cited over remarks that were made, grad

ually worked himself into a regular tirade against Governor-General Wright and all the other American members of the Philippine Commission except General James F. Smith. It is not at all true, however, as reported from Manila, that Rough Rider George Curry, governor of Sámar province, threw a glass of wine into Señor Herrera's face. The writer was one of the eight Americans present, and can

testify that, on the contrary, Captain Curry made a most clever and tactful speech, throwing oil upon the troubled waters and leaving not the slightest illfeeling between himself and Señor Her

rera.

It may be seen, therefore, why Secretary Taft, immediately after his arrival, had a place made upon the senselessly overcrowded program of festivities, which the Manila Americans had arranged, for a ball the Filipino ladies desired to give in honor of Miss Roosevelt but for which they had not been able to find a place. He went to it himself after the Archbishop's dinner was over at midnight. Miss Roosevelt went to the ball wearing a richly adorned Filipino costume, and both she and Secretary Taft were prominent in the rigodons that were danced after his arrival. The Filipinos who remember how he set the example for social intermingling when he was governor saw a significance in all this, as in the fact that he and Miss Roosevelt became the guests of a Filipino member of the Commission upon their return from the two weeks' tour of the islands to the south of Manila. Miss Roosevelt and Miss Boardman spent most of the three days of that second visit to Manila in making calls upon Filipino women.

During the two months preceding the visit of the party to the China coast, the boycott of American goods had been at its height. The agitation in and around Canton had culminated, a few days before the arrival of the Taft party from Manila, in the placarding of the city of Canton with posters designed to insult the Americans and to stimulate the sense of union among Chinese of the coolie class. The most notable and conspicuous of these posters was generally regarded as a direct insult to Miss Roosevelt. It represented an American lady

being borne in a sedan-chair by four turtles, the turtle being lowest of animal creation in south China, and the meaning conveyed being therefore that of contempt or insult. The Chinese characters above this drawing on the poster were translated as follows:

"Shameful! Shameful!! Shameful!!! Americans (beautiful women) treat us as dogs. Now they are coming to visit our city to investigate whether or not our people are united. (Meaning, in the matter of the boycott.)

"You fellows must not carry their chairs. If you do, you are like those pictured below."

The caption below the cut reads: "Turtles carrying "Turtles carrying a beautiful woman.

The morning of the party's arrival in Hongkong on the transport "Logan,' Consul-General Julius G. Lay came aboard, bringing a copy of this placard, and stating what was the situation with reference to the agitation against Americans in the native city of Canton. Action

had been asked of the Viceroy of Canton province with reference to this matter, and he was reported to have beheaded the man, or at least a man, charged with being responsible for the posting of this insulting placard. The Viceroy had, at any rate, issued a very vigorous proclamation denouncing these acts or any contemplated acts of disorder and threatening severe punishment on the man or men who interfered with Americans or insulted or jeered at Americans. However, as old Canton is such a crowded city of narrow streets, wherein even a small party of foreigners quite commonly excites a hostile demonstration, it was thought best not to visit the native city proper, but only the foreign concession, on an island in the river. The Viceroy, who was sick, had his representative give

the party a luncheon in the Manchu Club, and the officials of the Canton-Hankow railway took the party on an excursion by special train into the country. At all these festivities, the ladies were to be left out. It was the first time on the trip they had been left out of anything, and they did not like it. But they were compelled to be content with another day of shopping in Hongkong.

Such incidents are forcible reminders that the justice of our treatment of the Chinese within our own boundaries or at our ports is called into question and is bound to be a subject for more careful consideration than we have given to it in the past. We can not expect to stand in the Orient as the friends of the Oriental and at the same time give him to understand that at home we consider him a dog.

BY

F the Tsar it may be written, as of Samson in the Book of Judges, that "the Philistines took him and put out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prisonhouse." And this evil deed was done at the very beginning of his reign, before even he was crowned. The loving loyalty of his subjects is the free air in which a sovereign lives. That loving loyalty was his when his father died. But it was filched from him almost before the remains of Alexander III. had been laid in his tomb.

