to eliminate the influences at court
that were promoting a separate peace with
Germany.
zone must not be too severe upon a ruler
whose horizon has been limited TO his court
and whose advisers have been men whose
future depended upon the continuance Of the
autocracy. and who feared that the destruc-
tion of the dynasty in Germany would lead