The West Virginian

NO SUCH MAN AS NEW NAPOLEON OF THE RUSSIANS

Will of the People Is the Only Dictator, Declares Russell.

KING IDEA KICKED OVER

Russians Are Not Ignorant Neither Are They Inexperienced.

This is another of the series of articles by Charles Edward Russell, staff writer of The West Virginian, who has just returned from Russia, where he spent three months as a member of the official United States commission to the new Russian government.

CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL.

Copyright, 1917, by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.)

"Where is the Napoleon of Russia? Who is he? Do you think he is Kerensky?"

I have these questions every day from scores of Americans. Apparently the persons that put them are convinced that Russia, having thrown off one king, necessarily and of course proceed to choose another.

No going without a king. All England, naturally enough, believes this, but what puzzles me is that any American should cling to a notion that belongs to the world's antique.

CHAS. E. RUSSELL

Americans might reflect that it was not the man, Nicholas Romanoff, the Russian people repudiated, but the KING IDEA.

Having waited so long and endured so much to get rid of it under one name, does it seem likely they would rush joyously to get it back under another?

"Where is the Napoleon of Russia?"

Well, dear old sleep walker, there ain't no sich animal. There is none now and there will be none so long as the Russian people have anything to say about their affairs--which will be until the Huns flag flies above Petrograd and Moscow anyway. The Germans believe in that sort of thing, but the Russians do not. That makes a difference.

Let me tell you now an odd little fact that should throw no end of light on the actual situation between the United States and Russia.

"What Russia needs," sings a large chorus of American cave dwellers, "is a Dictator."

So, Russia not being sufficiently wise to pick one out, these gentlemen proceed to create one for her.

It is literally true--that is what they have already done.

When Kerensky succeeded to the place of prime minister the American press was deluged with the assertion that he had been made Dictator of Russia. It was said so confidently and positively that the entire nation become convinced of it. "Dictator Kerensky," some newspapers always call him, as if that were his regular title. "The man that rules Russia," is another favorite reference.

"It was an impressive spectacle," observed many journals, meaning the meeting between Kerensky and the late czar, "the man that used to rule Russia face to face with the man that rules Russia now."

This is all the most absolute rot and rubbish that ever was devised. There is literally not one word of truth in it. Kerensky is no more the dictator of Russia than you are. He was never made dictator nor anything like dictator. He comes no nearer being a dictator than his predecessor came. When he was named to succeed Lvoff there was no more thought of making him dictator than there was of making Bill Devery dictator.

Beyond all this, Kerensky himself, who is a most unselfish, sincere and highminded patriot, would be shocked and grieved to learn that America believed him to be capable of betraying the revolution.

No one that knows him or knows the Russians as they really are would ever go far astray.

Kerensky, like the rest of the ministry, holds office to carry out the will of the Russian people.

And if you think that the Russian people will ever tolerate a dictator, let me propose something for your enlightenment.

On a Sunday afternoon go out to the meetings that cover the great Field of Mars in Petrograd and suggest such a thing. You will not have to prepare any argument about it. Just suggest it. Only--a word in your ear. Take along plenty of good strong huskies for a bodyguard. You'll need them.

The idea that Russia needs and will have a dictator is born of a fundamental disbelief in democracy and the fixed delusion many persons have that the people of Russia, being very ignorant and totally without experience, cannot possibly manage their own affairs.

But that is just the point. THE PEOPLE OF RUSSIA ARE NOT VERY IGNORANT AND ARE NOT INEXPERIENCED.

They are people of extraordinary capacity and instead of being inexperienced their peculiar form of local government has trained and developed among them an unquestionable talent for the self-governing job.

They have factions among them, of course, and some of the factions stand out for wild, visionary and impossible things.

They are also plagued, cursed and bedeviled with a German propaganda almost as industrious and insidious as the movement that is trying to induce the United States to turn dirty yellow.

But the masses of the people have a great fund of plain, hard common sense.

Also, while they may have little book learning, they understand the principles of democracy just as well as we do, and are at least as determined to have them and nothing else.

Kerensky is one of the foremost men of his age, as lofty in character as he is unusual in ability. In a nation of orators he is one of the greatest. He has the orator's gifts, magnetism, presence, a splendid voice, a marvelous command over speech.

In our own country probably nobody this side of Wendell Phillips has equally swayed men.

He gives you at once the impression of sincerity, of a man that is on the level.

As a prime minister, he undoubtedly understands the situation as well as anybody in Russia; he knows that there can be no peace in the world until German militarism is put out of it.

The last time I saw him he was carrying his right hand in a sling because he had strained it shaking hands with the people.

But I think that with his left he would have assaulted anybody that called him Dictator, the betrayer of the young republic.

The only dictator in Russia is the majority of the people.

It is a dictator that knows its job and will do it--if let alone.