60 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE -XI 



than exist in all the world besides, and having suffered 

 greatly from these as from an organization really inca 

 pable of assimilation with the body politic, must pursue 

 a repressive policy toward them and isolate them in order 

 to protect its rural population. 



While he was very civil in his expressions regarding 

 the United States, he clearly considered all Western civili 

 zation a failure. He seemed to anticipate, before long, a 

 collapse in the systems and institutions of Western Eu 

 rope. To him socialism and anarchism, with all they 

 imply, were but symptoms of a wide-spread political and 

 social disease indications of an approaching catastrophe 

 destined to end a civilization which, having rejected or 

 thodoxy, had cast aside authority, given the force of law 

 to the whimsies of illiterate majorities, and accepted, as 

 the voice of God, the voice of unthinking mobs, blind to 

 their own interests and utterly incapable of working out 

 their own good. It was evident that he regarded Russia 

 as representing among the nations the idea of Heaven- 

 given and church-anointed authority, as the empire des 

 tined to save the principle of divine right and the rule of 

 the fittest. 



Revolutionary efforts in Russia he discussed calmly. 

 Referring to Loris-Melikoff, the representative of the 

 principles most strongly opposed to his own, no word of 

 censure escaped him. The only evidence of deep feeling 

 on this subject he ever showed in my presence was when 

 he referred to the writings of a well-known Russian refu 

 gee in London, and said, &quot;He is a murderer.&quot; 



As to public instruction, he evidently held to the idea 

 so thoroughly carried out in Russia: namely, that the 

 upper class, which is to conduct the business of the state, 

 should be highly educated, but that the mass of the people 

 need no education beyond what will keep them contented 

 in the humble station to which it has pleased God to call 

 them. A very curious example of his conservatism I 

 noted in his remarks regarding the droshkies of St. Pe 

 tersburg. The droshky-drivers are Russian peasants, 



