Blackwell Family Blackwell, Alice Stone Subject File Breshkorsky - Printed MatterThe Contributors' Column - May Atlantic The miracle of Russia's new-born freedom is so stupendous that we need just such a personal element as is contained in Catherine Breshkovsky's letters to focus it, to bring it within the scope of our understanding. 'Babushka' is the epic, outstanding figurehead of the Revolution, personifying those scores of thousands of lesser martyrs for freedom who, as these lines go to press, are hurrying home in sledges across the trackless Siberian wastes, racing with the spring thaw. We greatly regret that the following letter from Mme. Breshkovsky to an American friend, setting forth her views on the great war, reached us too late to take its proper place in the body of the magazine: - Minusinsk, June 19, 1916 Now, dearest, I will speak with you about the question that fills the hearts and minds of everyone now. You are right in your work of freedom. Certainly we must prepare, develop and inspire the love for peace and friendship between and among the peoples. At the same time we must explain to them by what means they shall attain the desired mode of life. One must prove them that ideals can be attained by idealistic means. One must teach them how to build the society that would not need to encroach on each others' interests and existence. But as much as we know the history of humankind we see that every race of people is apt to get asleep when left alone for a long time. It must be shocked and awakened from time to time, as they will not or cannot let their mind work with enough energy and progress, the blows that history (or their own blindness and stupidity) sends them are necessary to make them more attentive to their own real profits. The forward individuals have to teach the masses how to arrange the mode of common life so rationally as not to be forced by insupportable circumstances, by too much abnegation, to strife and strike. We are not angels yet, and every creature feels his right to breathe and learn... Dearest girl, we must realize how dark is still the common brain. It needs thunder blows to be awaken and to begin to think about the matters before his own eyes. The masses are not vigilant; they continue to exist by routine. And when left alone, it is very difficult for them to promote initiative, energy, efficiency. Even less than forty years ago all the East - Chinese, Russia and others - were thought dead people crystallized in their ancestors' prejudices. Now you see the mighty China acquires such ideas as we see on the top of the European civilization - and that after five thousand years of sleeping! The last thirty years China got heavy blows on its shoulders, back, and head, and very hastily she understood that no longer can she exist if not preventing the new-coming blows. China began to think, to analyze, to find out issues, only after hard and expensive experiences. Now all of us never doubt the capacities of mind and the progressive efficiency of the ocean of people, that only yesterday were asleep. And now I am sure that all the blows, heavy and tyrannic as they are, are lessons for the lazy brain of the world-population in its whole. Yes, the heart is sad, the sorrow profound, but we ought to understand that still we attain the moral and mental perfections through unspeakable fierce ways and mutilations. This fact does not disappoint us, not diminish our love for the mankind. On the contrary! This capacity to struggle through the most terrible difficulties is the testimony of our divine providence, and shows the infinity of our forces. We must only give them away, awakened, showing the right ways and means. There are more advanced and less advanced; the first are responsible for the development of the second. You know all that yourself, but the school of life you passed through was milder as that I passed. For the future glory of mankind we suffer bravely the losses of to-day. I kiss your hands; I wish you always as brave and healthy as you are to-day. The world is not bad; it is only young and comes from one degree of comprehension to a higher one. Your devoted friend, CATHERINE. Lieutenant F.S., as our readers already know, is benefiting by that wise and merciful international agreement which permits disabled soldiers from both sides of the battle-time to convalesce in the life-giving sunshine and mountain air of Switzerland. Sergeant Louis-Octave Phillipe, a French citizen-soldier, has already been much commented on this column. His article in the present number was largely written on the battlefield; its conclusion and revision were accomplished at Hospital Boucicaut, Paris, where a German sniper's bullet sent him. A recent letter from a friend in France tells us of his rapid convalescence, which was doubtless hastened by his citation before the whole army, entitling him to wear the 'palme' on the croix de guerre which he has already won. *** There is something profoundly moving in this letter from young Lieutenant Rene Nicolas, well known to Atlantic readers through his austere narrative, 'The Lieutenant's Story.' Disabled by wounds, he has been discharged from the army of France after receiving the symbols of his country's gratitude and respect. By courtesy of the American friend to whom the letter was written, we were permitted to share it with our readers. PARIS, February 6th My dear Marriane and Ally: - I should like to sing a hymn of joy and praise to America! At last you are our allies, openly, as you have so long been at heart. At last has come the official consecration of all friendship and helpfulness America has never wearied in showingPage Two Boston Evening Transcript, Saturday [Aug 22 1931] The Springs of the Russian Revolution The Personal Memoirs of a Foremost Leader in the Struggle to Free Russia from Monarchical Tyranny By Edmund Noble More than a quarter of a century has elapsed since Boston gave its enthusiastic welcome to Katherine Breshkovskaia, and it was in 1917 that Alice Stone Blackwell sent forth her fascinating account of the "Grandmother of the Russian Revolution." Yet the passing of years, especially since the advent of the Soviet regime has increased rather than diminished popular interest in the woman who, beginning her work for political reform under czarism by lending aid towards the emancipation of the serfs, later made her life what Kerenski calls "an epitome of the history of a whole century." And what more appropriate or appealing now than to have Breshkovskala's own story of her experiences and of the hardships through which she passed? The preparation of her memoirs was an achievement in itself. For long periods during her terms of imprisonment and exile she found it impossible to keep a diary or even to scribble notes; not until the March revolution of 1917, after the barriers had been raised, could she begin the task of putting her recollections into writing. During the few months of the Provisional Government she wrote the first part of the present volume, dealing with the period from 1873. "when the twenty-nine-year-old aristocrat first definitely threw herself into the cause of revolution, down to the failure of her dramatic attempt to escape from Siberia in 1981." The two manuscript volumes of this record had to be left in Russia when the Bolshevist overturn took place in November, 1917, and Katerina once more became an exile. Some years later she recovered the volumes and , as a resident of Prague in 1921 and 1922, wrote the remaining sections of the present book, now rightly called by her introducer "a consecutive account in her own words of the recollections and impressions of a woman of high intelligence and culture, of a life whole-heartedly devoted to an intrepid following of a call to what she regarded as her highest duty." Born in 1844 on an estate in the district of Vitebsk, Little Russia, of parents who belonged to the aristocratic class, Breshkovskaia tells the readers that the best in her was due to a sound heredity and to the rational education her mother gave her in childhood and youth. "We three sisters, " she says, "lived and studied at home almost up to the time of our marriages. In our circle of society, among the nobility, my parents, Konstantin Mihailovich Verigo and Olga Ivanovna, were prominent people. In every way, from childhood up, we children loved and cherished them for the purity and nobility of their lives, which shone in contrast to the general background of the landlord's mode of life in provincial corners. A home we learned to appreciate all the was good and beautiful in life, and through the example of our parents acquired faith in man, in the possibility of living according to one's beliefs and convictions, unmindful of the superstitions and the low standards of the shallow, the monotonous life of a remote province. Their thoughtful attitude toward our childish needs, their constant care for our intellectual and moral education, had so closely linked our souls together that even in old age my brothers and sisters never ceased to feel the presence of our parents." [Hidden Springs of the Russian Revolution. Personal memoirs of Katerina Breshkovskaia. Translated from the Russian and edited by Lincoln Hutchinson. With Foreword by Alexander Feodorovich Kerenski, former premier of Russia's Preliminary Parliament. $5.00. Stanford University, Stanford University Press] Having inherited the philosophical inclinations of her father and the energy of her mother, Katerina lived continually in what she calls "a sort of dual current of thought and action," which drew her forever out of the ordinary ways of life. Convinced by her intellect that she should act as she did, she also felt with all her being that she could not act otherwise, nor did she know a minute of peace until she had set out to achieve the plan of action which her mind had matured. She admits that in childhood she had a violent temper which her mother had to curb, saying also that when the love and pity for others inculcated at home was transformed into an active resolve for the common welfare "she became frightened at any revolutionary ardor and later was always deeply grieved by its consequences." Yet "the consciousness of this duty toward the people is so mighty a force that no personal affection, even that between parents and children, can displace it. When once it has sunk into the depths of one's soul it drives out all other aspirations and leads mightily toward the chosen goal. It gripped me and became my master." How this motive expressed itself in activities which served to bring on the revolution Breshkovskaia tell in many chapters of her book. In 1873, with the movement already started and considerably developed, she joined a community that had been formed in Kiev by "the youth belonging to the intelligentsia" and had much to say of her colleagues and associates. In the autumn of the same year she went to Petersburg, where the Chaikovski organization was instructing youths not only for industrial vocations, but also for propaganda in the factories and workshops, as well as for a "go to the people" campaign. Finally she decided to abandon her vocational activities, which had been often frustrated by the police, and devote her energies to purely revolutionary ends "and, if necessary, to terroristic activity." With this purpose in view she visited men [stu?] in their workshops, and while at Petersburg discussed with some members of the Nechaiev organization "the use of nitroglycerin, its terrible effects when exploded, the possibility of concealing some in the Winter Palace, and the possible influence on the policy of the Government which a successful explosion might have." But after joining some of the conspirators who were planning a mechanism for the explosion she was arrested in 1875 while on a propaganda tour and experienced thereafter terms of imprisonment and exile which extended to twenty-five years. She pictures vividly her experiences of "preliminary detention," her stay at the Petersburg fortress between 1875 and 1876, the "trial of the 193," and finally her exile with others to the Barguzin in Siberia. Then telling how in 1881 her attempt to escape was frustrated she sets forth more of the experiences that fell to her lot through being compelled to remain in exile for another sixteen years. Meanwhile her parents, to whom she wrote frequently and lengthily, were hurt by her apparent indifference to their state of mind. "I always wrote long letters," she says, "describing the rich, interesting country in vivid colors, telling them of the friendship and solicitude of my comrades. It was all useless. To them I was a woman deprived of all rights, a convict, a horror, and nothing could soften this terrible fact." At the close of the volume chapter are given to the spread of revolutionary ideas from 1881 to 1905, to the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, to the peasants of Russia and to its intelligentsia. In 1896, permitted to return from Siberia, Breshkovskaia quickly became acquainted with the changing situation. The time had come, it is shown, when the peasants, inspired by the boldness of their leaders, were no longer silent. The words "Freedom - Freedom" passed from mouth to mouth. But the liberation of the serfs, instead of settling the issue, simply laid the foundation for greater distrust and developed the thirst for revenge and firmer determination on the part of the peasants. Frightful abuses in the repartition of the land, the woods and the pastures roused protests everywhere; and as rebellions broke out, increased severity was used in crushing them. The peasants had to love somebody, to rely on some support, and inasmuch as the hated and distrusted the masters, the simple folk gave their love to the Tsar, placing their trust in him. But the murder of Alexander II brought the monarch down to a mortal level. Then came the unpopular rule of Alexander III, and the Tsar's prestige grew less and less as the indifference of the people increased. Would proletarianism improve the conditions? The very theory of it seemed absurd to Breshkovskaia. Into what worse slavery could the peasant be driven? He would have no land and no freedom. Yet in spite of everything she found that the peasant had made a step forward intellectually. The general westernization of the Russian state had affected him. The villagers, seeking ways and means for a decent living, had become interested in political and economic questions. The peasants, regarding the landlords and the kulaks alike as enemies, intensely desired education for their children, for the realized this was the only way in which they could escape the slavery they themselves had endured. Socialist-Revolutionary students issued proclamations which were energetic protests against the political and financial oppression of the peasant population, and laid especial emphasis on the peasant's right to the land. and the Socialist-Revolutionary party printed hundreds of thousands of pamphlets which were eagerly read by old and young in all parts of the country. How, then, with the revolution accomplished on Marxian principles, and not in the way Breshkovskaia sought to bring it about, is religion likely to survive in a country whose Government pronounces it anathema? It is largely to the peasantry that she looks for the answer. Even now, she points out, when the Russian people have scarcely recovered their balance after years of delusion and spiritual anguish, and after living through horrors artificially developed to weaken the state, "we see them with their eyes toward heaven, hoping there to find peace, forgiveness and mercy. For faith in the Creator has revived with all the force and purity that characterized it in the primitive Slav nation. The religion of the Russian peasant does not manifest itself only on church days; every day the religious impulse finds expression in his ready responses to the needs of a neighbor. Every one of the peasants who is physically able goes to church to pray for the illumination of the bewildered soul, for the support of the worn-out body," and "after the cruel disillusionments they have experienced during the course of their history it is in God, not man, that the Russian peasants put their trust, for the Dukes, the Tsars, the Revolution have all betrayed them. It is the peasants who covered Russia with the countless white churches which so beautifully relieve the monotonous plains. They have their last pennies for these places where they could bring their sorrows and their hopes and find peace for their burdened hearts. The first thing a peasant wants his children to learn are the prayers and the word of God. His highest ambition is to see his son a priest... These are the characteristic spiritual traits of the Russian peasant, 'Economic materialism' is not for him." Breshkovskala's wish, in view of it all, is that the Russian people may "cast out all the wicked teaching of the Bolsheviks and tread, repentant, the path of God which leads to peace of mind and a pure conscience." And in paying tribute to the Russian intelligentsia and to Kerenski for his "impartiality and truthfulness" - as "a unique statesman who suffers today not because of his personal loneliness, but because he realizes the impossibility of working for that freedom which his country actually had within its grasp but lost again through its own folly- Breshkovskaia, plainly against both Tsarism and Sovietdom, is equally emphatic in looking forward to a re-birth of Russia, writing at the close of the book: "The resistless current of inherited tradition, the hopes, the faith, the aspirations of the people, run counter to the new despotism which has gripped the country. My beloved Russian people will sober down from their revolutionary madness, and we shall once more be able to work hand in hand with them in rebuilding a land of freedom, honor and true fraternity."THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, NOVEMBER 8, 1936. The Great Russian Revolution THE GREAT RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. By Victor Chernov. Translated and abridged by Philip E. Mosely. viii + 466 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press. $5 By MICHAEL T. FLORINSKY Victor Chernov is one of the arresting and picturesque figures of the Russian revolutionary movement. As the standard bearer of the Socialist Revolutionary party he was for years a bitter enemy of the imperial regime and worked relentlessly for its downfall. After the collapse of the empire in March, 1917, he took a prominent part in the work of the Soviet Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and became for a few brief but momentous weeks Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government under Kerensky. He was elected president of the Constituent Assembly, which was dispersed by Soviet soldiers in January, 1918. Chernov, who escaped, has since been an active opponent of the Moscow government. "The Great Russian Revolution" is the English version of the first half of the author's projected four- volume history of the revolution. The first Russian volume appeared in Paris in 1934. The second volume, so far as the reviewer has been able to ascertain, has not yet been published and the English translation was, presumably, made from the manuscript. The present English version deals with the causes of the disintegration of the empire and with the history of the Provisional Government up to the establishment of the Soviet rule. Chernov's political career, as well as the nature of the subject, has determined the character of his book. Some of his chapters -- those dealing with the causes of the revolution, the dynasty, the Duma, the breakdown of the army, the character of the original Provisional Government under Prince Lvov--are the work of the historian. The bulk of his volume, however, devoted to the policies of the Provisional Government and the conditions in Russia after the revolution, is distinctly an apology and an attempt to vindicate the views he and his supporters advanced in 1917. In spite of this lack of a single approach, Chernov has succeeded in making a very real contribution to the understanding of an important period in the history of Russia. He is familiar with the sources and he has given a clear and telling picture of the essential trends that brought about the upheaval of 1917. He writes well and has a real gift for vivid characterization and a keen sense of dramatic