“He had not even left the carriage; he had not spoken a word of sympathy or regret.
“In his view of the case he had done some damage to this woman, and, being a man of honor, he was ready to settle the bill.
“That was all. ‘Drive on, coachman!’—and never a thought more did the Duke waste on the mother or child. They were not of his world, but of another and a lower.”
This was more than one hundred years ago. Ever since that time we have supposed that the human race has been advancing onward and upward toward a higher and a better civilization.
The philosopher has reflected and advised. The statesman has studied and planned. The reformer has made his battle-axe ring at the door of every abuse.
Learning has spoken from all our schools. Religion has preached from all our temples; and yet in one of the nations of Europe, where the king and the priest have had absolute control of the minds and the bodies of the people for hundreds of years, the point of view of the aristocrat is precisely the same that it was in France in the year 1788. And the man of the common people submits humbly in 1905 just as he did in 1788.
In Russia no man’s conscience is his own; it belongs to the Church. In Russia no man’s action is free; he belongs to the State. The Czar rules by “Divine Right.” He is the earthly representative of the Most High God; the common people of the land are mere dirt under his feet, being of a different world and a lower.
A few Sundays ago his people, in the belief that his heart—the heart of their “Little Father”—was accessible to pity and to the plea for justice, were coming in peaceful procession, accompanied by their wives and their children, to kneel at his feet, lift up their supplicating hands, and, with their own tongues, reach his ear with the true story of their grievances.
Their Little Father refused to see them or hear them.
Their Little Father threw a glittering line of steel between himself and his “children.” The Little Father ordered, “Fire!” and his children fell before the storm of lead.