to render a verdict within twenty-four hours of the crime and to execute it within forty-eight. The average of their victims varied in different months from éve to fifteen a day. And it was during Stolypine's Premiership, that Hertzenstein, one of the Cadets, was attacked by thugs of the League of Real Russian Men and done to death. The Moscow News-the paper of the Leagueannounced his death three hours before it took place. But no one was punished.

After a few months of this regime of Governmental Terror, four young men went to Stolypine's villa-on his reception day -to kill him. For some reason they were detained in the anteroom and their bomb exploded prematurely. Fortunately or unfortunately, according to your point of view, he Minister escaped. But the four men, dying instantly themselves, took with them twenty odd of the throng of visitors-army officers, officials, police and spies. The foreign correspondent stationed in St. Petersburg moaned over the affair and sent to their papers gruesome accounts of the twenty-three victims. The Russians regretted this bloodshed as any civilized people regret the carnage of war. But they talked more of the supreme heroism of the four young men who had carried the bomb and had gone so willingly to death in their effort to rid the country of its most blood soaked tyrant. A quiet old gentleman a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party, said to me: "It is abhorrent -all this slaughter-and yet if the Revolution can continue to produce such heroism, the Autocracy must fall sooner or later". And the last part of his speech was the uppermost thought in the minds of most Russians. The Government can practice its terrorism to the utmost and yet not stamp out the heroism of revolt. And with such heroism and devotion to Liberty, the success of the Revolution is only a question of time.

Much has been written about Terrorism, but most of the arguments for or against-are weakened by sentimentality. On the one side there is horrified talk of the lawlessness of it and its innocent victims. On the other side harrowing tales of the government's provocation.

Revolutions are in the very essense-lawless. Stolypinethe Premier-has himself admitted that a state of war exists in Russia. And war always claims its innocent victims. A person who is shocked with these things has no business with revolutions. On the other hand no serious minded revolutionist has a right to waste himself nor his energies on personal vengeance. Two wrongs do not make a right. And the barbaric atrocities of the Government-while perhaps explaining-do not in the least justify terrorism. A great revolution like this in Russia. rises far above personal considerations. And the fact that a comrade or a blood brother has been killed, or a wife or sister

outraged by the janisarries of the Government does not justify a Revolutionist, he belongs to The Cause, and Terrorism can only be justified as it aids that cause.

At the bottom is the ethical question: is violence ever justified? Has a man a right to resort to violence to defend or to establish an idea? Not the most blood-spattered Terrorist in Russia will praise violence for itself. Violence is abhorrent to every right thinking individual, instead of convincing an opponent, it annihilates him. It is no argument. And yet is it never justified? Leo Tolstoi says "No". A few hundreds, at most thousands of his disciples, feebly echo "No". But all the rest of the world loudly answers "Yes". This is no place for a philosophic discussion of non-resistance. It is enough if everyone, who would judge the Russian Terrorist; will ask himself if he believes in violence. If he believes in the right of the United States to uphold the principles of popular government by force of arms, if he believes in police and prisons, if he believes, even, in compulsory education or sanitary laws, he can not deny that violence the use or threat of force-has its legitimate place in human society. If he glories in the military exploits of our forefathers in our Revolution, or in any of the violent acts which go to make up the history of the past and the life of to-day, he can not condemn violence in the abstract.

And the question becomes "when is violence justified?" Im the popular conscience it is not only justified but allowed when it is used in favor of the Rights of Man and against Tyranny. It is really a matter of expediency-of profit and loss. Has all this loss of life and blood in Russia resulted in a compensating increase of human freedom? However, in asking this question. it must be borne in mind that the failure of terrorism to overthrow the Tsar is no more an argument against it than the same failure of the proletarian movement and of the Duma is an argument against economic or parlimentary action.

While failing in the ultimate aim of the Revolution-the freeing of Russia from Tyranny-the advocates of Terrorism claim that it has two very distinct and beneficial results: (a) the checking within certain limits the acts of despotism (b) encouraging and heartening the whole revolutionary movement.

Terrorism as an accepted revolutionary tactic was started thirty years ago by a young woman Vera Sassoulitch. A man named Trepov was then the military commandant at St. Petersburg. Some of the students of the University made a demonstration in favor of constitutional government, and to punish this treason, several of them were flogged in one of the public squares of the city. If some of the students of Columbia University had been publically flogged by the New York police,

it would not have caused more indignation in America than did this brutality in Russia.

Vera Sassoulitch lived in one of the small provincial towns. She was not a member of any political organization, she had lived a secluded and quiet life, but on account of these floggings-an insult to all civilized Russia-stirred her to action. Without consulting any one she traveled to St. Petersburg and shot General Trepoy on the street. She was tried by an ordinary courtthe Government had not yet invented its administrative punishment, and its field court-martials-and such was the force of public opinion in her favor that the jury acquitted her. The flogging of students stopped.

The revolutionary tactics of this young woman were adopted by a section of the Socialist conspirators and many instances can be cited of terroristic acts which rank side by side with this deed of Sassoulitch, as eminently just, approved by public opinion and having a direct influence in creating a more liberal regime.