effect. It is only fair tral Asia and from the Baltic to the Pacific." Chernov rightly admits that Rasputin "has no policy in the higher sense of the word. He merely wishes to overthrow whoever dislikes him and to elevate those who protect him or seek his favors." The author is right also when he says that "the hypothesis of the 'betrayal to Germany' by the Empress cannot be accepted." It is to be regretted, therefore, that he attempts to revive, on entirely inadequate evidence, the familiar and shopworn accusation that Nicholas II, under the influence of Rasputin and the Empress, was preparing for a separate peace with Germany. Far more convincing is the chapter on the disintegration of the army, a gradual demoralization that began during the early period of the war and was a potent factor in undermining the imperial regime. The author is again on excellent ground when he describes the helplessness of the Duma, confronted with the rising revolutionary tide which soon swept it away. And he correctly pictures the revolution as a spontaneous movement in the organization of which the revolutionary parties and organized labor had hardly any share at all. Nor were the Duma politicians and liberal intellectuals who were discussing the necessity of a change of government the real force behind the revolutionary drama. The force was the mob. "Oh, yes, of course it was not handsome to look at. Peasants' jackets, army coats, sweat shirts, leather half-coats, greased boots. *** They were odorous, not of scent, but of tar, sheepskin and toil. The fragrant smoke of Turkish cigarettes and Havana cigars was lost in the thick, biting stench of plebeian cut tobacco. *** But woe to him who tried to deceive it [the mob] or toss it aside with lordly contempt, like a useless ladder." Chernov's description of the period of the Provisional Government is on a different plane. Like the earlier chapters, this part of his book contains a wealth of information, many vivid and telling pictures and some brilliant characterizations -- for instance, those of Kerensky and Miliukov. But here the sober and objective judgement of the historian is clearly outweighed by the passion of the political leader. This is not necessarily a criticism. Chernov and his friends made heavy personal sacrifices in their struggle against Czardom. For a few brief months the Social Revolutionary party, of which he was the leader, seemed to command the overwhelming support of the country. This party, the historian is not completely submerged in Chernov the political leader, the author not infrequently contradicts himself. He still thinks that by doing this and not doing that the entire course of the revolution might have been changed and he refuses to accept the view that the downfall of the empire and the Bolshevist revolution were merely two stages of a single indivisible historical process. Chernov says that the Provisional Government of March, 1917, was an obvious anachronism. It does not occur to him that the Social Revolutionary party, with its program of political terrorism, its quaint scheme of historical development, its idealization of the Russian peasantry, its advocacy of the right of each of the use of the land and of the "equalitarian redistribution" of land was also an anachronism in 1917. It is a vigorous statement of this faith -- probably the last of its kind -- that makes this part of Chernov's book particularly valuable as a historical document. Nineteen years have elapsed since 1917 and we can today contemplate the events of those fateful months with considerable objectivity. "Taken by itself the work of the Provisional Government does not count in the political evolution of the Russian State," writes Baron Nolde. "One thinks of it as one thinks of the years of youth full of extravagance, of idealistic conceptions and of generous intentions never realized. The two historical phenomena that appear at the beginning and at the end of the period of transition are vastly more important than these vague dreams and these attempts both disorderly and sterile." Chernov's efforts to prove the contrary only confirms the justice of this verdict. Jack Dempsey wired Jim Tully asking him if he needed ten grand. Tully said no. That's the story. Greenberg, Publisher, tells it blandly, in announcing that he's issuing Mr. Tully's novel, "The Bruiser." "THIS IS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE WRITTEN" says SINCLAIR LEWIS Theodore Dreiser, Bernard Shaw, and Harry Elmer Barnes join with Sinclair Lewis in acclaiming THE STORY OF THE HUMAN RACE A Most Important and Timely Volume THE STORY OF THE HUMAN RACE has sold more than 100,000 copies and been acclaimed the world over by such eminent men as Shaw, Dreiser, Lewis, and Professor Beard. It takes you through the lives of Moses, Confucius, Plato, Caesar, Mohammed, Jesus, and other world leaders, up to and including the leaders of today. Nothing like it has ever been done before -- and it is doubtful if it will ever be done again! THE STORY OF THE HUMAN RACE should be read by everyone, for it is one of the most important and timely books ever written. 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If, after 5 days you do not find it one of the most inspiring and exciting books you have ever read, send it back and your money will be cheerfully refunded. We can afford to sell it at this low price, because in order to fill the demand we are turning it out in ever- increasing quantities. Send No Money SEND COUPON TO YOUR BOOKSELLER OR TO WINCHELL-THOMAS CO., Publishers C-11 116 Bedford Street, Boston, Mass. Please send me for 5 days free examination THE STORY OF THE HUMAN RACE by Henry Thomas, Ph.D. I will pay the postman $3.25, which includes the small postage and handling charge. It is understood that if I am not thoroughly delighted with my purchase, I will return it within 5 days and my money will be cheerfully refunded. Name Address City State If you wish to send $3 with coupon, you save postage HOW TO DRAW CARTOONS SUCCESSFULLY by Carl Anderson. A practical book by a great cartoonist. Simply written. Just what the beginner needs. Greenberg: Publisher, 67 W. 44 St., N.Y.C. $1.50 FREE PriceList of new and USED Text and Reference BOOKS FIRST EDITIONS BOUGHT and SOLD BIBLIOPHILE DIVISION OVER ONE MILLION VOLUMES - Est. 1902 COLLEGE BOOKS CO. DEPT. T COLUMBUS OHIO WE ALSO BUY BOOKS Improve Your French This Easy, Pleasant Way WITH THE Little French Newspaper PRINTED IN FRENCH - Edited for American Readers The French you've learned and doubtless think you've forgotten will come back quickly just by reading this amazing little French newspaper, Le Petit Journal. Thousands who have studied French at some time are keeping The Most Important Language Next to English Itself KEEP YOUR FRENCH FLUENT BY READING THE NEWS OF FRANCE IN THIS SPARKLING LITTLE NEWSPAPER No other language except English itself is so important for the American to know. In the best world's literature you find frequent French words, phrases, and quotations. In social and cultural circles a knowledge of French gains instant favorable attention. Travelers learn that on the continent French is more valuable to know than English. In diplomatic and government work and in many business firms a grasp of French is essential to advancement. SoTHE GREAT RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. By Victor Chernov. Translated and abridged by Philip E. Mosely. viii+466 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press. $5. By MICHAEL T. FLORINSKY VICTOR CHERNOV is one of the arresting and picturesque figures of the Russian revolutionary movement. As the standard bearer of the Socialist Revolutionary party he was for years a bitter enemy of the imperial regime and worked relentlessly for its downfall. After the collapse of the empire in March, 1917, he took a prominent part in the work of the Soviet Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and became for a few brief but momentous weeks Minister of Agriculture in the Provisional Government under Kerensky. He was elected president of the Constituent Assembly, which was dispersed by Soviet Soldiers in January, 1918. Chernov, who escaped, has since been an active opponent of the Moscow government. "The Great Russian Revolution" is the English version of the first half of the author's projected four- volume history of the revolution. The first Russian volume appeared in Paris in 1934. The second volume, so far as the reviewer has been able to ascertain, has not yet been published and the English translation was, presumably, made from the manuscript. The present English version deals with the causes of the disintegration of the empire and with the history of the Provisional Government up to the establishment of the Soviet rule. Chernov's political career, as well as the nature of his subject, has determined the character of his book. Some of his chapters - those dealing with the causes of the revolution, the dynasty, the Duma, the breakdown of the army, the character of the original Provisional Government under Prince Lvov - are the work of the historian. The bulk of his volume, however, devoted to the policies of the Provisional Government and the conditions in Russia after the revolution, is distinctly an apology and an attempt to vindicate the views he and his supporters advanced in 1917. In spite of this lack of a single approach, Chernov has succeeded in making a very real contribution to the understanding of an important period in the history of Russia. He is familiar with the sources and he has given a clear and telling picture of the essential trends that brought about the upheaval of 1917. He writes well and has a real gift for vivid characterization and a keen sense of dramatic effect. It is only fair to the author to add that the abbreviations and reshuffling of material indulged in by his American editors are certainly no improvement on the Russian text. Chernov's discussion of the disintegration of the machinery of the imperial government is eloquent and eminently sound. It is not perhaps a very novel interpretation, but the story is told with great force and with many interesting details. Few will disagree with the author that "in the Rasputin episode there was something terrifying, *** because she [the Empress] and the Czar and the crowds of Ministers and princes of the church, who displayed this spiritual poverty and low level of moral consciousness, held in their hands, at the most critical moment of the world's history, the fate of a colossal country stretching from the polar ice to the sun-scorched wilderness of Central Asia and from the Baltic to the Pacific." Chernov rightly admits that Rasputin "has no policy, in the higher sense of the word. He merely wishes to overthrow whoever dislikes him and to elevate those who protect him and to elevate those who protect him or seek his favors." The author is right also when he says that "the hypothesis of the 'betrayal to Germany' by the Empress cannot be accepted." It is to be regretted, therefore, that he attempts to revive, on entirely inadequate evidence, the familiar and shopworn accusation that Nicholas II, under the influence of Rasputin and the Empress, was preparing for a separate peace with Germany. Far more convincing is the chapter on the disintegration of the army, a gradual demoralization that began during the early period of the war and was a potent factor in undermining the imperial regime. The author is again on excellent ground when he describes the helplessness of the Duma, confronted with the rising revolutionary tide which soon swept it away. And he correctly pictures the revolution as a spontaneous movement. in the organization of which the revolutionary parties and organized labor had hardly any share at all. Nor were the Duma politicians and liberal intellectuals who were discussing the necessity of a change of government the real force behind the revolutionary drama. This force was the mob. "Oh, yes, of course, it was not handsome to look at. Peasants' jackets, army coats, sweat shirts, leather half-coats, greased boots. *** They were odorous, not of scent, but of tar, sheepskin and toil. The fragrant smoke of Turkish cigarettes and Havana cigars was lost in the thick, biting stench of plebian cut tobacco. *** But woe to him who tried to deceive it [the mob] or toss it aside with lordly contempt, like a useless ladder." Chernov's description of the period of the Provisional Government is on a different plane. Like the earlier chapters, this part of his book contains a wealth of information, many vivid and telling pictures and some brilliant characterizations - for instance, those of Kerensky and Miliukov. But here the sober and objective judgement of the historian is clearly outweighed by the passion of the political leader. This is not necessarily a criticism. Chernov and his friends made heavy personal sacrifices in their struggle against Czardom. For a few brief months the Social Revolutionary party, of which he was the leader, seemed to command the overwhelming support of the country. This party, which has traditionally claimed to represent the interests and aspirations of the untold millions of the Russian peasantry, had a majority in the Soviet in 1917 and Chernov was the Minister of Agriculture. Then came the debacle. Chernov and his friends found themselves, once more, in prison or in exile, together with the representatives of bourgeois Russia they so profoundly despised. It is only natural that the leader should try to explain. Chernov believes that the failure of the Socialist revolutionaries and their political friends was due to the stubbornness and blindness of the bourgeois groups and to the unscrupulous methods of the Bolsheviki. He concedes that the lack of administrative experience of the "revolutionary democracy" was also partially to blame. His argument, however, appears strangely unconvincing and since Chernov the historian is not completely submerged by Chernov the political leader, the author not infrequently contradicts himself. He still thinks that by doing this and not doing that the entire course of the revolution might have been changed and he refuses to accept the view that the downfall of the empire and the Bolshevist revolution were merely two stages of a single indivisible historical process. Chernov says that the Provisional Government of March 1917 was an obvious anachronism. It does not occur to him that the Social Revolutionary party, with its program of political terrorism, its quaint scheme of historical development, its idealization of the Russian peasantry, its advocacy of the right of each of the use of the land and of the "equalitarian redistribution" of land was also an anachronism in 1917. It is a vigorous statement of this faith - probably the last of its kind - that makes this part of Chernov's book particularly valuable as a historical document. Nineteen years have elapsed since 1917 and we can today contemplate the events of those fateful months with considerable objectivity. "Taken by itself the work of the Provisional Government does not count in the political evolution of the Russian State," write Baron Nolde. "One thinks of it as one thinks of the years of youth full of extravagance, of idealistic conceptions and of generous intentions never realized. The two historical phenomena that appear at the beginning and at the end of the period of transition are vastly more important than these vague dreams and these attempts both disorderly and sterile." Chernov's effort to prove the contrary only confirms the justice of this verdict. - Jack Dempsey wired Jim Tully asking him if he needed ten grand. Tully said no. That's the story. Greenberg, Publisher, tells it blandly, in announcing that he's issuing Mr. Tully's novel, "The Bruiser." - THIS IS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE WRITTEN" says SINCLAIR LEWIS - Theodore Dreiser, Bernard Shaw, and Harry Elmer Barnes join with Sinclair Lewis in acclaiming THE STORY OF THE HUMAN RACE THE STORY OF THE HUMAN RACE has sold more than 100,000 copies and been acclaimed the world over by such eminent men as Shaw, Dreiser, Lewis, and Professor Beard. It takes you through the lives of Moses, Confucious, Plato, Caesar, Mohammed, Jesus, and other world leaders, up to and including the leaders of today. Nothing like it has ever been done before - and it is doubtful if it will ever be done again! A Most Important and Timely Volume THE STORY OF THE HUMAN RACE should be read by everyone, for it is one of the most important and timely books ever written. 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If you wish to send $3 with coupon, you save postage HOW TO DRAW CARTOONS SUCCESSFULLY by Carl Anderson. A practical book by a great cartoonist. Simply written. Just what the beginning needs. Greenberg: Publisher, 67 W. 44 St., N.Y.C. $1.50 FREE Price List of new and USED Text and Reference BOOKS OVER ONE MILLION VOLUMES - EST.1902 COLLEGE BOOKS CO. DEPT.T COLUMBUS OHIO WE ALSO BUY BOOKS FIRST EDITIONS BOUGHT and SOLD - BIBLIOPHILE DIVISION Improve Your French This Easy, Pleasant Way with the Little French Newspaper Printed in French - Edited for American Readers The French you've learned and doubtless think you've forgotten will come back quickly just by reading this amazing little French newspaper, LE PETIT JOURNAL. Thousands who have studied French at some time are keeping their grasp of this beautiful and valuable language by reading the fresh news of France , printed in French but edited for American readers - with footnotes translating the more unusual words and idioms. 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Read Le Petit Journal. MORE FUN THAN FRENCH LESSONS - Much Cheaper, too! If you are now studying French you will find LE PETIT JOURNAL a pleasant, stimulating supplement to your formal textbook study. If you want to revive and improve your French you can do it this way without lessons - for less than 10c an issue! MAIL THIS COUPON TODAY LE PETIT JOURNAL Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc., Garden City, N.Y. Enter my trial subscription to LE PETIT JOURNAL for 12 issues for $1.00 and bill me with the first issue. I will send $1.00 payment in full, or notify you to discontinue the newspaper and I will owe nothing. N.Y.T. 11-8-36 Name.......................................................................................... Address...................................................................................... City..................................................State...................................This picture represents a room in a peasant's house (Isba). A government official came to collect land taxes and the whole family is grief stricken as there is nothing to pay them with.The [?an's] Journal PUBLISHED 47 YEARS CONTINUOUSLY. OLDEST SUFFRAGE NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD Founded in 1870 by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell. BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, MARCH 24, 1917 PRICE THREE CENTS Russian Revolution Brings Mme. Breshkovsky Back from Exile Little Grandmother of the Revolution Invited to Return From Siberia by Special Action of Duma After Thirty Years of Persecution HAS BEEN CEASELESS WORKER FOR RUSSIAN FREEDOM The news from Russia has brought joy to all the friends of freedom. One item in the great story has been read with especial delight by many Americans. This is the announcement that the new Minister of Justice has invited home from Siberia Mrs. Catherine Breshkovsky, known to thousands by the affectionate name of Babushka, the "grandmother" of the revolution— "the miracle woman," as the Siberian peasants call her. For years she has been hounded and persecuted. Now the Duma has appointed a committee to escort her back to Russia, where a great ovation awaits her. When Mrs. Breshkovsky visited America in 1904 she made a deep impression upon all who became acquainted with her. Her friends are now recalling the main facts of her remarkable life—a life carrying a lesson for all who are working for human freedom in any line and anywhere. Tried to Apply Christianity Here was a woman who never feared to "take part in politics." A daughter of the nobility, her heart was always with the peasants. To an American friend she said: "My mother was deeply religious. Ignoring the false pomps of the Greek Church, she tried only to impress on her children the ethical teachings of Christ. The incongruity between those teachings and our life soon bewildered me. My mother told me to treat the servants as brothers and sisters, but when she found me chatting in the great kitchen she sternly told me that I must not forget my place as a nobleman's daughter. She taught me Christ's command to give away all that I had and follow him, but when the next morning I went out and gave my handsome little cloak to a shivering peasant child, again she sharply reproved me. I had long spells of thinking. "My father helped me think. He was a man of broad, liberal ideas. We read together many books of science and travel. Social science absorbed me. I saw the poor, degraded serfs around me, and longed to see them free. Filled with young enthusiasm, I opened a little school near our estate." Horrors Following Emancipation Then came the emancipation of the serfs, but at first it made the people's lot worse rather than better. Under the old regime each serf had had a plot of ground on which he raised food for his family. He had supposed that this bit of ground would still belong to him after he was free. Instead, he was driven from it and placed upon a small strip of the poorest soil to be free and starve. Mrs. Breshkovsky said: "He was bewildered; he could not imagine himself without his old plot of land. In dull but growing rage, he refused to leave his plot for the wretched strip. 