Vol. XVI, No. 7 WASHINGTON 



July, 1905 



THE 



MATHOMAL 

 MBAM 



0 



EVOLUTION OF RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT 



By Edwin A. Grosvenor, LL.D., 



Professor of Modern Government and International Law in 



Amherst College 



COUNTLESS questions arise at 

 the very mention of the name 

 of Russia. Many of these ques- 

 tions are of vital interest and interwoven 

 with the crisis in the Far East. Never- 

 theless, I shall endeavor to push all other 

 issues aside and devote myself entirely 

 to the single subject — The Evolution of 

 Russian Government. 



At the beginning I am confronted by 

 one peculiar difficulty. It is that I am 

 an American and that the great majority 

 of my hearers are of the same nation- 

 ality. I know, indeed, that in no other 

 country under the sun is there so large 

 an acquaintance with foreign matters as 

 in the United States. In no other is 

 there so large an ability to judge of for- 

 eign questions, of their causes and ulti- 

 mate solution. But this advantage is 

 more than counterbalanced by the diffi- 

 culty created in our minds through the 

 rapid progress of our political life. We 

 have not yet attained, nor are we alto- 

 gether perfect. Sometimes things are 

 done in this our boasted country which 

 cause us shame. Nevertheless, we have 



represented during the last 1 2 5 years the 

 foremost constitutional, self-governing 

 experiment of mankind. Only a little 

 more than a century ago did our fathers 

 draw up that Constitution which is still 

 our organic law. There did not then 

 exist a single other written constitution, 

 defining civil functions and regulating 

 the relations of different departments of 

 state. We were the first who ever em- 

 barked upon the sea of national self- 

 government under the aegis of a consti- 

 tution formed by the people. Hence it 

 is difficult or impossible for us Ameri- 

 cans to fully realize how rapidly we have 

 advanced under the guidance of a brief 

 but an enlightened experience. The 

 rapidity with which we have rushed for- 

 ward since astounds the beholder, but 

 is barely perceived by ourselves. For 

 we are in the very midst of the progress, 

 and meanwhile receive and share all 

 that is being achieved . The fleet-footed 

 are not tolerant of the slow. Scant pa- 

 tience have we for the tardier progress 

 made by nations in less favorable con- 

 ditions than our own. The same step 



'An address to the National Geographic Society, February 3, 1905. 



