Russian patriotism tramples on the traitorous pro-German dragon whose breath has paralyzed Russia in the field and at home. The kaiser sees and slinks away.
Before retiring into the background the Executive Committee of the Duma, under M. Rodzianko, issued on March 20 the following noteworthy appeal to the nation:
A great event has happened. By one mighty effort the Russian people have overthrown the old order of things. A new free Russia has been born. In the course of nine long years all the rights won by the people were taken away from it one by one. The country was once again thrown into the abyss of arbitrariness and autocracy. All attempts to bring the Government to reason proved fruitless, and the great world-war into which our country was drawn by the enemy found it in a state of moral disorganisation, with a Government separated from the people, indifferent to the fate of the country, and sunk in the disgrace of vices of every kind....
The people were obliged to take over the power in the State into their own hands. The unanimous revolutionary impulse of the people, animated by the sense of the importance of the hour, and the resoluteness of the Duma, have created a Provisional Government which deems it to be its sacred and responsible duty to realise the people's aspirations and to lead the country on to the bright road of free civic organisation.
M. Rodzianko,
The Duma, March 20, 1917.
THE TWO GIANTS
Germany: "I destroy!"
America: "I create!"
Among the many steps which are being taken by the Government to meet the emergency created by the submarine menace is the graduating of the first and second classes in the Naval Academy. The first class will be graduated on March 29, and the second class several weeks later. This measure will provide 374 additional naval officers.
Reuter, Washington, March 20, 1917.
William to General von Fleck: "We must save these beautiful things from destruction and fire."
All the reports which have reached us confirm the report that the enemy has systematically pillaged and ravaged the evacuated zone, mostly without reasons of a military nature. General von Fleck, the Commander of the 17th German Army Corps, in leaving Ham carried away the furniture of the house which he occupied in the town.
French Official, March 22, 1917.
Uncle Sam: "So we are only a dollar making people, are we?"
Germany never had the slightest intention of attacking the United States of America, and does not intend to do so now. Germany never desired war against the United States of America, and she does not desire it to-day. How did things develop? We told the United States more than once that we announced the unrestricted use of the submarine weapon in the expectation that England could be made to observe in her blockade policy the laws of humanity and international agreements.
If the American nation regards this as a reason for declaring war against the German nation, with which it has lived in peace for more than a hundred years; if by this action it wants to increase bloodshed, not we shall have to bear the burden of responsibility for it. The German nation, which feels neither hatred nor hostility towards the United States of America, will also bear this and overcome it.
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg,
Berlin, March 29, 1917.