'Masters,' he cried, 'how can I feed my little ones through a Russian winter? Such land means death.' This cry rose all over Russia. "The government appointed in every district an 'arbiter' to persuade the peasants. The arbiter failed. Then troops were quartered in their huts, families were starved, old people were beaten, daughters were raped. The peasants grew more wild, and then began the flogging. In a village near ours, where they refused to leave their plots of land, they were driven into line on the village street; every tenth man was called out and flogged with the knout; some died. Two weeks later, as they still held out, every fifth man was flogged. The poor ignorant creatures still held desperately to what they thought their rights; again the line, and now every man was dragged forward to the flogging. This process lasted five years all over Russia, until at last, bleeding and exhausted, the peasants gave in. "I heard heartrending stories in my little schoolhose, and many more through my father, the arbiter of our district. The peasants thronged to our house day and night. Many were carried in crippled by the knout; sobbing wives told of husbands killed before their eyes. Often the poor wretches literally grovelled, clasping my father's knees, begging him to search for help in that mysterious region—the law court. From such interviews he came to me worn and haggard. Meets Prince Kropotkin "I felt that tremendous economic and political changes must be made; but I was not yet a revolutionist, only a Liberal. To seek guidance, to find what older heads were thinking, I went at nineteen with my mother and sister to St. Petersburg. Into our compartment on the train came a handsome young prince returning from official duties in Siberia. For hours he discussed with me the problems that were pressing upon us. His words thrilled like fire. Our excited voices rose steadily higher, until my mother begged me to speak low. The young prince is now an old man in exile. His name is Peter Kropotkin. Classes for Women Forbidden "In St. Petersburg I entered the central group of Liberals, men and women of noble birth and university training; doctors, lawyers, journalists, novelists, poets, scientists, the most highly educated people in Russia. Since higher education for women was strictly forbidden, they had already become criminals by opening classes for women in the natural and political sciences. All these classes I eagerly joined, constantly attending their secret meetings. Again my mother grew frightened, and at last she took me home. During theMME CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY invited home from Siberia. Mrs. Catherine Breshkovsky, known to thousands by the affectionate name of Babushka, the "grandmother" of the revolution - "the miracle woman," as the Siberian peasants call her. For years she has been hounded and persecuted. Now the Duma has appointed a committee to escort her back to Russia, where a great ovation awaits her. When Mrs. Breshkovsky visited America in 1904 she made a deep impression upon all who became acquainted with her. Her friends are now recalling the main facts of her remarkable life - a life carrying a lesson for all who are working for human freedom in any line and anywhere. Tried to Apply Christianity Here was a woman who never feared to "take part in politics." A daughter of the nobility, her heart was always with her peasants. To an American friend she said: "My mother was deeply religious. Ignoring the false pomps of the Greek Church, she tried only to impress on her children the ethical teachings of Christ. The incongruity between those teachings and our life soon bewildered me. My mother told me to treat the servants as brothers and sisters, but when she found me chatting in the great kitchen she sternly told me that I must not forget my place as a nobleman's daughter. She taught me Christ's command to give away all that I had and follow him, but when the next morning I went out and gave my handsome little cloak to a shivering peasant child, again she sharply reproved me. I had long spells of thinking. "My father helped me think. He was a man of broad, liberal ideas. We read together many books of science and travel. Social science absorbed me. I saw the poor, degraded serfs around me, and longed to see them free. Filled with young enthusiasm, I opened a little school near our estate." Horrors Following Emancipation Then came the emancipation of the serfs, but at first it made the people's lot worse rather than better. Under the old regime each serf had had a plot of ground on which he raised food for his family. He had supposed that this bit of ground would still belong to him after he was free. Instead, he was driven from it and placed upon a small strip of the poorest soil to be free and starve. Mrs. Breshkovsky said: "He was bewildered; he could not imagine himself without his old plot of land. In dull but growing rage, he refused to leave his plot for the wretched strip. 'Masters,' he cried, 'how can I feed my little ones through a Russian winter? Such land means death.' This cry rose all over Russia. "The government appointed in every district an 'arbiter' to persuade the peasants. The arbiter failed. Then troops were quartered in their huts, families were starved, old people were beaten, daughters were raped. The peasants grew more wild, and then began the flogging. Ina village near ours, where they refused to leave their plots of land, they were driven into line on the village street; every tenth man was called out and flogged with the knout; some died. Two weeks later, as they still held out, every fifth man was flogged. The poor ignorant creatures still held desperately to what they thought their rights; again the line, and now every man was dragged forward to the flogging. This process lasted five years all over Russia, until at last, bleeding and exhausted, the peasants gave in. "I heard heartrending stories in my little schoolhose, and many more through my father, the arbiter of our district. The peasants thronged to our house day and night. Many were carried in crippled by the knout; sobbing wives told of husbands killed before their eyes. Often the poor wretches literally grovelled, clasping my father's knees, begging him to search for help in that mysterious region - the law court. From such interviews he came to me worn and haggard. Meets Prince Kropotkin "I felt that tremendous economic and political changes must be made; but I was not yet a revolutionist, only a liberal. To seek guidance, to find what older heads were thinking, I went at nineteen with my mother and sister to St. Petersburg. Into our compartment on the train came a handsome young prince returning from official duties in Siberia. For hours he discussed with me the problems that were pressing upon us. His words thrilled like fire. Our excited voices rose steadily higher, until my mother begged me to speak low. The young prince is now an old man in exile. His name is Peter Kropotkin. Classes for Women Forbidden "In St. Petersburg I entered the central group of Liberals, men and women of noble birth and university training; doctors, lawyers, journalists, novelists, poets, scientists, the most highly educated people in Russia. Since higher education for women was strictly forbidden, they had already become criminals by opening classes for women in the natural and political sciences. All these classes I eagerly joined, constantly attending their secret meetings. Again my mother grew frightened, and at last she took me home. During the next three years, however, I returned again and again, traveled to other cities, and met Liberal people all over Russia. Started Schools for Peasants "Then my father called me home. Here I resolved to support myself and help the peasants. My father built me a small boarding school for girls, and through the influence of my relatives I received many pupils. He built, too, a cottage in which I could teach the peasants. I now drew closer to them. I began to realize the dull memory every peasant had of flogging and toil from time immemorial. I felt their subconscious but heart-deep longing for freedom. Marries Liberal Land Owner "Three years later I married a liberal, broad-minded land-owner who took a deep interest in our district zemstvo. He established for me a peasants' agricultural school.Several of the younger land owners became interested in our work, and we met together frequently. This was my last attempt at Liberalist reform. Peasants Try for Reform "It is a poor patriot that will not thoroughly try his government before he rises against it. We searched the laws and edicts; we found certain scant and long-neglected peasants' rights of local suffrage; and then we began showing the peasants how to use these rights they already had. They crowded to the local elections and began electing as judges, arbiters and other officials the Liberals who honestly had the peasants' (Continued on page 71.) MANAGER SYSTEM SOON AT WORK IN KANSAS Non-Partisan Board of Administration Will Pick Man to Supervise Institutions The first State to have its institutions conducted on a strictly business and non-partisan basis will be Kansas, where women vote. Gov. Arthur Capper has signed the State manger bill, and a non-partisan board of administration will soon appoint a manager to take charge of all State institutions now governed by political boards. The manager also will be purchasing agent for the State. Kansas expects greater economy and more efficiency in the management of all State institutions. The manager is to be picked irrespective of political affiliations or business associations. He will be held accountable for every cent spent, the way it is spent and what the State gets for it. This State manager idea is an enlargement of the city manager plan of government. Everyone interested in good government will watch Kansas more closely in the future. The last Legislature enacted a law whereby any city in Kansas may adopt the manager form of government if its people so desire. Two cities have recently rejected the idea, but by very close margins. MME. BRESHKOVSKY BACK FROM EXILES (Continue from page 67.) interests at heart. But when the more despotic land owners were ousted from the zemstvo and lost their source of 'graft,' their leader denounced us to the Minister of the Interior as a band of conspirators. Several of us were exiled to Siberia; my husband and I were put under police surveillance, and my father was deposed from the office without trial, as a 'dangerous man.' Punished as criminals for teaching the peasant his legal rights, we saw the government as it was, the System of Corruption, watching jealously through spies and secret police that their peasant victim might not be taught anything that could make him think or act like a man." Becomes a Revolutionist Thousands of other educated Russians who had tried to help the peasants in peaceful ways had the same experience. Their schools were closed and the teachers persecuted. They became convinced of the necessity of a change of government. Mrs. Breshkovsky became a revolutionist with the rest. She invited her husband to take part with her in the work. She says: "I was 26 years old. My husband, like me, had a whole life before him, and therefore I thought it only fair to speak frankly. I asked him if he were willing to suffer exile or death in the cause of freedom. He said he was not. Then I left him. Organizing Among the Peasants "I went to Kief, joined a revolutionary group, and traveled from town to town, spreading our ideas among the Liberals. As our numbers swelled we resolved to reach the peasants themselves. "We put on peasant dress, to elude the police and to break down the peasants' cringing distrust. I dressed in enormous bark shoes, coarse shirt and drawers and heavy cloak. I used acid on my face and hands; I worked and ate with the peasants; I learned their speech; I traveled on foot forging passports; I lived 'illegally.' "By night I did my organizing. You desire a picture? A low room with mud floor and walls. Rafters just over your head, and still higher, thatch. The room was packed with men, women, and children. Two big fellows sat up on the high brick stove, with their dangling feet knocking occasional applause. These people had been gathered by my host, a brave peasant whom I picked out, and he in turn had chosen only those whom Siberia could not terrify. I now recalled their floggings; I pointed to those who were crippled for life; to women whose husbands died under the lash; and when I asked if men were to be forever flogged, then they would cry out so fiercely that the three or four cattle in the next room would bellow and have to be quieted. Again I would ask what chances their babies had of living, and in reply some peasant woman would tell how her baby died the winter before. Why? I asked. Because they had only the most wretched strips of land. To be free and live, the people must own the land! From my cloak I would bring a book of fables written to teach our principles and stir the love of freedom. And then far into the night, the fire light showed a circle of great, broad faces and dilated eyes, staring with all the reverence every peasant has for that mysterious thing - a book. Sold Clothes and Jewels for Freedom "These books, twice as effective as oral work, were printed in secrecy at heavy expense. But many of us had libraries, jewels, costly gowns and furs to sell; and new recruits kept adding to our fund. We had no personal expenses. "Often, betrayed by some peasant spy, I left a village quickly, before completing my work. Then the hut group was left to meet under a peasant who could read aloud those wonderful fables. So they dreamed, until a few weeks laterinterest at heart. But when the more despotic land owners were ousted from the zemstvo and lost their source of 'graft,' their leader denounced us to the Minister of the Interior as a band of conspirators. Several of us were exiled to Siberia; my husband and I were put under police surveillance, and my father was deposed from office without trial, as a 'dangerous man.' Punished as criminals for teaching the peasant his legal rights, we saw the government as it was, the System of Corruption, watching jealously through spies and secret police that their peasant victim might not be taught anything that could make him think or act like a man." Becomes a Revolutionist Thousands of other educated Russians who had tried to help the peasants in peaceful ways had the same experience. Their schools were closed and the teachers persecuted. They became convinced of the necessity of a change of government. Mrs. Breshkovsky became a revolutionist with the rest. She invited her husband to take part with her in the work. She says: "I was 26 years old. My husband, like me, had a whole life before him, and therefore I thought it only fair to speak frankly. I asked him if he were willing to suffer exile or death in the cause of freedom. He said he was not. Then I left him. Organizing Among the Peasants "I went to Kief, joined a revolutionary group, and traveled from town to town, spreading our ideas among the Liberals. As our numbers swelled we resolved to reach the peasants themselves. "We put on peasant dress, to elude the police and to break down the peasants' cringing distrust. I dressed in enormous bark shoes, coarse shirt and drawers and heavy cloak. I used acid on my face and hands; I worked and ate with the peasants; I learned their speech; I traveled on foot, forging passports; I lived 'illegally.' "By night I did my organizing. You desire a picture? A low room with mud floor and walls. Rafters just over your head, and still higher, thatch. The room was packed with men, women and children. Two big fellows sat up on the high brick stove, with their dangling feet knocking occasional applause. These people had been gathered by my host, a brave peasant whom I picked out, and he in turn had chosen those whom Siberia could not terrify. I now recalled their floggings; I pointed to those who were crippled for life; to women whose husbands died under the lash; and when I asked if men were to be forever flogged, then they would cry out so fiercely that the three or four cattle in the next room would bellow and have to be quieted. Again I would ask what chances their babies had of living, and in reply some peasant woman would tell how her baby died the winter before. Why? I asked. Because they had only the most wretched strips of land. To be free and live, the people must own the land! From my cloak I would bring a book of fables written to teach our principles and stir the love of freedom. And the far into the night, the fire light showed a circle of great, broad faces and dilated eyes, staring with all the reverence every peasant had for that mysterious thing—a book. Sold Clothes and Jewels for Freedom "These books, twice as effective as oral work, were printed in secrecy at heavy expense. But many of us had libraries, jewels, costly gowns and furs to sell; and new recruits kept adding to our fund. We had no personal expenses. "Often, betrayed by some peasant spy, I left a village quickly, before completing my work. Then the hut group was left to meet under a peasant who could read aloud those wonderful fables. So they dreamed, until a few weeks later another leader in disguise came to them. People's Party Is Started "In that year of 1874 over two thousand educated people traveled among the peasants. An underground system was started, a correspondence cipher was (Continued on page 72.)THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER 895 Letters to the Editor A Modern Heroine To the Editor of THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER :- I wish to call attention to the excellent work that Mrs. Katherine R. Weller is carrying on in Russian Carpathia. Ten years ago, an American lady came to see me in Prague. It was Mrs. Weller. She came from Paris, where, during the war, she had been for three years a nurse in the Russian soldiers' hospital. Now the war was over, the hospital was closed, and nurses were no longer needed. But Mrs. Weller had learned to love the long-suffering Russian people, and she asked me to take her to Russia, so that we might work together there. As it was impossible to go to Russia because of the Bolsheviki, I advised her to remain in Czechoslovakia, which has a province, Russian Carpathia, where the people are of Slavonic blood, and are practically a branch of the Russian race. They are very poor and ignorant, but admirably gifted by nature, both physically and mentally, and eager for education. I had already visited this province, and was glad to see that its people, oppressed for centuries under the cruel yoke of the Magyars, were ready to welcome a friendly stranger who came to help them to learn and to improve. Mrs. Weller at once took their interests to heart. She looked after those who were ill, and gave money to the needy ; but her most useful piece of work has been the establishment of a Home for orphan girls. Year after year, she has not only fed and clothed them, but taught them nursing, housework, sewing, etc. Those who are old enough have already begun to work as nurses, servants, or in other vocations ; but every year new girls come in, some as young as three years old, to be trained to become intelligent, obedient and active little women. At the same time Mrs. Weller keeps on with her other benevolent work among the peasants, helping the suffering, and giving advice ; and her voice now carries much weight in the district. She takes an active interest in church and school affairs, since these concern her little girls. This wide and varied range of work is a heavy burden for one woman to carry, but Mrs. Weller perseveres, and cannot be persuaded to take a rest, even for the sake of her health. She is determined that her work shall continue, even when she is gone, and has made legal arrangements leaving all her property in Czechoslovakia as an endowment for her Home. It is not much. The house where she now lives with her orphans is beautifully situated among the Carpathian mountains. There is a neat little garden, a kitchen garden, and a small field. She is so profoundly wrapped up in her good work that she has become a servant-citizen of that needy population. Her address is Mrs. Katherine R. Weller, Selo a posta Neresnica, Karpatska Ruska, Czechoslovakia. Letters of sympathy from America would bring encouragement to a woman who, under countless difficulties, is fervently devoted to the welfare of the forsaken and the suffering. CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY. PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Peace and Brute Force To the Editor of the Christian Register :- In his letter appearing in THE REGISTER for September 24, W.K. Robbins presents the militarist's case with the same sort of reasoning that has been used through the ages to defend the militarist's cause. In this particular instance both peace and the peace agitator are condemned on two main counts each : I. Against Peace. 