Finland is a private estate of the Russian Tsars, it has no organic connection with the rest of The Empire. Nicholas II. was the first to violate its ancient. Constitution and to deprive the Finns of their accustomed liberties. To carry out his policy. of Russification and oppression, he appointed Bobrikov to the Governorship. The Finns tried every constitutional and legal way to preserve their national life. And when these failed, a young man-the son of a senator-assassinated Bobrikov. And the oppression of Finland ended. To-day, thanks to this young man, who has become a national hero, his countrymen enjoy one of the most liberal Constitutions in the world.

The assasination of Von Plehve put an end to his oppressive regime, and Russia was ruled liberally until the access of Count Witte to the Premiership again plunged the land into reaction.

The psychological effects of these acts of Terrorism on the minds of the people at large is hard to define or foretell, but it is none the less important. The assasination of the Grand Duke Sergius had no noticeable effect on the policy of the Government, but it was good news to the revolutionists throughout the country. Every one was depressed by the period of governmental reaction and revolutionary inaction, which followed the suppression of the Gapon movement. And suddenly the news flashed all over Russia that Sergius, the most reactionary of the Tsar's advisers, Sergius, the most hardened and cynical of the Court Circle, had been killed. It was the news of a victory and put heart into all the scattered forces of Revolt.

The act of Marie Spiridonova is even a better example. In the Province of Tambov the peasants were suffering under the brutalities of an unusually vicious Vice-Governor. Three months before I had gone through this district and the famine.

was so bad that the peasants were tearing the straw thatch from their huts to feed their horses. And with the coming of Winter they had need of fuel to keep themselves alive, and they had stolen wood from the landlord's forest. This was their crime. And the Cossacks had come to "pacify" them. In each village. the men, hungry and smitten with cold, were lined up and the officer in command of the troops demanded the names of those who had stolen the wood. If the peasants refused to deliver the guilty ones, every tenth man was flogged. The next day the process was repeated, only every fifth man was flogged and so till the stealers of the wood were given up. It seemed like the Wrath of God, the peasants unarmed, unorganized, were as helpless against this brutality as against an earthquake. And Marie Spiridonova a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Partyshot the Vice-Governor-the author of it all. She was brutally treated by the Cossacks, stripped naked in the public street and afterwards ravished in prison and is now dying up by the polar circle in faraway Siberia. But she became a saint among the people, a name to conjure with. And now in their distress the peasants pray God to send them another Spiridonova.

Although much can be said in favor of Terrorism, much can be said against it. It is the tactic of despair. It is fighting the Devil with fire. And therein lies its weakness. To win in this fight you must be as bad or worse than the Devil. And in this respect the Russian Revolutionists fail.

The following incident is one of many which show the Revolutionist's ability to use fire as effectively as the Government. During the spring of 1906, there was a congress of one of the smaller terorrist organizations-the Maximilists. They met-the better to avoid the police-in a secluded forest near Moscow. There were about forty deputies, and coming from distant cities most of them were unknown to each other, their introductions were by pass words and signs. During the course of the meeting, while matters of great secrecy were under discussion, one of the deputies became suspicious of two of those who were pesent. He went from one to another of his comrades and found that no one knew these two. They were told to produce their credentials and these not being satisfactory, they were searched. Papers were found on them which proved beyond all doubt that they were membrs of the secret police. Their death was demanded, not only because of their past careers, but because of their present knowledge. Their continued life was a menace to the forty odd revolutionists who were present. They were tied to trees and two men were chosen to kill them. The Committee disbanded and left these two men to their work. One did his duty thoroughly. The other after having fired several shots into his prisoner was so affected by the horror of the

situation that he turned away without making sure of his work. The spy was seriously wounded but not killed. The next day his cries attracted a passing peasant. He was carried to a hospital and on his recovery was able to cause the arrest of almost all those who had attended the meeting.

No one likes to shoot a man tied to a tree. But the agents of the Government would not have faltered under such circumstances. And unless the Revolutionists can bring the same degree of brutality and callousness to the work of Terrorism, they can not hope to beat the Devil at his own game.

The net results of Terrorism are hard to estimate. On one side many of the best and noblest Russians have lost their lives in this struggle. Numerically they have lost more than the Government. No one can doubt that the arrest and execution of those who caused the death of Alexander II, was a greater blow to the Revolutionary movement than the loss of the Tsar was to Autocracy. On the other hand the dread of assasination holds many an official in check. And time and again an act of individual heroism has given fresh life and enthusiasm to the whole move

ment.

And this last the psychological effect on the nation at large -is to my mind the most important. And the question of its value is one impossible for a foreigner to estimate. To judge it rightly one must be native to the country and familiar with all the circumstances of the combat, familiar with all the subtle changes -of increase and decrease, in the intensity of the evolutionary sentiment in the mass of the people. And the Russian Comrades, almost without exception, believe that Terrorism, by its benecial results, is amply justified.