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Show POOR RUSSIA. The cable telif- us that Count Witte has, worn tout, gone with h.i imily to a neighboring state for rest and that his parting words were almost. hopeless hope-less ones for his native land. We do hot wonder. He negotiated a wonderful treaty of peace for his countrymen, stopped, a war which was filling his country with mourning and sapping, all his country's coun-try's resources, and then returning set himself to work to induce his countrymen to restore order, to , awaken anew the languishing industries and to frame such a government as should insure justice to all his countrymen. He failed though the work he commenced may be the beginning of regeneration. regenera-tion. But to reconstruct Russia is something like1 restoring re-storing San Francisco and Russia seems incapable of clearing away the debris of ancient wrongs and tyrannies that a foundation may be laid in security. The Russian masses are clamoring for liberty and cannot comprehend that liberty unsupported by order and law is but license. .What Russia needs now is a Diaz, a ruler with gentle touch and great loving heart, but who beneath his soft glove has a hand of steel to compel the right. The Russians are naturally a loyal, brave people, but the rule there has always been an iron rule and the gathered hate of centuries of wrong is finding an outlet which threatens violence every moment. The sovereign is weak and those around him continue to hold the masses in contempt and are so blind that they cannot see that they are jeopardizing their lives and fortunes and sowing their country with dragon's teeth. . " y If they had the least discernment they would go ' out into every province and proclaim that the land must be tilled and make it possible that this should be done, that schoolhouses must be supplied for all Russia's children and see that they are provided and call , upon the 'people to trust them and work with them, and that henceforth, as rapidly as possi-the possi-the people should have their full share in the conduct con-duct of the Government But there is not much hope of this and mean--while Russia, like a rudderless ship in a great storm off a rock-bound coast seems plunging straight toward to-ward destruction. No wonder Count Witte is dis- couraged, for the clouds hang low over his country and on all their fringes there is that ominous hue that is a premonition of a cyclone. . t . |