1. War can never be abolished among civilized nations, human nature being what it is. 2. Armies and navies are as necessary for national protection as police for city protection. II. Against the Pacifist. 1. He is inconsistent in agitating for peace. 2. He courts publicity for publicity's sake. In Mr. Robbin's opinion certain human traits such as lack of understanding, injustice, and the desire for power, preclude the possibility of total disarmament, or indeed even partial disarmament. These traits he mentions are human traits. But are they any more human than their opposites - understanding, justice, the desire for righteousness? So much more real are these latter that it is only through them that we know the former for what they are - deprivations. How build on such foundations at all? The function of a city's police force and a nation's fighting force are wholly disparate. The one exists to protect a community from its worst citizens ; the other for the organized slaughter of all possible citizens of some other community. If the police of rival cities such as Baltimore and Washington, for instance, or Milwaukee and St. Paul, were trained and held in readiness for meeting one another in occasional pitched battles to decide the respective merits of their cities then we would have a situation comparable to the maintenance of standing armies and navies by rival nations. To charge the peace agitator with desiring contention or war is to have recourse to a flimsy sophism. The organization of the intelligent against meaningless brute force is not war. Finally, whether or not he is interested in seeing his name in print, the peace promoter is getting front-page publicity these days. But it is not because he is spectacular necessarily. Peace and the abolition of arms are growing of tremendous import to the world. M. WHITCOMB HESS. ATHENS, OHIO.THE OPEN FORUM Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.----Milton Vol. 6 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, MAY 25, 1929 No. 21 Catherine Breshkovsky—Aristocrat of the Spirit Among the glorious band of men and women who devoted their lives to the great cause of freeing Russia, there was never a nobler figure than that of Catherine Breshkovsky. She devoted her life to it at a time when that life was at its fairest. Born in the nobility, living in the midst of wealth and culture, she was happy with her young husband and her baby son. But in the long run the realization of the misery and the oppression of the people drove her to her resolution. Her husband, though liberal-minded, was not willing to take the last decisive step; she kissed him and her baby goodby and went forth into the darkness of revolutionary propaganda. Think, mothers, of the devotion that will drive a woman to leave her baby son! She is now a woman over eighty. Thirty-three years of her life were passed in prison or in Siberian exile. She became known in America through Kennan's description of her in his famous book on Siberia, and later by the two visits she made here to raise money for the coming Russian Revolution. In 1905, when the rising took place which was so nearly successful, just when the struggle was at its height, she, with old Nicholas Tchaikovsky, rushed to Moscow— only to fall into the hands of the enemy. When everything had been suppressed they were put on trial. The different courses they took then were afterwards much discussed. When the case came up and the prosecutor charged Tchaikovsky with being the leader of the Social-Revolutionists, he was very much astonished when, instead of proudly avowing the fact, Tchaikovsky calmly called on him to prove it. Why, everybody knew that Tchaikovsky was the leader! But between everybody knowing it and a prosecutor proving it in a court of law there was quite a difference. Eventually, anyhow, in some way or other, some sort of an understanding was arrived at. Tchaikovsky was released, but he was to cease preaching revolution. The old man, always wise, sensible and level-headed, serene in his consciousness of a long life entirely devoted to the movement from the days when he was No. 1 of the famous Tchaikovsky circles, had decided that with his experience and influence he could be more useful to the cause working in Russia than suffering in Siberia. He set to work in the development of the co-operative movement. If that is now the greatest hope left to Russia, it is in large part due to the work of Tchaikovsky and those he influenced. The writer has no small pride in the fact that it was he who first called Tchaikovsky's attention to the possibilities for the coming new society of the co-operative movement in Great Britain. But Breshkovskaya, No! Not in her nature to show a trace of what either friend or foe might possibly think to be a weakness. "Yes, I am your enemy, your enemy till the last breath I draw!" She was sent to the fortress of St. Peter and Paul, the most secure and the most cruel of all the prisons of the Czar. Cut off entirely from the world as she was, her many friends worried about her sorely. No admission or communication was possible for any of them. But at last they thought of her son, who as her son might claim his right to a visit, that son whom as a baby she had left behind when she made the plunge, now grown a man whom his mother had never seen. Approached by those friends he applied for permission to see his mother, and obtained it. But, alas, when admitted to her cell he made the mistake of trying to persuade her into some concession— and the heroic old woman turned her back to him. Later, however, thing were relaxed and she was sent to Siberia. And there, finally, one great day, the news arrived that Russia had at last thrown off her chains and was free! As "Babushka," the Little Grandmother of the Revolution, she was made one of the great figures in Free Russia. Lodged in the Czar's old palace, surrounded by an enthusiastically admiring people, she kept her head nevertheless and, old as she was, turned actively to the work of education for the masses. When ultimately the Bolsheviki seized power, suppressing the meeting of the Constituent Assembly elected by the people and suppressing also all criticism or protest, Babushka and Tchaikovsky were among those who took up once more the old struggle for a Russia in which all men could speak their minds freely. Tchaikovsky declared publicly that if free speech was to be suppressed again as in the time of the Czar he would go back (at eighty) to the bombs of his youth. In vain. The Social Revolutionaries seem to have been humbugged and betrayed by their generals just as easily as the Anarchist-Communists were by the Bolsheviki. Both the old people had to leave Russia. Tchaikovsky went back to London, where he died. Babushka went off to Ruthenia. The Ruthenians are a people of Russian stock who by some accident of history have been left stranded in the eastern slopes of the Carpathians, far away from their kin. There had been for them till Babushka came no instruction in their mother tongue. They were totally illiterate. But Ruthenia was attached after the war to Czecho-Slovakia and Babushka started schools for them. The progress made is told of in the letter from her give below, sent in reply to one from the writer when the letter of Alice Stone Blackwell, published in this paper, gave him the "Little Grandmother's" address. "No greater pleasure as to be not forgotten by people than remain friends and comrades all the while of their life, dear T. H. B. Your dear letter, which I got today, transported me into the times of my sojourn with Emma Goldman, whom I love and respect for the strength of her mind and her character, and your right and splendid appreciation of our defunct friend Tchaikovsky, of his noble soul devoted to the welfare of the whole humanity, and never caring to realize his own comfort. He was a big fighter on any platform of human rights. Very glad I am to hear you continue to work in company that sees clearly the circumstances in Russia and that you expose the true state of affairs that continue to distort, destroy and torment the poor Russian people, so able yet so ignorant. I am happy to say that the time approaches when we hope to see annihilated the powers of the party of so-called 'Communists.' I have constant connection with Russia and know all the details of their ferocity and graft and foolishness... I know also that our peasants and workers become much more intelligent, discerning the right. We wait. "Yes, myself—I exist and my work for the Carpats gives me some consolation. Young generations have to be teached, enlightened to make better citizens. Some of them are already teachers themselves and promise to be of use. My second work is to respond to the many letters I get from several countries and out of Russia, too. "My health is not so bad, but my eyes don't wish to serve correctly. I am obliged to have an operation. I heartily thank you for your friendly letter, which revived in my mind so precious remembrances, so much beloved faces. I thank you dearly." T. H. B. No State Constabulary ST. LOUIS.—(F.P.)—After the hottest fight in history of the Missouri Federation of Labor, a state constabulary bill was killed in the Legislature. You may chain down all human rights, but leave the right of speech free, and it will unchain all the rest.—William E. Borah. Liberties Union Fights For University Victims Petition for a writ of mandamus commanding the University of Pittsburgh to reinstate the two students it expelled because of their work for the student Liberal Club and the Mooney-Billings meeting which Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes addressed—off the campus—has been filed by Henry Ellenbogen, Pittsburgh attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. The petition stresses the fact that the University's handbook of the rules, issued to all students, expressly states that "No student shall be expelled except after due hearing of his case and upon the approval of the Chancellor." Neither student was given a hearing. The petition should be granted or refused within approximately two weeks. The aid of the American Association of University Professors has been asked for Frederick E. Woltman, the instructor of philosophy whom the University of Pittsburgh discharged at the same time it expelled the two students. Henry R. Linville, on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the American Civil Liberties Union, in a letter to Prof. H. W. Tyler, secretary of the Association, asked: "Is the American Association of University Professors considering the matter of investigating the Woltman case, and if the dismissal is found to be unjust, will the Association issue a public protest?" Dr. John Gabbert Bowman, Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, in a long statement issued several days after the expulsion of the students explained his action by saying the student Liberal Club's Mooney-Billings meeting was banned because the president of the club is a Communist and the main speaker originally announced was a Communist member of the International Labor Defense. He further explained that the meeting was not prohibited because Dr. Harry Elmer Barnes was to speak, pointing out that Dr. Barnes was substituted at the last minute after the students learned Michael Morrison, Communist, would not be allowed to speak. Mob Prejudice Thrusts Two Women Into Jail Two women of Alloway, N. J., in attempting to defend themselves against the attacks of a mob which called them mulattoes and loose women, are now in the Salem County jail, forty-eight hours after their arrest in Alloway. The town boasts that it does not tolerate Negroes. Mrs. Emma Robinson, charged with disorderly conduct, was held under $300 bail; Mrs. Lillian Flemming, her sister, charged with atrocious assault and attempted murder, is held under $2000 bail. Rev. W. B. Kell, pastor of the Alloway Baptist Church, declared that he felt sure both women were "bad" and Negroes, that either charge would be enough, but that in view of both "there isn't room in the town for them." He could not give any definite source for these rumors, and their validity has not yet been established. Citizens of Alloway threw bricks through the windows of the home of the two sisters. Joseph Collier, the postmaster, leaned over their fence and attempted to grab Mrs. Flemming. She drew a small revolver. He went for the sheriff. When he and the sheriff came back, Mrs. Flemming and her sister were walking down the road toward Pennsgrove, where they formerly lived. The sheriff drew his revolver. Mrs. Flemming drew hers and shot Collier, slightly wounding him. The American Civil Liberties Union had instructed its Philadelphia attorney, David Wallerstein, to defend the women and arrange for their release from jail on bond. The blessed work of helping the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.—George Eliot.2 Builders of Antiquity Cario, "the City of Caliphs and the Mother of Civilization." Evidences of its antiquity are in its huge columns at Karnak, Thebes, Luxor, the Pyramids, and the Sphynx, which has been looking over the sea of time for 5000 years. These, together with the hieroglyphics, tell the story of a people who thought in terms so immense that we who look upon the work of their hands today are stupefied and dumb with wonder at these builders of antiquity. How could it all be done by hand then, that could not be done by machinery now? Yet even now the people are still living as they did in Bible times, riding on little burros as Mary did 2000 years ago in her flight into Egypt. We saw the very spot where she hed, near Cairo, over which a small church had been built with pictures on the walls depicting the scenes. We also saw where Moses was found in the bullrushes on the Nile. The people still live in the rudest mud huts, with roofs piled high with refuse left over from the centuries. The villages all resemble our Indian villages. Of course, the greatest thing in Cairo today is the cartload of relics taken from King Tut's tomb to be seen at the museum--several massive gold mummy cases, gold beds, chariots, enamelled furniture, alabaster vases, jewelry of most intricate design and workmanship of 4000 years ago. All oriental cities are alike-closely built, narrow, crooked streets, roughly paved, plenty of evil sights and smells. All business is carried on in the bazaars, which are only an aggregation of small cubby-holes open to the street, where all the business of the family is carried on-a bench and pillow where the breadwinner may take his siesta whenever business is slack. The men wear the same flowing robes which sweep the streets, and they are not clean yet. The women are uniformly enveloped in black crinkled crepe covering the face and all except the eyes- and even they are blackened. The people are the great show -without them the scenery loses interest. The misery of the masses all over the Orient is the same from Peking to Cairo. How neglected they are by the authorities everywhere! The excuse is non-interference with the individual, when their real business should be first, last, and all the time, the human interest. How the King (Fouad) can step out of the back door of his palace and let his eyes sweep the landscape and rest on the human misery there is hard to understand. (They say he never goes out because he has so many enemies.) I called on the American consul. They are there in the interest of the Americas. I wish they were there in the interest of Egyptians. I also visited the American College and talked with the president, Dr. Watson. They are doing a fine work and are reaching all classes from the princes "down," with the object of training then to take their places in the development of their country. He told me with great gusto that the population of Egypt is increasing by leaps and bounds. I asked why, since the cities were already full of the wretchedly poor and neglected. If the State and Church (and Allah) encourage large families, they must also shoulder the responsibility. When I suggested that just the opposite should be their object (birth control) he looked quite surprised, not to say shocked. How they do need social centers- houses or welfare to teach these unhappy children the way life should be. At least their women are not competing with men in the business world. As long ago as 1867, when Mark Twain took his famous trip abroad, he found conditions just as we find them today. He spoke of the inhuman tyranny of the Ottoman Empire in Syria. He wished Europe would let the Russians annihilate the Turks. He said the Sultan lavished in money like water in London and Paris, while his subjects suffered. The people then, as now, are ground down by the taxation to support the king and indifferent governments. The people asked them then, as now, if the greatest world outside (League of Nations) will not some day come to their rescue. The same story is true today. Sailing down the Nile, one is disappointed at the barrenness of the flat landscape-no natural vegetation- no human habitation-a sea of yellow sand stretches away to the ends of the world and the wind blows and blinds one with dust. The mountains in the distance haven't a spear of green on them, but where the land is cultivated along the Nile, alfalfa grows profusely all the year round These Moslems of today are actually afraid of the Evil Eye. Our dragoman was tattooed by his mother to ward it off. Other men had scratches on their faces put there by their mother for the same reason. We went with our dragoman to his house for tea. It was a unique and impressive experience, to be remembered with a mixture of pleasure and pain. It was strange to see the cannon balls that Napoleon fired into their beautiful old mosque from the citadel on which stands the alabaster mosque, which is a copy of St. Sophia at Constantinople. Was was and always will be the great atrocity. - Jerusalem It was surprising to learn that in Jerusalem, the Holy City, there is more religious strife than anywhere else in the world. Here there is the perpetual clash of sects. Even in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there is a chapel set apart for each of the Christian denominations, as it has been proven that they cannot worship together in peace around the grave of the Saviour of the world. Hate reigns supreme. Christians hate each other as well as Moslems, who are ninety per cent of the population; Moslems hate Christians, and