Rescuing the Czar | Page 2

a touch of pathos to the lingering
hope of Royalty that humanity may some day welcome its return to
reverence and power. It forms the superstructure on which the
crumbling column of aristocracy sustains its capital pretensions amid
the ruins of privileged exemption from the universal law of change.
Consequently the reader will not be surprised nor much alarmed when
encountering its subterranean methods depicted in these pages. They
will merely fortify the accepted impression among students of events
that when Time binds up the wounds of Revolutionary Russia the
world will discover an Agrarian Democracy, instead of a Soviet
Communism or Romanoff Empire, emerging from the cosmos of
organized disorder in that land. This seems to be the trend of thought
behind "Rescuing the Czar." Yet it does not conceal a fundamental
inclination to sympathize with every rank that suffers in this onward
sweep of power. Royalty and Rags, throughout these pages, find many
mourners over the sacrifices each has made to reconcile the eternal
conflict between poverty and pomp. In the abysmal void between the
disappearing star and the aspiring glowworm men tramp upon, there
seems to be sufficient latitude for the play of gratitude or grief. A
Napoleon exiled by the French or a Ney shot down by Frenchmen is
unthinkable today. In like manner, when the revolutionary passions of
Russia have subsided, there may be men and women of the humblest
estate who will wonder how it happened that their Emperor, whose

darkest sin, apparently, was loyalty to Russia, could have been
murdered by their countrymen in cold blood.
It will never be believed.
In reflecting on the experiments of their Revolution, finding much to be
admired and more to be condemned, they will not accept without
resentment an accusation from posterity that they lacked both gratitude
and pity when the test of national manhood came. In exculpation of
such an imputation they will doubtless reverence the tradition of a
House that fell only with the ruins of their native land. Viewing as they
may the fragments of their once majestic Empire annexed to alien
States in compensation of successful perfidy and neglect, they will
lament the lot of Nicholas II while reflecting on their fate. If their
democracy shall survive their own self-amputation, the lightness of
their governmental burdens will stimulate the flow of mercy through
their social institutions and direct their thoughts toward pity for the
useless sacrifice.
In simple justice, therefore, "Rescuing the Czar" is offered in
extenuation of this doubtful charge against the entire Russian race. For
nothing is better calculated to sanctify a martyrdom and make a race
abhorred than a belief in its injustice. Nothing is more potent to
dissolve a race and scatter its suspected members from the altar of their
fathers than the fable of their unrepentant hostility to the cry of Mercy
from the sacrificial Ikon. Nothing so quickly exposes their abandoned
fields to the tramp of hostile feet and the subjugation of their soil.
Ambitious rivalry has no better ally than unexplained suspicion.
If "Rescuing the Czar" does no more than set at rest the fable of the
"Romanoff Execution," it will have done its work by characterizing the
source and methods and objects of its inspiration. If it raises the
presumption of generosity in quarters generally subject to suspicion, it
will be equally praiseworthy for expelling the darkness that has always
hovered around Imperial thrones. If it does nothing but portray the
dignified composure of Russian womanhood in the presence of
unspeakable affronts, it will have justified its publication by adding to
the diadem of virtue a few more jewels to glorify the crest of

motherhood. If it performs no other service than to place upon the pale
face of tragic possibility the red-pink blush of romantic probabilities, it
will have justified its presence in the society of the learned by the
sincerity of its purpose and the candor of its appeal to the conscience of
the world.
New York, 1920.
[Footnote A: February 20, 1920]

RESCUING THE CZAR

I
FROM SPLENDOR TO GLOOM
The ice was breaking up along the river Neva, in 1917. At the Winter
Palace, the ladies were rejoicing over the good news. The Czar in the
field was reorganizing his dismembered armies. America was severing
diplomatic relations with the Central Powers. The Asquith Ministry had
dissolved and Lloyd-George was hurling his dynamic personality into
organizing Victory for the Allied forces in the field. Kut-el-Amara had
fallen to the British--Bagdad had been taken--the Crescent was fleeing
before the Cross of Russia--the Grand Duke was driving the Turk from
Trebizond. Even Hindenburg was retiring along the Western
Front--France with unexampled gallantry was holding back the
Juggernaut--America was getting mad and rolling up its sleeves.
The women at the palace did not disguise