It is an old story in Russia how the deed was done. But the memory still blisters and burns. It was done in this wise. All the representatives of the nation, nobles mingling with peasants, delegates from the zemstvos with the mayors of great cities, were gathered together in January, 1894, in the Winter Palace, to greet their new sovereign. The assem

blage was composed of men boiling over with enthusiasm, full of exuberant loyalty, prepared to welcome with effusive gratitude a single kind and generous word from the lips of the new monarch.

When Nicholas II. entered the hall a profound stillness fell upon the throng. Advancing into their midst, he stopped, and standing, hat in hand, he spoke to his subjects, in clear, ringing tones. At first he used the ordinary words of courtesy, but then he declared in words that bit like fire into the hearts of his audience that the hopes which some of the zemstvos had expressed were idiotic dreams, and that he was resolved to maintain intact his autocratic power. It was a set lesson learned by rote, and spoken with the mechanical precision of a phonograph. When it was over the Emperor turned and left the hall with all the relief of a schoolboy who had spoken his piece and finished his lesson. Far otherwise was it with those who had heard his harsh and chiding words. As they listened a chill struck to their hearts. At first they could hardly believe their ears. "Idiotic dreams!"

Such a wounding phrase could surely not be the only response of the young sovereign to their Russian hearts! Before they could quite realize the significance of this revelation the Emperor was gone, amid the faint hurrahs of a handful of courtiers.

Then the silence broke, and a great lamentation, not unmixed with angry and resentful words, filled the air. What a churlish response it had been that they had heard. Why had he given them evil for good, and answered blessing by a curse? There were tears in many eyes, bitter reproach in many voices, and heavy sadness in every heart as they slowly dispersed. "I have served his grandfather, the Emperor Alexander II.," said, nay, almost sobbed, an aged general, as he slowly descended the stairs. "I have served his father, the Emperor Alexander III., and now I am insulted by a boy like that!"

If the effect of that blighting speech was evil in the nation, it had still more disastrous results for the Emperor. The words which had been put in his mouth left him from the moment of their utterance a helpless prisoner in the hands of his ministers. He had alienated the only. force which would have given him strength to assert himself against the bureaucracy. The true story of how the Emperor was made to utter that fatal speech was told me when I was in St. Petersburg, by one who had in his hands the documents relating to the incident.

him

When Nicholas II. succeeded to the throne the various zemstvos and provincial governments throughout Russia presented loyal addresses. Among others, the men of Tver approached the throne with a memorial which was full of loyalty, although not expressed with such exuberance of Asiatic adulation as was adopted by other memorialists. But in this address from Tver there was one line which caught the eye and aroused the ire of the ministers of the Tsar. It contained the expression of a humble hope that the Emperor would see to it that the authority of the law was enforced throughout Russia equally upon his servants as upon his subjects. To suggest that an official who imagines himself to be a little autocrat, and, as such, as much above the law as the Emperor himself, should be sub

jected to the authority of the law equally with the other subjects of the Tsar seemed to the ministers as little short of blasphemy. The speech which they put into the mouth of the Tsar was their revenge. The way in which they prepared it was characteristic.

If the Emperor had been allowed to exercise his own unbiassed judgment, all untrained and inexperienced though he was, he would have had enough sense to write upon the margin of the Tver petition, "I quite agree, or "Quite right," or some other of those brief and pregnant phrases by which he is wont to express on the margin of State papers what he thinks of their contents. There was, of course, the chance that amid the whirl of the business that had to be attended to, and among the masses of other addresses, the Emperor might overlook the address from Tver, or even if he read it he might overlook the fatal significance of the passage which offended them. But the Tchinovniks could not risk any chance.

