RUSSELL 



5112 



RUSSIA 



RUSSELL, SOL SMITH (1848-1902), an Ameri- 

 can actor who became famous as an imperson- 

 ator and comedian. His name is most often 

 associated with the play A Poor Relation, in 

 which his best acting was shown. He was born 

 in Brunswick, Me., and at the beginning of 

 the War of Secession he joined the Federal 

 army as drummer boy. In 1862 he left the 

 troops to play the drum, act and sing in a small 

 theater in Cairo, 111. In 1874 Smith became a 

 member of the Augustin Daly organization and 

 made his first stellar appearance in 1880 in 

 Edgewood Folks, presented over 1,500 times. 

 He played best the parts which combined the 

 whimsical and the gentle, and he found an ex- 

 cellent vehicle for his peculiar talents in Peace- 

 ful Valley and in A Poor Relation, both of 

 which were written especially for him. 



RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION, an institu- 

 tion established by the widow of Russell Sage, 

 by which $10,000,000 of the great fortune left 

 by him has been dedicated to the highest social 

 uses. The Sage Foundation was established in 

 1907, with the endowment named above, "for 

 the improvement of social and living conditions 

 in the United States of America." But it does 

 not seek to improve conditions merely by re- 

 lieving poverty and distress; it is ambitious to 



remove the causes which result in poverty. It 

 aims to open the way for people to earn a liv- 

 ing wage, to occupy sanitary homes, to eat 

 wholesome food, to live clean lives, to bring up 

 sturdy, wholesome children. 



In order to accomplish its aims the Founda- 

 tion is divided into a number of organizations. 

 It has a charity organization whose sole pur- 

 pose it is to increase the efficiency of other 

 charities. It has a department which promotes 

 improved methods of dealing with dependent, 

 defective, neglected and delinquent children. It 

 has a child hygiene department, which aims to 

 promote the physical and mental progress of 

 children by providing them with playgrounds, 

 sports, etc. There is a committee on the pre- 

 vention of blindness and a committee for im- 

 proving the methods and efficiency of loan 

 associations. Its most conspicuous branch is 

 probably the Russell Sage Foundation Homes 

 Company, which has built at Forest Hills Gar- 

 dens, on Long Island, near New York City, a 

 group of the most attractive and convenient 

 homes possible for a small amount of money. 

 These houses are rented to people with moder- 

 ate incomes. The headquarters of the Founda- 

 tion are in New York City. See SAGE, RUSSELL, 

 subhead Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage. 



THE STORYA OF RUSSIA 



.USSIA, until 1917 a European and 

 Asiatic empire including in its boundaries one- 

 sixth of the land and one-twelfth of the people 

 of the earth, and the one whose government 

 for many years was the most conspicuous ex- 

 ample of absolute despotism, excepting, possi- 

 bly, Turkey. Its rulers for over 300 years were 

 oppressors of their subjects and disbelievers in 

 freedom of speech, popular goyernment and 

 education of the masses. Yet the democratic 

 ideals that have wrought such great changes 

 in the world were kept alive in the downtrod- 

 den country by heroic men and women, thou- 



sands of whom suffered exile in Siberia for 

 their faith, and in 1917 the people deposed their 

 czar. Russia is now in the throes of reconstruc- 

 tion, with the Bolsheviki in control. 



Old Russia extended from the Baltic on the 

 west to the Pacific Ocean on the east, and from 

 the Arctic Ocean on the north to the Turkish 

 dominions, Persia, Afghanistan, India and China 

 on the south. Its greatest extent from east to 

 west was 7,000 miles, or more than twice the 

 distance from New York to San Francisco. Its 

 extreme northern and southern points were 2,400 

 miles apart. The area of this vast country was 