all hate the Jews, who are not allowed in the Mosque of Omar. On Friday, the religious festival day, the police have a hard time to keep order. On the Via Dolorosa, the street of the Stations of the Cross, disgraceful scenes, acts of violence and vengeance are enacted. Easter week in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, people are advised to stay away, so great is the religious frenzy in a city where peace should reign supreme of all cities in the world. An unholy sight. Here also in Jerusalem, poverty, beggars and dirt abound, more than in any other city. What a shame that in this Holy of Holies, Christians have not made a fitting setting for the greatest shrine in the world. If they have not and cannot, what can we expect of human frailties anywhere on earth? How often we must feel ashamed of human nature in a world steeped in so-called religion! If only we could forget our superstitions everywhere, and come down to earth, and spend every waking hour trying to make this earth a fitting place for all here and now. K.C.G. Workers Being Taught The Price of a Union By Mary Heaton Vorse - Gastonia, N.C. - (F.P.) - Wholesale evictions have been started in their mill village of the Loray mill managers. Soon between three and four hundred people who have been on strike many weeks will be homeless. Hundreds of others will follow these. The Loray mills are taking vengeance on the 100 per cent loyal American workers who have dared to ask for a living wage. In one day fifty people shared the fate of the Ballentynes, the Truitts and the Tetherows. The evictions are taking place in all sections of the mill village, which lies on the outskirts of Gastonia. "To show the rest of them what to expect," says a mill official. They will be like sweet-faced Mrs. Ballentyne, who sat among her household goods, a sick child in her arms. The little girl's face is covered with scabs, her eyes - sick-looking eyes - roll upwards so only the whites can be seen. "No," says the red-faced, paunchy mill doctor, Lee Johnson, "that's not the chickenpox. That's the small- pox she's got. She's all right, just peelin' her scabs. "No, this ain't a quarantine state. There's compulsory vaccination, and that's a-plenty without quarantine. She ain't really sick. She's up already, Past the contagious stage an' tem'ture normal." The "well" child who is recovering from smallpox droops her head on her mother's shoulder and closes her eyes. Who is going to take in the little girl with smallpox tonight? The other children cluster around and gaze at the nondescript pile of beds, mattresses,m cooking things that a few minutes ago had been a home. "My husband went away," Mrs. Ballentyne said quietly. "He was afraid he might hurt someone." "They're throwing 'em out down in Trenton street," cries a striker. Down at 217 Trenton street the deputies are at work taking out the possessions of fourteen people. It is Henry Tetherow's house. Henry is head of the family. He is seventeen and looks fourteen. Henry and a sister support a family of nine. His father is too sick to work. With them lives the family of William Truitt, secretary- treasurer of the local union of the National Textile Workers. (Continued on page 3) NEWS AND VIEWS By P.D. NOEL - Stretching It It would seem as though the American Civil Liberties Union had its hands full with fighting strictly along the lines indicated by its name. The embarking on farther-fetched activities, such as the Fackenberry shooting in Minneapolis, will deplete our finances and weaken our efforts along more important lines. If the boy fled from answering proper questions asked by an officer of the law in his endeavors to protect society, it would seem as though the officer was legally and morally right in stopping him, even by a bullet. There are plenty of individuals and organizations who will care for this problem, but only one A.C.L.U. for the big issues *** Third Degree The bill which would prevent "third degree" confessions from being used against a defendant was scheduled to become a law. Very good, but it would only mitigate the abuse, not end it. Prisoners would be abused and beaten almost as much as ever, so as to compel them to give leads and clues so that others concerned in the crime might be apprehended. (the law passed the California Senate, but died in the Assembly committee.) *** Single Taxers Most of the Georgites have ceased efforts for the whole thing at once, and are working for lessening taxes on improvements and personal property. Fine, but a long way off. Why not work for an exemption to every taxpayer of $1000? This would be most popular, and leave the burden on large landowners and the rich. *** Times Have Changed Who cannot remember having read of some famous character of long ago who possessed only one book from which to learn to read? This dearth of reading matter came to mind as a contrast with present conditions by coming across a certain farm journal. There are many cheaply gotten up magazines and papers, containing considerable stuff of value, which are given away or else have only a nominal subscription price - 25 or 50 cents. Of course, the answer is advertising. There is no excuse for anyone being uninformed now-a-days, with public libraries and so much free (possibly mediocre) literature. *** Free School Books The printing crafts have been endeavoring to have the Legislature pass a measure to have the State Printer issue practically all of the textbooks used in the schools. As it is now, only the lower grades are supplied by the state, the many supplementary books coming from private publishing houses, with all of the bribery, favoritism, graft and political pressure which goes with salesmanship. It is figured that more than $1,000,000 a year will be saved to the people of California if this change is made. From the educational standpoint the main argument is that it will standardize the courses of study and the tools used. Under present conditions each of the more than 3,000 school districts may have a different curriculum from the others, with the consequent handicap to the scholar. *** Wasting Time In talking to a friend who devotes much time to card playing, I stated that time was so scarce and valuable that it seemed a shame to so waste it. He laughingly said that he had indulged in all games of skill except golf. "In fact, I have never struck an attitude, a woman or a golf ball." - His Master's Voice PHILADELPHIA. - (F.P.) - "No doubt he heard his master's voice." This was the comment of Secretary Frank Burch of the Philadelphia Central Labor Union on Governor Fisher's action in double-crossing Labor by signing the Mansfield bill extending the powers of the coal and iron police, and rechristening them "industrial police." - Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. - Lord Brougham.[*Dec. 3, 1904*] MADAME BRESHKOVSKAYA. AN HEROIC RUSSIAN WOMAN. BY KELLOGG DURLAND, Assistant Headworker in the University Settlement, New York. A woman revolutionist, of noble birth and nobler spirit, her hair whitened by a quarter of a century spent in exile in the mines of Kara and the wastes of Siberia, has come to America for a brief period of complete liberty before returning to the perilous mission of her life in Russia. Years ago George Kennan went out of his way to see Madame Breshkovskaya in Siberia. He spent a day with her, talked with her, and left her in wretchedness and obscurity, seemingly dead to the world forever. Afterwards he told the story of how he had found her in the miserable little Buriat village of Selenginsk, how he felt the warmth of her great, white soul, and journeyed back to the civilized world glad to have seen her, refreshed, uplifted, strengthened by her inspiring life. Mr. Kennan found her a woman in the prime of life, "with a strong, intelligent, but not handsome face, a frank, unreserved manner, and sympathies that seemed to be warm, impulsive, and generous. Her face bore traces of much suffering, and her thick, dark, wavy hair, which had been cut short in prison at the mines, was streaked here and there with gray; but neither hardship nor exile nor penal servitude had been able to break her brave, finely-tempered spirit, or to shake her convictions of honor and duty. She was a woman of much cultivation, having been educated first in the women's schools of her own country, and then at Zurich in Switzerland. She spoke French, German, and English, was a fine musician, and impressed me as being in every way an attractive and interesting woman. She had been twice sent to the mines of Kara, and after serving out her second penal term had again been sent as a forced colonist to this wretched, God-forsaken Bariat settlement of Selenginsk, where she was under the direct supervision and control of a local chief of police. There was not another educated woman within a hundred miles in any direction; she received from the government an allowance of a dollar and a quarter a week for her support; her correspondence was under police control; she was separated for life from her family and her friends; and she had, it seemed to me, absolutely nothing to look forward to except a few years, more or less, of hardship and privation, and at last burial in a lonely graveyard beside the Selenga River, where no sympathetic eye might ever rest upon the unpainted wooden cross that would briefly chronicle her life and death. The unshaken courage with which this unfortunate woman contemplated her dreary future, and the faith that she manifested in the ultimate triumph of liberty in her native country, were as touching as they were heroic. Almost the last words she said to me were: 'Mr. Kennan, we may die in exile, and our children may die in exile, and our children's children may die in exile, but something will come of it at last.' I have never seen Madame Breshkovskaya since that day. She has passed as completely out of my life as if she had died when I bade her good-by; but I cannot recall her last words to me without feeling conscious that all my standards of courage, of fortitude, and of heroic self-sacrifice have been raised for all time, and raised by the hand of a woman." Fifteen years have passed since these words were penned. To Madame Breshkovskaya these years have been packed with suffering and hardship, broken by thrilling escapes, and tempered by brief seasons of active labor in the cause of helpless men and women, which she interpreted the movement toward the Russian revolution. Like a tomb that might give up its dead, Siberia has given back to the world this woman of destiny. No more to day than when Mr. Kennan found her in the obscure Mongolian village does her spirit show the wear of time and strain of torture. As she goes about New York she thinks always of far-away Russia, of the work there awaiting the doing, and she pictures the past she yet may have in hastening the soul-emancipation of the vast peasantry. Catherine Breshkovskaya is a typical liberal in her development. She was the daughter of a nobleman. Her home was her father's estate in the province of Chernigoff. In common with many hundred young men and women of the early '70s, she keenly felt the disappointment of the emancipation. Instead of easing the lot of the serf or peasant class, emancipation had increased the complexities of the lives of the nominally freed. Thrown from the estates of the landed proprietors, they were without land, and without the means of acquiring land. They were ignorant. They were denied the right of assemblage, of free speech, and all the liberties of action prompted by discontent. The young people of Russia felt that the difficulty lay in their not knowing how to use their freedom. Education was the panacea. To teach, to enlighten, to school, formed the basis of the movement which developed into the Peasantial party. These young reformers read Turgenieff, Lassalle, and Marx. They preached higher education for women as well as men, and circulated quantities of advanced literature which soon began to have a marked influence upon the people. At this point the Russian government became alarmed, and drastic measures were at once taken. in 1874, when Catherine Breshkofskaya was just entering her twenties, nearly two thousand arrests were made. She had been active for nearly three years, and so great was her personal influence at that time that she was looked to as one of the leaders of the movement, and to thousands of peasants she was a Joan of Arc who might lead armies to victory. These wholesale arrests caused a storm of protest among educated people all over the Empire. The bulk of these two thousand were therefore released. Three hundred were held for trial. Of these only one hundred and ninety-three survived the hardships of prison life preceding the trial. The others died or went insane. Catherine Breshkofskaya spent nearly four years in prison before her turn for trial came round. Then she was sent to the famous mines of Kara as a hard-labor convict. This was the first time in Russian history that a woman had received this sentence. The sending of men, of ordinary felons and criminals, to "Catorga" (as this sentence is called) had long been common, but never before a woman. The prison to which she was first conveyed was one of those vile, disease-breeding pens, such as exist nowhere save in Russia. This fine gentlewoman recoiled from the filth and stench, but no place was provided for her to lie down or even to sit down. Two men, grown infectious from dirt and sickness, had previously occupied the room. All through the first night she remained standing. When she slept she leaned against the wall. This was the beginning of that awful banishment. Hard labor in the mines for six, eight, nine years, followed by exile for life, came to be common sentences. Yet all these people had done was to teach as best they knew how the way to make the most of life through education. Prince Kropotkin, who was intimately familiar with the whole situation at that time, says that all these people wanted was "simply to be allowed to live by the side of the peasants and the workers, to teach them to collaborate in any of the thousand capacities— private or as a part of the local self government—in which educated and earnest men and women can be useful to the masses of the people." These were not revolutionists. They preached peace and believed in peace. It was years after this that the revolutionary party appeared. The mines of Kara are the private property of the Czar, and are worked for his particular benefit. The penal settlement lies in the Transbaikal district of Eastern Siberia. Prisoners were of two classes, ordinary and political. Political prisoners, though sent to the colony as hard- labor convicts, were generally kept in forced idleness, and inasmuch as political prisoners are usually men and women of education, used to lead active lives, the idleness is a heavier sentence to bear than actual labor. A week or two of work in the mines is sometimes granted by way of favor. Madame Breshkovskaya had to remain only a few months in Catorga, for the years she had spent in prison awaiting trial were reckoned as part of the sentence. When her term had expired, however, she was not free, but was transported to a little village near the Baikal Lake, there to spend fourteen years. The Buriat villagers were a half-wild tribe of men of Mongolian blood. There were in exile there at the same time the descendants of certain Polish exiles, including a Polish general whose son is to-day one of the foremost soldiers of the world, being none other than General Kuroki of the Japanese army. When the old general escaped from Siberia he got to Japan where he married, and the present General Kuroki is the issue of that marriage. For three years Madame Breshkofskaya remained in this little village, receiving at intervals through the "underground" and by other means, sums of money from her friends on the outside. In this way a considerable amount was collected, and secretly guarded against the day when escape should be made possible. From the government she received twelve roubles ($6) a month This was twice as much as the ordinary prisoners received, and was allowed her because of her noble station previous to her incarceration. At the end of three years escape was planned. With three other exiles, all of them men, she bought horses and provisions, engaged a guide, and one night they succeeded in eluding the gendarmes and set forth toward Vladivostock, a journey of four thousand miles over mountains and barren wastes. The geographical situation of the village of their confinement was such that temporary escape was easily effected, but owing to its remoteness and the vast uninhabited territory surrounding it on all sides, recapture was almost certain. But hearts are stout and daring is a commonplace virtue where men and women suffer persecution for the sake of principle. Undaunted by hundreds of miles of wilderness and steppes these fearless exiles planned to reach the seaport town, board an American vessel, cross the Pacific Ocean, cross the American continent, and back into Russia by way of Europe, there to take up the movement again. Having borne so much, they were not content to cease their labors for the cause. For several days they made good progress. Then the guide missed the way. For a little they struggled on, but the guide lost heart and deserted. For the exiles there could be no turning back. After a month of futile and heart-breaking wandering, they were overtaken by fifty soldiers sent to run them down. When they returned to the Baikal village they had been tried and sentenced to four years in the mines of Kara, and fourteen years in exile. This was the verdict delivered to them as they reëntered the village. The distance from Baikal Lake to Kara is nearly twelve hundred miles. Three years before, when Madame Breshkofskaya had left there, she had been the first and only woman in the political prison. Now she found seventeen. From Kara there was no escape, and she served her full term. After this second term she was assigned to the place where George Kennan found her, the village of Selenginsk. From Kara to Selenginsk is one thousand miles, and the entire distance had to be covered afoot. They walked about thirty miles a day for two days, and rested every third day. There were two women in the party, about one hundred men, most of them ordinary prisoners, and they were guarded by a squad of fifteen soldiers. This was the beginning of the worst period of her life. Unutterable loneliness at times almost overpowered her. From the everlasting dreariness there was never any respite. In winter the cold was extreme. Her prison did not offer adequate protection from cold or storm. Oftentimes the floor was coated with ice. After eight years of this life, [*Dec. 31, 1904*] Mrs. Katherine Breshkovskaya, Mr. Robert Hunter, Prof. Robert C. Ely, and others addressed an interested audience in Cooper Union on Dec. 22, Mrs. Isabel C. Barrows acting as translator for Mrs. Breshkovskaya, Rev. M. J. Savage presided. A New York branch of the Friends of Russian Freedom was organized, with Mr. Savage as president, Professor Ely as secretary, and a number of distinguished vice-presidents. Any one wishing to join the society, or to know more about it, may communicate with Prof. Robert C. Ely, Director of the League for Political Education, 23 West 44th St., New York City. FOR RUSSIAN FREEDOM. [*Dec. 3, 1904*] Mrs. Catherine Breshkovskaya, the brave Russian woman whose portrait and biography we publish this week, is a living refutation of the argument that "women cannot be induced to take an interest in politics." In forming an estimate of the possibilities of feminine human nature, one such woman may offset a hundred Flora McFlimsys. It is hardly possible to read the sketch of her life, and to realize the deplorable state of the mass of the people in Russia, without longing to lend a hand to help the men and women who are laboring to bring about improved conditions there. Any one who wishes to aid in this struggle for liberty may send a contribution, large or small, to Mrs. Catherine Breshkofskaya, Care Dr. Rayevsky, 233 Henry St., New York City. In a letter just received from Mrs. Breshkofskaya , not intended from publication, she writes: "The work for the deliverance of the Russian people is growing, and for that very reason we have more and more need of money. To have good books written, printed, and circulated among our people, as