Evening star., 1924-05-14
BY r. A. MCKENZIE.
Correspondence of The Star and Chicago Daily
News

Correspondence Of The Star and Chicago Daily
News
PART III.
MOSCOW, April 25.-The xix re-
solved to put an end to the trouble by
removing the Romanovs. 1t sent to
Tobolsk an agent, Yakovlev by name,
with orders to transfer the emperor
and his family to the south, some-
where in the neighborhood of Ufa
Yakovlev arrived and at once took
full charge. He turned deaf ear to
the Ekaterinburg men, and proceed
ed as though they did not exist. He
placed special guards around Mich
olas to protect him and treated him
with great courtesy. Then he an
nounced, to the despair of the Ro-
manovs, that they must make ready
to go.
The Romanov family numbered sew
en-. First came Nicholas, himself. He
apparently showed no overwhelming
grief over his loss of the throne. He
missed very much, however, his life
in the open and his hunting. He talk
ed to his guards in friendly fashion.
Tradition says that on one occasion
he remarked to Pankratov, looking
out of the windows of his room:
How strange it seems that l, who
once had all Russia, have now only
this little bit of earth to look out on
Yes" replied Pankratov. And I
for fifteen years l had only little
bit of sky to look out on in my cell
in Schlusselburg."
Nicholas never spoke to him again,
If he could possibly avoid it.
Misery, Humiliation for Empress.
The empress, Alexandra Feodorov-
ma, granddaughter of Queen Victoria,
and descended from the German
grand -ducal house of Hesse, was of a
different type. Many tales have been
told about her that are utterly false.
especially those coupling her name in
bad sense with that of Rasputin.
But when her husband was emperor
she was the evil genius. When he
would have yielded to public opinion,
she prevented it. Religious, her re-
with all the naughty pride of the mi
nor German princelings, given to un-
controllable gusts of passion, she
could never passively submit to her
fate. To her every hour after the
throne had been lost was an hour of
misery and shame.
Her most unselfish quality was her
love for her son, the cZarevitch. He
had inherited a constitutional dis
ease of the Hesse family. a terrible,
that drained the life blood from him.
Alexis Romanov was then fourteen
years old
Then there were the four daugh-
ters, Olga, aged twenty three; Tati
ana. twenty-one; Marie, nineteen, and
Anastasia, seventeen. Beautiful
graceful girls. in the glory of their
young womanhood, were the first
three. Anastasia was different ply
sically. with an amazingly sturdy
physique, like that of n young peas
ant woman.
When Yakovlev announced to the
Romanovs that they must move the
little czarevitch was at the height of
one OF his periodical attacks. To
move him would be to kill him. Then
Yakovlev delivered his ultimatum
The emperor must go, but some of the
family might stay with the czare-
witch until he was able to travel
Prayers. tears, pleas were in vain to
turn him from his decision
There was reason for the haste
Spring was coming on and the thaws
would soon begin. If the emperor did
not go at once he might have to stay
for weeks, for the roads would be i'm
passable. Ekaterinburg men were
pushing on their plans to seize the
emperor and at any time might try
force.
The Ekaterinburg reds showed