3o8 



The National Geographic Magazine 



UNPROFITABLE DISCUSSIONS AND IMPOS- 

 SIBLE DEMANDS 



Considering the material of which it 

 was composed, tlie douma displayed a re- 

 markable amount of patience and self- 

 control, although its time was wasted in 

 unprofitable discussions and its demands 

 upon its sovereign were unreasonable and 

 impossible to grant. But that was per- 

 fectly natural. A dozen or more of the 

 leaders had suffered banishment to Si- 

 . beria ; as many more had been imprisoned 

 in dungeons for conscience's sake; two- 

 thirds of the entire body had suffered in- 

 jury or humiliation in one form or an- 

 other from the government because of 

 their political views. One of the peasant 

 members had been beaten almost to death, 

 as his maimed and crippled body bore 

 witness, because he had been brave 

 enough to present the complaints of his 

 village to the governor of his province. 



The douma was in session 119 days and 

 it passed two bills, both of them of the 

 greatest significance. One abolished the 

 death penalt}^, and every member on the 

 floor felt a vivid personal interest in that 

 legislation ; the other provided for the ap- 

 pointment of a commission to supervise 

 the expenditure of the famine relief fund, 

 which was a fortunate thing, because the 

 Assistant Secretary of the Interior, one 

 of the worst men in Russia, is now under 

 investigation for pilfering from that fund. 



Until the douma met, the people of 

 Russia had never been allowed to express 

 their opinions, and the repression of a 

 thousand years was relieved at its ses- 

 sions. Speech is a safety-valve for an 

 overcharged mind, elsewhere as in Rus- 

 sia, and the outbreaks of enthusiasm and 

 indignation were no more boisterous than 

 I have seen in our own Hall of Repre- 

 sentatives, and, compared with other 

 legislative assemblies of Europe, the pro- 

 ceedings of the douma were orderly and 

 decorous. But, unfortunately, instead of 

 protecting its own rights and insuring its 

 own existence ; instead of passing laws to 

 gratify the land-hungry peasants ; to pro- 

 vide election machinery ; to make govern- 

 ment officials responsible to the courts ; to 



reorganize the judiciary and the police; 

 to establish a system of education and 

 other important measures, the time was 

 wasted in abusing and baiting the minis- 

 ters and in high flights of oratory. The 

 Extremists ruled because they were the 

 most aggressive; the Conservatives sub- 

 mitted in order to promote harmony and 

 present an unbroken front of opposition 

 to the autocracy. Finally a minority, under 

 the lead of the Radicals, overstepped the 

 bounds of decency and passed a resolu- 

 tion false in statement, wrong in spirit, in- 

 temperate in terms, warning the people 

 that they could not trust the Czar or his 

 officials. Only about one-third of the 

 members voted for it, the Radicals and 

 the Revolutionists ; but the Conservatives 

 and moderate members would not vote 

 against it, because they were afraid of the 

 Extremists. They retired from the cham- 

 ber; but the effect was the same, and the 

 Czar exercised his right to dissolve a 

 mutinous and disloyal parliament, just 

 as the German Emperor, for even less 

 reason, dissolved the Reichstag Decem- 

 ber 12. 



NICHOLAS' LOST OPPORTUNITY 



But there had been no sympathy be- 

 tween the two powers from the first, and 

 if the douma was guilty of many blun- 

 ders, he was guilty of more. His list of 

 lost opportunities is longer than that of 

 any ruler in modern times. If he had re- 

 ceived the members of the douma with 

 kind words and a conciliatory disposi- 

 tion, he might have won over a large 

 number of them to the support of his own 

 policy or program without relinquishing a 

 particle of his dignity or authority ; but on 

 the day it met he practically repudiated 

 the body he had himself created. Hence 

 the Czar had no friends or supporters in 

 the lower house, and the upper house, 

 composed one-half of men of his own 

 choice, was also against him. 



Unfortunately for himself and for his 

 country, Nicholas II is always wavering 

 between right and wrong. If he goes 

 wrong, he acts promptly ; if he does right, 

 he delays his action so long that he loses 