we do, costs a vast amount of money, for the government does its utmost to seize our literature and those who circulate it. Besides this, we have many people who must keep hidden, others who have to flee, and still others who have to escape; for, as you know, the government's persecutions are endless. In short, to wage war against Russian despotism, we need not only courage, self-abnegation, patience, and talent, but money as well." Mrs. Breshkofskaya and thousands of other Russian women and men have furnished and are furnishing the courage and self-abnegation in unlimited amounts. Americans who believe in free institutions ought to be proud to help furnish the money. Mrs. Breshkofskaya will address a meeting in Faneuil Hall on the evening of Dec. 14. Hon William Dudley Foulke will preside, and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe will be among the speakers. A. S. B. MRS BRESHKOVSKY'S APPEAL "Little Grandmother's" School in Czecho-Slovakia in Need of Help To the Editor of The Republican :— Catherine Breshkovsky, "the little grandmother of the Russian revolution," will soon enter her 90th year. She has lately become blind. A nobleman's daughter, she early devoted herself to the welfare of the peasants, and spent many years in prison and in exile. George W. Kennan, who saw her in Siberia, said, "My standards of courage, of fortitude and of heroic self-sacrifice have been raised for all time, and raised by the hand of a woman." Later, unable to live in Russia because she was out of sympathy with the Bolsheviki, she founded two boarding schools for poor children in Russian Carpathia, now a part of the Czecho-Slovak republic. She has maintained them chiefly with American money. She sends me the following letter, with the entreaty to circulate it as widely as possible :— "To my beloved American friends, and to all students, boys and girls :— "To you I address my humble and almost desperate plea for help. You know of my work. In 12 years hundreds of boys and girls have passed through my boarding schools, and many have become primary teachers. I got the money not only from rich men, but from many school girls and school boys. And all of us were happy. "Some of our pupils were very talented. They wished to enter the university, and later to become teachers in the high schools of their native district, where there is great need of education. I chose some of the most gifted and good-hearted boys and girls, and helped them to enter the University of Prague. Up to last year I succeeded somehow in getting enough help from America, in money and in second-hand clothing, to support about 10 students. But this year, owing to the world-wide depression, the aid from America has fallen off so much that, unless more help comes, some of my best students will have to leave the university. They will either be thrown on the streets, or will have to go back to their poor villages. This causes even more grief to me than to my unfortunate boys and girls. "Soon I shall enter my 90th year. My dear friends, I beg end pray you to help me to die joyfully!" Her address is Catherine Breshkovsky, Drubezarna, P. Horny Pocernice, U Prahy, Prague, Czecho-Slovakia. Money may be safely sent her in a cashier's check. It should be made payable in American dollars. Or I will gladly forward any contributions. ALICE STONE BLACKWELL. 3 Monadnock St., Boston, Dec. 3, 1932.MADAME BRESHKOVSKAYA APPRECIATED BOSTON, DEC. 19, 1904. Editors Woman's Journal: As it was through your columns that I learned of the opportunity to meet personally at the Denison House, on Sunday afternoon, Madame Breshkovskaya, I cannot refrain from telling of the delight the privilege gave me. As we listened to the story of this heroic woman amidst the interesting surroundings which Miss Dudley of the Denison House College Settlement brings around her, we could not but wish that in the fullness of time Russia herself could have the same blest opportunities. Surely, a practical sympathy with the aims and efforts of this sweet-faced, self-sacrificing Russian would be a means to such an end. Shall not we Americans lend a hand to such results—results which, per haps, can be no better reached than by personal contact with the grand leaders who come to our shores to give and receive essential knowledge and help? I recall with pleasure learning of the educational movements in Athens and Constantinople through meeting Calliope Kechayia (see WOMAN'S JOURNAL of March 9, 1889); also of the work in Finland through Baroness Gripenberg; of that in India through Pundita Ramabai, and of Syria through Layyah Barakat (see WOMAN'S JOURNAL of June 5, 1886); also that of Italy through the Countess Salazar, and of other later visitors to our shores, from Iceland, Holland, Australia, etc. —all personally interested in doing something wise and tangible for their own people. If we cannot give all the financial aid we would like, can we not keep the atmosphere optimistic by the loving heart and kind word? Then, in honoring Madame Breshkovskaya, have we not an opportunity to express our thanks for what Russia is giving us to-day in some things—in music, for instance; for what nation has given us a more brilliant, original concerto for the pianoforte than the Opus 1 of Rachmaninoff, which was played at the Eighth Rehearsal and Concert of the Boston Symphony Orchestra last week? A nation that can produce such and its equal in musical composition amidst the evil and ignorance which abound, has great possibilities; and a nation that can bring forth such a gentle, far-seeing, heroic woman as the one we are all now grateful to meet, must have within itself a seed for future development. May it grow to become a flower of civilization worthy of true progress, peace and prosperity! ELIZABETH PORTER GOULD. WOMEN IN SIBERIA. 21 Jan 1905 Mrs. Catherine Breshkovskaya was the first woman ever condemned to the mines of Siberia as a political convict. But before her terms expired, about twenty other women were sent there. She describes their life as follows: "Those women who were condemned to the mines of Kara, in Siberia, as political convicts, were lodged in a building that contained a long hall, with little cells like horse stalls opening into it on each side. RUSSIAN CHIVALRY TO WOMEN. Sept 24, 1910 The International Prison Congress has brought to America a distinguished gathering from many lands. Among them comes Etienne Krouleff, head of the prison system in Russia. This gentleman is reported as saying that in his country "women criminals are treated well, the Russian spirit of chivalry insuring them against the knout, and against being sent from the prisons to labor. Everywhere in the Russian empire the women prisoners are kept separated from the men, and in most cases are under the care of women attendants." This is an amazing statement. Does Mr. Krouleff think that Americans have no memories? Women insured against the knout? How about Madame Sigida, who died of it? How about Mrs. Breshkovsky, who was sentenced to it in her early womanhood, and was urged to make a plea that her health was not equal to it, but refused - and was let off from the flogging because in her case it would have aroused too much indignation? How about the Polish girls lately tortured out of the semblance of humanity in prison, to wrest confessions from them? How about Marie Spiridonova? It is only a few weeks since the news came that Mrs. Breshkovsky was in the prison at Irkutsk, ill with scurvy - a sickness that comes solely from deprivation of wholesome food. If the food is so miserable that is supplied to a woman of Mrs. Breshkovsky's age and distinction, one who is an object of international solicitude, what is likely to be the treatment of ordinary women prisoners, with no influential friends? Russian chivalry toward women! The words ought to have choked the representative of a government that promoted the officer who gave over a convention of women teachers to the Cossacks, and encouraged the torture and outrage of Jewish women by hundreds in "pogroms." The Russian people may have chivalry, but the Russian government has as little of that as of any other redeeming quality. A. S. B. Jan 21, 1905 MRS. CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKAYA spoke in New York City on Jan. 18, at the rooms of the League for Political Education. Rev. M. J. Savage presided, and the organization of a vigorous New York branch of the "Friends of Russian Freedom" was completed. A few days before, Mrs. Breshkovskaya addressed the young ladies of the Misses Ely's school. She has been given banquets in New York, in Newark, N. J., and elsewhere in the vicinity, and has been kept continually busy. She has now gone to Chicago, where she will spend about a month. She will be the guest of Miss Jane Addams at Hull House. In the latter part of February she expects to return to Boston. The full and interesting biographical sketch of Mrs. Breshkovskaya, by Ernest Poole, lately published in the Outlook, has been issued in pamphlet form, with portrait, and is for sale for the benefit of her work in Russia. Price ten cents at the WOMAN'S JOURNAL Office eleven cents by mail. Breshkovsky JULY 4 1929] (17) The Christian Register Catherine Breshkovsky, Eighty-Five Years Old ALICE STONE BLACKWELL The recent celebration of Catherine Breshkovsky's eighty-fifth birthday in Prague, where she now makes her home, was a noteworthy event. "The Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution" was not at all pleased when she learned that her old friend George Lazareff and others were making ready to celebrate the day. She wrote: "I am very angry to learn that George and Co. intend to make a parade on the day of my anniversary, and to take me into a large room to hold a jubilee in my honor. I detest all that. I have never had any desire or need for demonstrations in my honor, except among my beloved peasants. Handshakes and good words can be accepted without any parade and officiality. You will understand, and will pity your old friend, devoted to simplicity and democratic manners." The affair was a great success. The committee getting it up represented several different parties, and included three Czechoslovak senators, one of them a woman; also a woman M. P. from the lower house, and a woman member of the city council of Prague. Madame Breshkovsky received a multitude of letters and telegrams of congratulation, from all parts of the world. She was especially touched by a joint letter of greeting from thirteen of her old comrades in Russia, who had been hard-labor convicts, like herself, and whose ages now aggregate a thousand years. There were addresses by distinguished Russians, including Kerensky and Lazareff, and a number of eminent Czechoslovakians. After the meeting had lasted two hours, Madame Breshkovsky went home, her strength probably being at an end; and a group of her intimate friends stayed to enjoy a banquet. The anniversary was celebrated also in Paris. She writes: "The festival is over. It made a good impression upon all who were present. I was pleased with the brotherly attention and sincerity of the public, which consisted of a large number of women and folk who knew me only by hearsay. The addresses were spoken and written in a friendly spirit, and were not made too long, so as not to fatigue my deafness. The women of Czechoslovakia expressed interest to see me among them. I am glad of their progress of citizens, capable of organizing all sorts of clubs, societies, economic and professional groups of different kinds, but not yet acting as instructors and professors of children and youth. Only the primary schools have some women teachers, but not very well prepared. You know my conviction that the new generation ought to grow up under the good influence of high-minded women, who must themselves be scientists. "I myself made a brief speech on a topic that greatly interests me - the migration of more than two million adult Russians, now dispersed over the whole world, finding a place and hospitality in all countries, where they are safe and are raising families, thousands of children, who are able to grow up as if they were natives of the countries that have received them. Such a thing never happened before in the whole course of history. It is a proof of the advance of human morality and humanism. In particular, the Slavonic peoples, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, have made great efforts during the last ten years to solace the mishaps of the Russian emigrants." Many of her American friends sent with their birthday good wishes contributions to help the boarding schools for poor children which she supports in Russian Carpathia, and which she is always hard pressed to maintain. The appeal in THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER brought responses from as far west as California and as far east as Glasgow, Scotland, and a good sum of money was sent to her. If the "Little Grandmother" was vexed to learn that her birthday was celebrated with speeches in her praise, she was delighted when she found that in America it was to be made an occasion for giving help to her poor children. On receipt of the money she expressed warm appreciation, and declared herself "a happy and triumphant old woman". She has now gone to Paris to undergo an operation for cataract, which has been long impending. She writes from Paris: "Give my compliments to my dear American friends."Catherine Breshkovsky[*Bresh*] A Half Hour with a Revolutionist Not many days ago I stepped into a nursery. Four little children from two to nine years old sat watching a large, handsome, plainly-dressed woman with short gray hair combed back and waving over a massive head. Her brilliant eyes were full of merriment as she told the story of a wonderful doll, dramatically illustrating its accomplishments even to its dancing. The little quartette had lost the sense of everything external except the charming story-teller and her fascinating tale. At its close she seated herself in a low chair in the center of the group, talking constantly most entertainingly while she cut and folded paper into bewitching shapes, -- cocks, boats, baskets, dolls, -- following in quick succession. In a few minutes shy little three-year-old was on her lap and the conquest of the children was complete. The story-teller was Madame Catherine Breshkovsky, the Russian exile who has dedicated her life to the elevation of her people from patient slavery to the aspiration for freedom. How has she come through her terrible experience with this child-heart fresh within her? Fourteen of her companions in prison and exile are dead; six live and with broken health; many more were made insane by hardships and loneliness. It was not her strong physique alone that saved her; it was this child-heart companioned with a vivid imagination, a keen sense of humor, and a noble faith in the future. "How is it, dear Madame, that after all these cruel years you are without a touch of bitterness?" "Ah, it is because I believe in evolution. I am sure they act according to their light as I act according to mine." "You are sustained by a great hope?" "By great hopes," she answered, while into her wonderful eyes there entered depths born of the world's ages of pain. Madame Breshkovsky is an altogether delightful companion. She is unselfish, interested in others, fond of books, music, and pictures, so that she becomes at once a part of the home life. She is impressive in her simplicity, hopeful, buoyant, sometimes even gay, a very human woman, and a winner of admiration and of love from everyone who comes in contact with her rare, beautiful personality. Sitting in her twilight by the fire with her shining eyes, her noble face, her melodious voice, she seems a splendid sibyl bringing to our modern materialism the simplicity, the poetry, the devotion of the mighty past with its primitive virtues and its prophetic inspiration. L. A. C. W. AMERICAN PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU 106 & 108 Fulton Street, New York City PHILA. BUREAU OF PRESS CLIPPINGS 203 Walnut Place, Philadelphia, Pa. [*NEW YORK TRIBUNE MAR 24 1919*] New Russian Magazine "Struggling Russia" is the name of the new weekly magazine issued by the Russian Information Bureau. According to its editor, A. J. Sack, "this magazine stands for a democratic Russia and will defend it against the red reaction of Bolshevism and the black reaction of Czarism." It is announced that "the most prominent liberal and revolutionary leaders of Russia are contributors." One of the leading articles in the first number is called "What Is Bolshevism?" and its author is Catherine Breshkovsky. "There is one hope for Russia," says the "Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," "and a very strong one - that is our peasantry." She says this class cannot long endure "the chaos brought about by Bolshevism".MK U. d. S. S. R. „МЕЖДУНАРОДНАЯ КНИГА" МОСКВА, Кузнецкий мост, 18. МК STAATLICHE ZENTRALVEREINIGUNG ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" MOSKAU, Kusnetzki Most, 18. MOSKAU, LENINGRAD, BERLIN, PARIS, NEW-YORK. GENERALVERTRETER der AKADMIE der WISSENSCHAFTEN der U. S. S. R.Die ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" Zentralvereinigung der U.S.S.R. geniesst das Monopolrecht für den Export von Zeitungen, Zeitschriften und Büchern sämtlicher Verlage der U. S. S. R. Die ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" führt Bestellungen auf die gesammte wissenschaftliche Literatur der U.S.S.R. aus. Sie liefert Bücher über: Leninismus, Marxismus, Politik, Volkswirtschaft, Pädagogie, Technik, Medizin, Exakte Wissenschaften, Belletristik, Kunst, Kinder- Bücher u. s. w. Die ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" führt Bestellungen auf Noten und Musik-Literatur sämtlicher Staatsverlage aus. Die ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" nimmt die Subskription anf sämtiiche in der U. S. S. R. erscheinende Zeitungen und Zeitschriften entgegen. Die ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" besitzt ein grosses Antiquariat mit vielen seltenen antiquarischen Kostbarkeiten. Vergriffene und seltene russische und fremdsprachige Ausgaben, Gravüren, Folklore. Ankauf von Bibliotheken. Die ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" nimmt den Literatur Austausch mit Institutionen und Bibliotheken gegen morderne Sovjet-Russische Publikationen vor. Die ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" nimmt Aufträge von wissenschaftlichen Institutionen und Organisationen, Lehranstalten, Bibliotheken und Privaten, wie: Gelehrte, Schriftsteller, Journalisten, Politiker u.s.w. zur Komplettierung ihrer Bibliotheken mit moderner Sovjet-Literatur entgegen. Die ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" gibt durch ihr Informations-und Propoganda-Abteilung jegliche Auskunft. Die Bestellungen werden pünktlichst und prompt ausgeführt. Kataloge werden auf Wunsch kostenlos zugeschickt. ,,MESHDUNARODNAJA KNIGA" Moskau, Kusnezki Most, 18.Catherine Breshkovsky's Own Story The Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution Reminiscences and Letters of CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY Edited by ALICE STONE BLACKWELL - "Her story is one of the most dramatic of modern times." - Literary Digest "It would be hard to find a recent novel that for pure entertainment surpasses this book."- The Outlook, New York. "We have met with no more impressive human document of modern Russia than this."- New York Tribune. - NEW POPULAR EDITION NOW READY 348 Pages, $1.50 Net Autographed by Catherine Breshkovsky, $2.50 - Autographed Copies for Sale by W.B. FEAKINS, Times Square Building Telephone Bryant 9634 THE CIVIC FORUM, 17 West 44th Street Telephone, Vanderbilt 4897 Note. - All profit from the sale of autographed copies goes toward meeting the expenses of the campaign for the RUSSIAN ORPHANS FUND. - LITTLE, BROWN & CO., Publishers, BOSTON (OVER)CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY'S RUSSIAN ORPHANS FUND To Feed, Clothe, Educate and Train for Self-Support FOUR MILLION CHILDREN IN RUSSIA MADE ORPHANS BY THE WAR -------------- $__________ To ALEXANDER J. HEMPHILL, Treasurer, RUSSIAN ORPHANS FUND. I hereby subscribe the sum of ................. dollars, payable................ to Catherine Breshkovsky's Russian Orphans Fund. SIGNED............... ADDRESS............ DATE..................... NOTE. - Please forward this black to A. J. HEMPHILL, Treasurer, 140 Broadway, New York City. Checks should be drawn to order of RUSSIAN ORPHANS FUND or A. J. HEMPHILL, Treasurer. (OVER)February 13 1919] (7) The Christian Register 151 Russia's Real Problem is Religious ALICE STONE BLACKWELL The author of this exclusive article is probably the most intimate friend of Mme. Breshkovsky in America. Her book, "The Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," is entering a new edition at a popular price. Miss Blackwell's reference to the interest of a former editor of THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER in behalf of Mme. Breshkovsky when her trials were darkest will refresh the memories of many readers. Miss Blackwell has been with the remarkable woman since her arrival in New York. CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY, "the Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," is receiving a series of ovations in America. A daughter of the nobility, from her earliest childhood she was struck by the contrast between the life of her own family and that of her father's hundreds of serfs. At twenty-five she married a young land-owner of liberal views, in sympathy with her wish to aid the peasants. By this time the serfs had been emancipated but they were destitute and starving. With his help she started a peasants' co-operative bank and an agricultural school. She, her husband, and her father also encouraged the peasants to use such small local rights of suffrage as they possessed, and to elect honest and liberal men as judges, arbiters, etc. But when the more despotic landlords found themselves turned out of these offices, which they had made a source of graft, they denounced Catherine and her friends to the Minister of the Interior as conspirators against the government. Their school and bank were forcibly closed, and they were put under police surveillance. The Governor of the province said to Catherine's father, "We want no apostles here!" All over Russia, the efforts to educate and elevate the peasants by peaceful means met a like fate; and all over Russia, those who had begun as Liberals became Revolutionists. Thousands of rich men and women , including many members of the nobility, disguised themselves and went out to work side by side with the peasants in order to arouse them to revolt. Catherine took a peasant's pack on her strong shoulders and set forth upon this mission. She and about three hundred others were caught, kept for several years in solitary confinement, and after more than a hundred had died in prison, the one hundred and ninety-three survivors were brought to trial. She was sentenced to five years in the mines of Kara-the first woman to be sent there as a political prisoner-and to a long term of exile in Siberia afterward. When her term at Kara was finished, she was marched thousands of miles over the snow to Barguzin, a bleak hamlet near the Arctic Circle. For an attempt to escape, she was sent back to Kara. She had been the only woman political prisoner there. Now she found a number of others- sweet and noble women, the flower of Russia. The hardships were so great and the food so wretched that half of them died of scurvy. Catherine did not even fall ill. She says she was too busy nursing the rest. Later she spent eight years at the little native village of Selenginsk amid a snowy wilderness-the hardest eight years of her life, as during most of this time she had no companionship. It was here that George Kennan met her, about 1885, and was so deeply impressed by her that he said his standard of fortitude had been raised for all time, "and raised by the hand of a woman." Finally she became a "free exile"-free to live anywhere in Siberia-and went about again, secretly preaching revolution. In 1896 her sentence expired, and she went home. In 1904-05 she visited this country, where she found a warm welcome. All who met her were impressed with her nobility of character. Among her best friends were Hon. Samuel J. Barrows and Mrs. Isabel C. Barrows, so long the editors of THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER; Julia Ward Howe, Helena Dudley, and myself. She returned to Russia, and was arrested. Mrs. Barrows made two trips to St. Petersburg, in the effort to secure her release, but was not even allowed to see her. She was again sentenced to Siberia, this time for life. [*FROM A RECENT PRIVATE PHOTOGRAPH BELONGING TO THE AUTHOR] To-day the "Little Grandmother" is conservative! She is not changed, but the revolution has gone forward so far and fast that she fears it as she once feared the Czar. When the revolution broke out, she was invited home. Her whole journey was a triumphal progress, and all St. Petersburg turned out to welcome her. She was a strong supporter of Kerensky. when the Bolsheviki seized the power, she went into hiding, and later made her way to this country. It was a wonderful experience to see her again,"seventy-five years young," as brave, bright and loving as ever. She was greeted in New York by countless friends, old and new, and was besieged by scores of reporters; but when I told her that THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER wanted an interview, she was very willing to give it. "What do you think will be the religious future of Russia? I asked. "Russia has a great many Dissenters. Formerly they were forbidden. Now they will be free. The people are afraid to be without a church. The peasants are dissatisfied with the priests' schools, but they think that people must be taught religion. The Church is beloved, but the priests are not. Since the revolution, priests often say to152 The Christian Register (8) [February 13 1919 their parishioners, 'Why don't you choose me as a member of the Council, and ask my advice?" The peasants answer, 'You never were for us, but were always on the side of the government, when we were oppressed.' Yet they go to church. They are in the habit of having sacraments on the occasions of birth, marriage, burial, etc., and they like them. "Are there no good priests?" "Very few. One is our Bishop Sergius in Ufa. He is a very civilized man, and never will shriek or scold. He is very clever and good-hearted. He used to be a prince, but he gives away all he has; and he publishes books and magazines. But he is a poor politician. He believes that the best form of organization in Russia is the parish. This is too narrow, I think. He believes that the whole salvation of Russia lies in the development of these little parish communities. "Russia will long continue to be religious, but I hope we can have better priests. Now they will be elected. And I hope our church service will be changed. In the Orthodox Greek Church we have too little of the New Testament and too much of the Old. Only a little piece of the New Testament is read, but the Psalms are read for two hours, and in such a way that no one can understand a word." Mme. Breshkovsky then spoke on the difference in spirit between her party, the Socialist Revolutionists, the party which was strong among the peasants, and the Social Democratic party, which was strong among the factory workers in the cities. These were the principal Socialist parties in Russia. According to her, the former attached more importance to ethics; and the latter, which spread into Russia from Germany (and to which Lenine belonged), was imbued with the German materialism. She said:- "I knew Lenine and Trotzky abroad, fifteen years ago. I had very little acquaintance with them personally, but everybody knew their work. I never liked them, or Plekhanoff. They were Social Democrats, without any morality in their teachings. If you read Marx, you will see that in his first book there is nothing about ethics. He was not a philosopher in regard to ethics, but only in regard to the relations between labor and capital, and on that subject he was a master, although he made some mistakes. But he never told us how we ought to behave to one another. "Our fathers of the Russian revolutionary movement had all taught that we ought to live for our country, and that nothing can be done without brotherhood, without trying to perfect our minds and feelings; that ethics is a great factor in human welfare; that revolutionary leaders must be as perfect ethically as they can, and that personality is a great factor in the history of peoples. Marx and Engels, on the other hand, said that no perfection of moral qualities can be of any use (except for our own pleasure); that personality is not an important factor; that the only true factors are material conditions - industrial, geographical, and as regards markets, etc. "We, too, knew Marx, and read his work as a useful book, but we did not make it our centre and swear by it. Our teachers said that material conditions are of great importance, but that all these are for the sake of persons, and that we have the power to choose between evil and good, and it is our responsibility. If you say that people have no power of choice, you can ask nothing of them. So almost all the men and women of character, who were trying to perfect themselves, came to us. "When I came back from Siberia for the first time, twenty-two years ago, the doctrines of the Social Democrats were coming to us from Germany. Young students and others said to me, 'Old woman, your philosophy is too old-fashioned; you cannot do anything. You would better go and rest on your stove' (a Russian expression referring to the way old peasants stay on top of the stove to keep warm). I returned to Russia without the address of any other revolutionist, without a kopeck, without a helper. I found all Russia a prey to the Social Democrats, who had copied the organization of the Social Democrats of Germany. Yet I was sure that I could again carry on a successful propaganda among our millions of peasants. I did not antagonize the Social Democrats. They were convinced, and so was I. For three years I sought out sympathizers, and organized them. Plekhanoff and Lenine, though they quarrelled fiercely between themselves, were both of them very angry when they learned that there was a new organization, that of the Social Revolutionists. Plekhanoff said that we were traitors to the workingmen; Lenine said that it was a disgrace to be associated with us. We had good writers, and sometimes they answered these attacks; but I always said, 'Do not quarrel; do not pay attention.'" The Social Democrats had made little effort to organize the peasants. Indeed, they held that peasants who owned a scrap of land, no matter how poor and ill-used they might be, must be classed as "capitalists." The Socialist Revolutionist party went out among the masses of the peasants and organized them for revolution. That party grew, and its literature was circulated all through Russia. "I knew that our programme would always have an overwhelming majority in Russia, and the elections that were held after the revolution showed it," she says. She speaks with deep grief of the overthrow of her old friend Kerensky, whom she calls "a clean soul, a noble soul." But her faith in an ultimate happy future for Russia is as strong as ever. She says her object in coming to America is twofold, - to tell the truth about Russia, and to collect money to feed, clothe, and educate Russia's four million orphans. She hopes also to take back with her a number of American young men and women to act as teachers and nurses for these children, and especially to instruct them in all sorts of handicrafts. England and the Struggles of Peace Pithy chronicle and opinion on the elections in Ireland and on labor and prohibition MILES HANSON ENGLAND IS ABSORBED, like the rest of the world, in meeting the conditions that have arisen with the advent of peace. For four long years all her energies were devoted to the tasks of warfare; now there has to be complete reversal of attitude, and equally arduous toil given to providing for the requirements of a life of peace. All the usual modes of life have been thrown into the crucible of war. Now, in a state of flux, they have to be withdrawn and made to shape themselves for the tasks of social service. THE IRISH VOTE BOTH WAYS In addition to this great undertaking there is also the adjustment of the nation to the results of the recent election. The returns showed such a majority for Lloyd George that every one was staggered, and yet the people are wondering what will happen in Parliament. When Letters from "the Little Grandmother" She tells a dear friend about her present life among Russian children. M.H. WALLACE Our readers will be pleased to see the following article consisting chiefly of excerpts from letters written to an intimate friend of long standing. It is good news, after a protracted silence, that this extraordinary and famous woman is full of her noble service and her supremely tested faith. CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY, "the Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," has had a varied and eventful life. A daughter of the nobility, from her early childhood her whole soul was devoted to improving the lot of the peasants. As a little girl, she gave away her own beautiful clothing to the peasant children. When she grew older, the same spirit of love made her a revolutionist. She spent a large part of her life in prison and in exile. When the revolution came, she was brought home from Siberia in triumph, and welcomed with overwhelming acclamations. She was elected a member of the Constitutional Assembly, and took a leading part in the educational work of the new government under Kerensky. When the Bolsheviki seized the power, she left Russia, and for some years past she has made her home in Czechoslovakia, devoting herself especially to the welfare of the poor children of Russian Carpathia. This beautiful and picturesque district is now a part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Its people are of Russian stock. They are very poor and ignorant, but highly gifted by nature, and eager for education. Madame Breshkovsky made many warm friends during her two visits to America. Her remarkable character made the same deep impression here that it did upon George Kennan long ago, when he met her in Siberia, and wrote: "My standards of courage, of fortitude, and of heroic self-sacrifice have been raised for all time, and raised by the hand of a woman." Mainly with money contributed by her American friends, Madame Breshkovsky has established in Russian Carpathia a number of "Internats," i.e., boarding schools, where poor boys and girls are sheltered and educated, and also taught useful trades. Many of the girls are trained as teachers. She spends her winters in Prague, and her summers visiting her schools. Prague has a large colony of Russian refugees, and "the Little Grandmother" is kept busy. She writes to an American friend: "You ask why I do not write articles for the American press. Dearest friend, I write every day, from eight to twelve, and again after dinner, and am never through. But instead of articles for the American magazines, I write them for Russian peasant papers and little Carpathian magazines. Much more, I answer all sorts of letters, telling of all sorts of needs and sorrows. Only imagine the condition of Russian refugees all over the world, and you will understand whether they have a right to ask, to pray, to complain, to demand. Without any resources, without protection, without work, they address themselves to those whom they believe more experienced , more able and willing to meet the needs of people in trouble. At this moment, for instance, I have to answer the following letters: An archimandrite, director of a boarding school in Russian Carpathia, asks me to provide means to refurnish the building occupied by the children. A peasant asks me to take into one of our boarding schools his second daughter, the sister of one of our pupils - very good girls. An old lady, ruined by the Bolsheviki, now dangerously ill and without any resources. A young girl student, disappointed on account of her very poor health, and losing courage as to her future. A young family, who want work or other help. A student, an excellent boy, who is anxious to continue his studies and is afraid he will have no chance to. A much beloved friend, an old woman, distressed by the atrocities she sees around her in Russia. This for to-day. "I have also a big book into which I put my best thoughts and conceptions, for I am sure that my simple and sincere narrative will be understood; and as people are now much addicted to reminiscences, which often contain expressions of wicked or sinister feelings, I think it well to speak about facts and subjects that will never lose their good influence. I have lived a long time, and studied life and types attentively, eagerly, willing to be able to act righteously; and now I know them well enough to be able to share my knowledge with the less experienced younger generations. Also, before I die, I wish to leave little biographies of such of my comrades and friends as were the best fighters and best citizens among us. We Russians are so accustomed to see our best people self-sacrificing that we seldom think it necessary to mention their valor, their mental and moral excellence. And I see that it is a great mistake. Good examples, great types, the grandeur of souls, fortify our faith and our hope. And, as good characters are modest, the great public has no idea of their existence and their doings. As I have known so many splendid souls and minds, I consider it my duty to recall them, to speak of them, to show what beautiful kinds of human beings we have among us.... Notwithstanding the ignorance and improvidence of the Russians, they are sensitive (and profoundly so) to the perfection of human character. They revere greatness, holiness, firmness; and they understand the beauty, they admire the poetry, of a soul that delights in everything heavenly." Madame Breshkovsky's happiest hours 127128 The Christian Register (8) [February 5 1925] seem to be those that she spends in visiting her boarding schools. One of these is at Mukatchevo. She writes from there: "I am with my girls, and am delighted. What charming creatures, what reasonable beings! Pure, simple, loving, naive, and so eager to please those who love them." She had been very desirous to get a piano for them: "They are so fond of music and singing, but have no instrument to accompany, or to be taught the notes. The acquisition of a musical instrument will make an epoch for the whole Carpathian population. It will be a delight to the girls, to their parents, and all the neighbors to hear a chorus trained according to all the rules of musical art. The girls and their teachers had often asked me to acquire such an article of luxury. At last I decided to use the first money that came into my hands for that purpose. The acquisition of a thing that will serve many, many years to give joy to children and perfect their talents is a joy to me too. I hope to acquire also a typewriter, a sewing machine, globes, and maps." Through the kindness of a friend in Ohio, the piano was obtained. Madame Breshkovsky writes: "Thanks to their teachers, they are making rapid progress in their studies, and even in music. The piano is a real delight to them. I wondered to hear a chorus sung by girls of ten or twelve as harmoniously as if they had been studying singing for years. " We have continual talks, and should never stop, but for my strength, which will not permit me to keep on. The eldest girls are seriously prepared to enter upon a life of hard work. Six have already become teachers, and are supporting their aged parents. The success of our boarding schools is beyond any doubt, and we get a great number of petitions to take new pupils. The new house bought last summer will accommodate sixty, and the garden makes it very pleasant, but there is no more room for new comers. I am in desolation at being forced to refuse, seeing how profitable the enterprise is to the whole little country. Even very poor peasants do their best to pay a part of the expenses, only to see their children become good citizens. The girls especially are in want of education. They will have the future of their children in their hands." Again she writes: "All this time with my young people. A very interesting world, full of its own thoughts, plans, desires. From ten years old to thirteen or fourteen, the children are like angels, innocent, striving to accomplish their duties and to gain the love and praise of their