So the Minister of the Interior, with whom, justly or unjustly, is associated the sinister figure of the Procurator-General of the Holy Synod, decided that it would be safer to keep the address altogether hidden from the eye of the Emperor. And this is the way in which they did it. The Minister of the Interior drew up a report upon the address, in which he assured the Emperor that it was couched in such seditious language as to render it absolutely impossible for him to lay it before the eye of his Imperial Majesty. It also rendered it necessary that, in replying to the memorialists, he should put his foot down upon the rebellious spirit prevailing in many zemstvos by asserting his determination to maintain intact his autocratic power. Therefore Nicholas II. was advised, compelled would be the more accurate word, by the authority of the old and trusted ministers of his father, to make the speech which by destroying the love and confidence of his people, handed him over bound hand and foot to the Tchinovnik. It is only very recently that this report of the Minister of the Interior on the Tver petition has been unearthed from the archives, but the evidence is now complete. That was eleven years ago. Never a year has passed without some of the fatal consequences

Now the situation is reversed. The sovereign has approached his people with overtures of peace. Under the white flag of conciliation and of peace he offers them more, much more, than they asked eleven years ago. Is it to be wondered at that the first impulse of many of his subjects, smarting under the arbitrary régime of General Trepoff, should be to respond as the Tsar responded eleven years ago and to reject as "idiotic dreams" the imperial aspirations for a close coöperative union between the Tsar and his subjects? But resentment is an evil counsellor. It will not be the fault of the Russian Liberals if at the coming general election the nation does not send its wisest and best to share the burden heretofore borne alone by the autocrat. It was a great misfortune for Russia that the Emperor was thus, from the very first day of his accession, severed from the sympathy and support of his people. Even if he had Even if he had possessed the iron will of Peter the Great he would have found it impossible to bear up against the immense dead weight of the administrative machine without being able constantly to call to his support the national enthusiasm and the will of his people.

Nicholas II. is not a Peter the Great, nor even an Alexander III., and it is a very great blessing for Russia that he is not. The very worst kind of sovereign for Russia in the present formulative period of her growth would have been a masterful dictator of iron will, with an unshakable resolution to enforce his own personal views upon the nation.

If you wish to survive when living in the earthquake zone it is better to live in a wooden hut than in a marble palace. When the history of these times comes to be written, it will probably be discovered that Nicholas II. was more useful to Russia because of the very defects and shortcomings for which he is now so often blamed than because of the really admirable qualities which he undoubtedly possesses. The reason why these good qualities are not more universally recognized is because his light has been hidden under a bushel. He has never yet been able to play his true rôle of Tsar-tribune of his people. Captured at the very beginning

chine, he has been reduced, malgre lui, to the position of the first Tchinovnik in the land over which he is supposed to reign. From this position of compulsory servitude he will be rescued by the douma.

When Nicholas II. comes face to face with the elected representatives of all the Russias it will be a day of pleasant surprises on both sides. The Emperor will be amazed to find how rich and varied are the capacities of those unofficial classes now for the first time called to his councils. And the members of the douma will be not less surprised to discover how highly endowed is their sovereign for playing his proper rôle at the head of the State. If it were not that omne ignotum horrible est it would be difficult to credit what an extraordinary tissue of baseless calumnies has been spun around the name of the Emperor. Even Count Tolstoy, the most famous of his contemporaries, has not hesitated to declare that he "knew" he was a man below the average level of culture and intelligence. If Count Tolstoy had ever met the Emperor to talk with him as man with man, he would never have made so false an assertion. The liberty which a great Christian teacher permits himself, to bear false witness against his neighbor, when that neighbor has the misfortune to be his sovereign, degenerates into license in the hands of less scrupulous gossipers.

