i8o RUSSIA THEN AND NOW 



Russia's emancipation from the dreadful scourge 

 of intoxicants had changed their vodka-soaked, 

 rum-dumb subjects to sober, clear-thinking, patri- 

 otic reformers, the force of whose nationalistic 

 power, wrought through the Duma, has freed 

 Russia from what threatened to be a surrender 

 to Germany. 



The following letter from my esteemed friend, 

 Mr. Wharton Barker of Philadelphia, throws light 

 upon the situation up to its date, March 21, 1917, 

 and I am indeed pleased to have it in the conclu- 

 sion of my story as it relates to Russia of today. 



LETTER FROM WHARTON BARKER 



March 21, 1917. 



MY DEAR MR. FRANCIS B. REEVES: 



Because you ask me to make a statement for publi- 

 cation in your book upon Russia about to issue, of my 

 views of the cause and consequence of the revolution 

 in that country, I do so. For forty-two years I have 

 known Russia and Russians in a way open only to a 

 very few Americans; in a way not open to Europeans 

 at all. Because of German influences on the Emperor 

 Alexander II. Russia was silent and inactive while 

 Prussia fought and despoiled Denmark, Austria and 

 France. Bismarck made Russians believe that an 

 Imperial Germany must be to stop British aggressions 