teachers, and their Grandmother [Babushka, Granny, is the affectionate name by which she is called]. Very attentive to my needs and comfort. When they are older, many become preoccupied with their looks, make themselves beautiful, try to be handsome. And they are. We do not encourage them, quite the contrary; and I observe that my presence has a wholesome effect in that respect; all become more natural, and more indifferent regarding their exterior. For myself, I am delighted to live among such an exquisite garden of wild flowers. Innate gracefulness and elegance make every one of them attractive. I am never tired of admiring them." Any contributions for Madame Breshkovsky's good work may be sent to William Lloyd Garrison, 60 State Street, Boston, Mass., who will forward them. She wants to get permission from Rudyard Kipling and Ernest Thompson Seton to have their children's stories translated into Russian for a children's magazine that is published in Czechoslovakia. If any readers of The Christian Register know either of these authors, they might make known her request. She constantly stresses the importance of a right education of children: "My faith in humanity in general, and the Russian people in particular, will never be shaken, since I have had to do with women and men the purity and stability of whose principles are fine, so glorious. I regard mankind as a field capable of producing the best vegetables possible. It must be cultivated honorably, and it is our own fault - we do not take care of the young plants God sends us. It is time to undertake it. When quite small, we regard them as charming flowers; when attending school, they are future specialists, careerists, business men. Too often, even young women do not develop a taste for bringing up beings possessing the best sides of the psychological complex. What an incomparable happiness is such an art! Yet to master it one must love, must be entirely devoted to one's faith. I have always to do with people of all ages and ranks; and I suffer to see and know how many of them feel unhappy, only because of their inconsistency, their everlasting doubtfulness." Her faith in Russia never wavers. She says: "Up to this time, our country is a mystery to foreigners. Even those who remain in Russia for years cannot give a true characterization of our people's souls and minds. Our historic past differs in all respects from the past of our neighbors to the west and east. And, as both civilizations, European and Hindu-Chinese, are much older, both are too proud to try to study seriously the fate and growth of the Slavonic stock and its 'broadcasting.' Among all these branches, we Russians have had the most complex, arduous, but the most independent, self-sustaining lot and chances. Without being partial, I assume that the Russian stock is the mightiest in capacities, mental and spiritual. We are crude but able material; we need only discipline and scientific enlightenment. Now, as we have a chance to study different national characteristics, to compare and discriminate, we prize the endowment of the Russians the more, and are more eager to work for them. . . . We hope, we hope, and it is worth while to wait, even with a bleeding heart." A very recent letter from Prague says: "This winter I have living with me a girl of thirteen, a high-school student, whose parents are absent, a very nice child. At six in the morning we are up, for she has an hour to travel to reach her school. Many other Russian pupils have to be provided with everything, and I get more and more letters urging me to contrive for the establishment of children, or of a whole family. People are constantly arriving from Russia. But we are too many here, and it is difficult to obtain entrance and a passport for settlement. So my days are full of care, with petitions, and search for resources: refuge, clothing, work, school - all these must be found, and I annoy my friends and strangers, and never come to an end. I am myself quite well in health, but never quiet at heart. My pupil advises me 'not to think,' and to sleep as if everything were going well. Naive child!" Madame Breshkovsky is over eighty, but still works harder than most young women, with her active brain and her big, loving heart. She says her friends seem to look upon her as "an amulet, a relic," because of her age, and take great care of her. But from her childhood up she has always taken care of others, and this care still occupies all her thoughts. Her spiritual power seems to grow with years. Spiritual power, she once said, is the strongest in the world, and yet is the last that most parents try to develop in their children. "The Little Grandmother" is an inexhaustible fountain of it; and it quenches the thirst of all around her. ----- The Children Dance By Gabriela Mistral of Chile (Translated from the Spanish by Alice Stone Blackwell) Where shall we dance in a circle? Shall it be by the shore of the sea? The sea will dance with its thousand waves, An orange-flower garland free. Shall it be at the foot of the mountains? Each mount will an answer fling, As if all the stones in the world Were longing at heart to sing. Shall it be in the midst of the forest? Its voices will blend, in bliss; The songs of children and songs of birds On the wind will meet and kiss. We will dance in an infinite circle; In the woods we will weave it with glee; We will dance at the foot of the mountains, And on all the shores of the sea! Those That Do Not Dance A girl who is weak and ailing Said, with a mournful glance, "How can I dance?" We told her She should put her heart to dance. Then said the sick girl, sadly, "I am too frail a thing. How can I sing?" We told her She should set her heart to sing. The poor dead thistle whispered, "How can I dance? Not I!" We said to the thistle, "Cast your heart On the wind and let it fly!" Said God from his far blue heaven, "How shall I descend from the height?" We told him he should come down to us In the sunbeams dancing bright. All the valley is dancing, In the light of the sun on high; And if any one will not join with us, His heart as the dust is dry! Letters from "the Little Grandmother" She tells a dear friend about her present life among Russian children M. H. Wallace Catherine Breshkovsky, "the Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," has had a varied and eventful life. A daughter of the nobility, from her early childhood her whole soul was devoted to improving the lot of the peasants. As a little girl, she gave away her own beautiful clothing to the peasant children. When she grew older, the same spirit of love made her a revolutionist. She spent a large part of her life in prison and in exile. When the revolution came, she was brought home from Siberia in triumph, and welcomed with overwhelming acclamations. She was elected a member of the Constitutional Assembly, and took a leading part in the educational work of the new government under Kerensky. When the Bolsheviki seized power, she left Russia and for some years past she has made her home in Czechoslovakia, devoting herself especially to the welfare of the poor children of Russian Carpathia. This beautiful and picturesque district is now a part of the Czechoslovak Republic. Its people are of Russian stock. They are very poor and ignorant, but highly gifted by nature, and eager for education. Madame Breshkovsky made many warm friends during her two visits to America. Her remarkable character made the same deep impression here that it did upon George Kennan long ago, when he met her in Siberia, and wrote: "My standards of courage, of fortitude, and of heroic self- sacrifice have been raised for all time and raised by the hand of a woman." Mainly with money contributed by her American friends, Madam Breshkovsky has established in Russian Carpathia a number of "Internats," i.e., boarding schools, where poor boys and girls are sheltered and educated, and also taught useful trades. Many of the girls are trained as teachers. She spends her winters in Prague, and her summers visiting her schools. Prague has a large colony of Russian refugees, and "the Little Grandmother" is kept busy. She writes to an American friend: "You ask why I do not write articles for the American press. Dearest friend, I write every day, from eight to twelve, and again after dinner, and am never through. But instead of articles for the American magazines, I write them for Our readers will be pleased to see the following article consisting chiefly of excerpts from letters written to an intimate friend of long standing. It is good news, after a protracted silence, that this extraordinary and famous woman is full of her noble service and her supremely tested faith. CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY Russian peasant papers and little Carpathian magazines. Much more, I answer all sorts of letters, telling of all sorts of needs and sorrows. Only imagine the condition of Russian refugees all over the world, and you will understand whether they have a right to ask, to pray, to complain, to demand. Without any resources, without protection, without work, they address themselves to those whom they believe more experienced, more able and willing to meet the needs of people in trouble. At this moment, for instance, I have to answer the following letters: An archimandrite, director of a boarding school in Russian Carpathia, asks me to provide means to refurnish the building occupied by the children. A peasant asks me to take into one of our boarding schools his second daughter, the sister of one of our pupils -- very good girls. An old lady, ruined by the Bolsheviki, now dangerously ill and without any resources. A young girl student, disappointed on account of her very poor health, and losing courage as to her future. A young family, who want work or other help. A student, an excellent boy, who is anxious to continue his studies and is afraid he will have no c hance to. A much beloved friend, an old woman, distressed by the atrocities she sees around her in Russia. This for to-day. "I have also a big book into which I put my best thoughts and conceptions, for I am sure that my simple and sincere narrative will be understood; and as people are much addicted to reminiscences, which often contain expressions of wicked or sinister feelings, I think it well to speak about facts and subjects that will never lose their good influence. I have lived a long time, and studied life and types attentively, eagerly, willing to be able to act righteously; and now I know them well enough to be able to share my knowledge with the less experienced younger generation. Also, before I die, I wish to leave little biographies of such of my comrades and friends as were the best fighters and best citizens among us. We Russians are so accustomed to see our best people self- sacrificing that we seldom think it necessary to mention their valor, their mental and moral excellence. And I see that it is a great mistake. Good examples, great types, the grandeur of souls, fortify our faith and our hope. And, as good characters are modest, the great public has no idea of their existence and their doings. As I have known so many splendid souls and minds, I consider it my duty to recall them, to speak of them, to show what beautiful kinds of human beings we have among us. . . . Notwithstanding the ignorance and improvidence of the Russians, they are sensitive (and profoundly so) to the perfection of human character. They revere greatness, holiness, firmness; and they understand the beauty, they admire the poetry, of a soul that delights in everything heavenly." Madame Breshkovsky's happiest hours 127128 The Christian Register (8) [FEBRUARY 5 1925 seem to be those that she spends in visiting her boarding schools. One of these is at Mukatchevo. She writes from there: "I am with my girls, and am delighted. What charming creatures, what reasonable beings! Pure, simple, loving, naive, and so eager to please those who love them." She had been very desirous to get a piano for them: "They are so fond of music and singing, but have no instrument to accompany, or to be taught the notes. The acquisition of a musical instrument will make an epoch for the whole Carpathian population. It will be a delight to the girls, to their parents, and all the neighbors to hear a chorus trained according to all the rules of musical art. The girls and their teachers had often asked me to acquire such an article of luxury. At last I decided to use the first money that came into my hands for that purpose. The acquisition of a thing that will serve many, many years to give joy to children and perfect their talents is a joy to me too. I hope to acquire also a typewriter, a sewing machine, globes, and maps." Through the kindness of a friend in Ohio, the piano was obtained. Madame Breshkovsky writes: "Thanks to their teachers, they are making rapid progress in their studies, and even in music. I wondered to hear a chorus sung by girls of ten or twelve as harmoniously as if they had been studying singing for years. "We have continual talks, and should never stop, but for my strength, which will not permit me to keep on. The eldest girls are seriously prepared to enter upon a life of hard work. Six have already become teachers, and are supporting their aged parents. The success of our boarding schools is beyond any doubt, and we get a great number of petitions to take new pupils. The new house bought last summer will accommodate sixty, and the garden makes it very pleasant, but there is no more room for new comers. I am in desolation at being forced to refuse, seeing how profitable the enterprise is to the whole little country. Even very poor peasants do their best to pay a part of the expenses, only to see their children become good citizens. The girls especially are in want of education. They will have the future of their children in their hands." Again she writes: "All this time with my young people. A very interesting world, full of its own thoughts, plans, desires. From ten years old to thirteen or fourteen, the children are like angels, innocent, striving to accomplish their duties and to gain the love and praise of their teachers, and their Grandmother [Babushka, Granny, is the affectionate name by which she is called]. Very attentive to my needs and comfort. When they are older, may become preoccupied with their looks make themselves beautiful, try to be handsome. And they are. We do not encourage them, quite the contrary; and I observe that my presence has a wholesome effect in that respect; all become more natural, and more indifferent regarding their exterior. For myself, I am delighted to live among such an exquisite garden of wild flowers. Innate gracefulness and elegance make every one of them attractive. I am tired of admiring them." Any contributions for Madame Breshkovsky's good work may be sent to William Lloyd Garrison, 60 State Street, Boston, Mass., who will forward them. She wants to get permission from Rudyard Kipling and Ernest Thompson Seton to have their children's stories translated into Russian for a children's magazine that is published in Czechoslovakia. If any readers of THE CHRISTIAN REGISTER know either of these authors, they might make known her request. She constantly stresses the importance of a right education of children: "My faith in humanity in general, and the Russian people in particular, will never be shaken, since I have had to do with women and men the purity and stability of whose principles are so fine, so glorious. I regard mankind as a field capable of producing the best vegetables possible. It must be cultivated honorably, and it is our own fault - we do not take care of the young plants God sends us. It is time to undertake it. When quite small. we regard them as charming flowers; when attending school, they are future specialists, careerists, business men. Too often, even young women do not develop a taste for bringing up beings possessing the best sides of the psychological complex. What an incomparable happiness is such an art! Yet to master it one must love, must be entirely devoted to one's faith. I have always to do with people of all ages and ranks; and I suffer to see and know how many of them are unhappy, only because of their inconsistency, their everlasting doubtfulness." Her faith in Russia never wavers. She says: "Up to this time, our country is a mystery to foreigners. Even those who remain in Russia for years cannot give a true characterization of our people's souls and minds. Our historic past differs in all respects from the past of our neighbors to the west and east. And, as both civilizations, European and Hindu-Chinese, are much older, both are too proud to try to study seriously the fate and growth of the Slavonic stock and its 'broadcasting.' Among all these branches, we Russians have had the most complex, arduous, but the most independent, self-sustaining lot and chances. Without being partial, I assume that the Russian stock is the mightiest in capacities, mental and spiritual. We are crude but able material; we need only discipline and scientific enlightenment. Now, as we have a chance to study different national characteristics, to compare and discriminate, we prize the endowment of the Russians the more, and are more eager to work for them . . . . We hope, we hope, and it is worth while to wait, even with a bleeding heart." A very recent letter from Prague says" "This winter I have living with me a girl of thirteen, a high-school student, whose parents are absent, a very nice child. At six in the morning we are up, for she has an hour to travel to reach her school. Many other Russian pupils have to be provided with everything, and I get more and more letters urging me to contrive for the establishment of children, or of a whole family. People are constantly arriving from Russia. But we are too many here, and it is difficult to obtain entrance and a passport for settlement. So my days are full of care, with petitions, and search for resources: refuge, clothing, work, school - all these must be found, and I annoy my friends and strangers, and never come to an end. I am myself quite well in health, but never quiet at heart. My pupil advises me 'not to think,' and to sleep as if everything were going well. Naive child!" Madame Breshkovsky is over eighty, but still works harder than most young women, with her active brain and her big, loving heart. She says her friends seem to look upon her as "an amulet, a relic," because of her age, and take great care of her. But from her childhood up she has always taken care of others, and this care still occupies all her thoughts. Her spiritual power seems to grow with years. Spiritual power, she once said, is the strongest in the world, and yet is the last that most parents try to develop in their children. "The Little Grandmother" is an inexhaustible fountain of it; and it quenches the thirst of all around her. The Children Dance By Gabriela Mistral of Chile (Translated from the Spanish by Alice Stone Blackwell) Where shall we dance in a circle? Shall it be by the shore of the sea? The sea will dance with its thousand waves, An orange-flower garland free. Shall it be at the foot of the mountains? Each mount will an answer fling, As if all the stones in all the world Were longing at heart to sing. Shall it be in the midst of the forest? Its voices will blend, in bliss; The songs of children and songs of birds On the wind will meet and kiss. We will dance in an infinite circle; In the woods we will weave it with glee; We will dance at the foot of the mountains, And on all the shores of the sea! THOSE THAT DO NOT DANCE A girl who is weak and ailing Said, with a mournful glance, "How can I dance?" We told her She should put her heart to dance. Then said the sick girl, sadly, "I am too frail a thing. How can I sing?" We told her She should set her heart to sing. The poor dead thistle whispered, "How can I dance? Not I!" We said to the thistle, "Cast your heart On the wind and let it fly!" Said God from his far blue heaven, "How shall I descend from the height?" We told him he should come down to us In the sunbeams dancing bright. All the valley is dancing, In the light of the sun on high; And if any one will not join with us, His heart as the dust is dry! [*Breshkovsky*] PODKARPATSKÁ RUS SERIE I.: Dřevěné kosteliky a zvonice. ПОДКАРПАТСКА РУСЬ СЕРІЯ І.: Деревлянѣ церквы и дзвоницѣ.Kreslil a vydal Rudolf Hůlka, Praha. Рисовав и выдав Рудольф Гулька в Празѣ.