I have been assured that the Emperor was a very stupid, ignorant, and even half-witted man, who reads nothing, knows nothing, and spends his life in terror. I have been told that he was a nervous wreck, that his hair had turned gray, and that his face was haggard with wrinkles plowed by care. He has been represented as false, treacherous, cunning and heaven knows what. So the old hag, Rumor, spins her spider web of calumny round the person of the Emperor until the Tsar, to many of his subjects and the outside world, has completely disappeared and been replaced by a kind of mythic monster who is only saved from being a hobgoblin by the consciousness that he is impotent to harm. The people who say these things and the still greater number who believe them will be somewhat rudely surprised when the douma releases Nicholas II. from his prison house and restores

him to his proper place as the Tsartribune of a loyal and self-governing people.

There is not a word of truth in the popular legend as to the physical weakness or nervous prostration of the Emperor. It was six years since I had seen him. And such six years! But when he greeted me at Peterhof only a few weeks ago, he did not seem to have aged a day since I bade him good-bye at TsarkoeSelo on the eve of the Hague Conference in 1899. His step was as light, his carriage as erect, his expression as alert. His brow bore no lines of haggard care. I could not see a gray hair on his head. His spirits were as high, his courage as calm, and his outlook as cheerful as ever. The last time I had seen him was on the eve of the greatest victory of his reign. I was now meeting him on the morrow of his worst reverse. But the man was exactly the same. He might simply have returned instantly from the door that had been closed six years before to repeat his adieu.

The question as to his intelligent grasp of the facts of the situation with which he has to deal is one upon which only those who are admitted to the intimacy of his councils can speak with authority. It is one, however, upon which those who have never heard him speak are often the most confident. I can speak with some assurance on this matter, although it is one on which it ought not to be necessary to speak at all. But I have seen many men, crowned and uncrowned, in the course of a tolerably long and varied journalistic career. I have had four opportunities of talking with Nicholas II. Altogether I have spent many hours alone with him. Our conversation never flagged. It did not turn upon the weather, but upon serious topics both at home and abroad, in which I was intimately concerned and intensely interested. Hence, I have at least had ample materials for forming a judgment, and few people have had more of the experience of contemporaries necessary to compare my impressions. I have no hesitation in saying that I have seldom in the course of thirty years met any man so quick in the uptake, so bright in his mental perception, so sympathetic in his understanding, or one possessing a wider range of intellec

tual interest. Neither have I ever met any one man or woman who impressed me more with the crystalline sincerity of his soul.

Of his personal charm, of his quick sense of humor, of the genial sense of good fellowship by which he puts you at once at your ease, I do not need to speak. But these smaller things often count for much in the intercourse between a sovereign and his subjects. Nicholas II. is a man of quick intellect and lofty ideals who is kept in a cage. He chafes against its bars. Continually he longs for liberty and in his efforts to evade the unrelenting tyranny of the machine he has had recourse to expedients which have irritated his gaolers and filled the mouths of his enemies with reproaches. He has from time to time admitted to his intimacy outside counsellors, some wise, others unwise, and one or two altogether unworthy of his confidence, and through them he has endeavored to ascertain the truth about the out-of-door world from which he is secluded.

Apart from the irregular attempts of Nicholas II. to come into direct contact with the unofficial world, there are not wanting instances which show that the Tsar possesses more capacity than any of his ministers. It was to his own personal initiative, persisted in despite the skeptical sneers of many of his ministers, that the world owes the International High Court of Justice at The Hague. It was he also who withstood all the efforts made by the enemies of England to embroil Russia in war with her during the Boer War. It was he, again, who, almost single-handed, saved Russia from having to pay an indemnity to Japan. His most important ministers urged him to pay an indemnity. The Tsar absolutely refused to sanction what would, in his opinion, constitute a precedent for the levying of international blackmail.

In the negotiations that preceded the war, the Tsar had given his adhesion in writing to a proposal to submit the Korean question to The Hague tribunal. But for the fatal tendency to believe that "there's no hurry" that decision might have averted the war.

Of the Emperor's capacity to handle affairs of State there is ample evidence. Ambassadors who have had audiences