The Revolution in Russia 



309 



all the credit he deserves. On the 3d of 

 March, 1905, he promised his people a 

 constitution, but it was not until the loth 

 of May, 1906, that the promise was ful- 

 filled. In the meantime revolutionary 

 horrors increased, deputations came to 

 beseech him to carry his purpose into ef- 

 fect; but he would do nothing until the 

 creditors of the Empire compelled him to 

 act, in order that he might obtain a loan 

 of four hundred million dollars to settle 

 the accounts of the war and bring the 

 army back from Manchuria. The credit- 

 ors of the Empire compelled him to keep 

 his pledge and refused to advance an- 

 other dollar until a parliament had been 

 elected and the draft of a constitution or 

 fundamental law was submitted for their 

 approval. 



It was not a liberal constitution, but 

 was more than might have been expected. 

 It was a long step in advance, and it gives 

 as much self-government as the people of 

 Russia are capable of exercising; per- 

 haps more. They have had no expe- 

 rience; the masses are densely ignorant; 

 only one out of four can read and write ; 

 70 per cent of the population do not have 

 the slightest comprehension of what self- 

 government means. The Emperor of 

 Japan voluntarily relinquished the auto- 

 cratic power that had been exercised by 

 his ancestors for more than 2,500 years ; 

 the Empress of China has recently taken 

 the first step toward a similar concession ; 

 the Shah of Persia has conceded a parlia- 

 ment which will share with him the re- 

 sponsibility of government, and, as long 

 as Nicholas II was compelled to give his 

 people a constitution in order to save his 

 throne, one might suppose that he would 

 have made a virtue of necessity and 

 gained as much credit as possible for the 

 act; but he lost all that he might have 

 gained, and what is even worse and more 

 lamentable, he has destroyed the faith of 

 the people in his sincerity and has for- 

 feited their respect by permitting the let- 

 ter and the spirit of his constitution to be 

 violated by his own officials almost every 

 day since it was proclaimed. 



The Czar has many good impulses ; he 



has frequent lucid intervals ; sometimes 

 he shov.r. a wise and generous spirit. 

 Three times during the douma he offered 

 the Liberals an opportunity to form a 

 ministry, and if the leaders of the Consti- 

 tutional Democratic party had possessed 

 a particle of common sense, they would 

 have met him half way and accepted his 

 olive branches. The first time he offered 

 them the administration of the govern- 

 ment they rejected his overtures in the 

 most contemptuous manner they could 

 devise. The second time they gave the 

 matter serious reflection and discussed it 

 for several days. Finally they agreed to 

 accept, but adopted a program so pre- 

 posterous and absurd that their reply was 

 not worthy of attention. They would not 

 be content with gradual reform; they in- 

 sisted that everything should be done in 

 an instant. They were so foolish as to 

 attempt to transform an absolute des- 

 potism into a liberal monarchy by the 

 stroke of a pen. 



James Russell Lowell, writing of Spain, 

 said: 



"Institutions grow and cannot be made to 

 order; they grow out of an actual past and 

 are not to be conspired out of a conjectural 

 future. Human nature is stronger than any 

 invention of man. When party leaders learn 

 that an ounce of patience is worth a pound of 

 passion. Spain may at length count on that 

 duration of tranquillity, the want of which has 

 been the chief obstacle to her material develop- 

 ment." 



Elihu Root, in his address to the third 

 Conference of American Republics, at 

 Rio de Janeiro, July 31, 1906, said: 



"Not in one generation, nor in one century 

 can the effective control of a superior sovereign, 

 so long deemed necessary to government, be 

 rejected, and effective self-control by the gov- 

 erned be perfected in its place. The first-fruits 

 of democracy are many of them crude and un- 

 lovely; its mistakes are many; its partial fail- 

 ures many, its sins not few. Capacity for self- 

 government does not come to man by nature. 

 It is an art to be learned, and it is also an ex- 

 pression of character to be developed among 

 all the thousands of men who exercise popular 

 sovereignty." 



If the leaders of the first Russian par- 

 liament could have realized the profound 



