Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 123, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1917 — Washington Receives Better News From Russia. [ARTICLE]

Washington Receives Better News From Russia.

'Russia’s grerft war minister, KerLensky, is making splendid progress in the re-organization of that country. Kerensky had been accused of being too severe with the army and of being too, vigorous in urging an offensive against Germany. He took the floor of the Council of the Workingmen’s and Soldiers* Delegates and delivered a forceful speech, which took the session by storm and created tremendous enthusiasm. Soldiers’ delegates threw on the platform their crosses of honorastokensofthedevotion of the army. Official reports from Russia always have been much more optimistic than press dispatches and consistently have scouted the idea of a separate peace. This has upheld confidence among state department officials, who hope that the . revolution, though throwing the allied offensive on the Belgian, French and Italian fronts entirely out of gear, in the end will prove one of democracy’s great triumphs of the war. The great effort here now is to be friendly and sympathetic toward the provisional authorities at Petrograd rather than distrustful and intrusive. Prompit settlement of the Kronstadt trouble when radicals broke away •fronr-the pi u visional found a separate administration, has strengthened the belief hare that Russia will find its own way out Reports at present, officials indicate, are very much out of perspective as they center largely on the sensational and upon Petrograd, without much consideration of the great Russia outside. The anti-annexation, anti-indemnity program of the delegatee is not literally interpreted here as opposing territorial readjustments in the spirit of self-govOmment and national development which the Russians themselves proclaim they are fighting fro The first is tHoOght oflty W forbid ax> tual conquest, and the second the imposition of punitive indemnities such as Germany placed upon Frtuoce when she extorted $L0OOXW»O from her in-18?Jl. It is not thought, for instance, that Russaa would restore to the Turk the great province of Armenia, or object to the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine and Italia Irredenta. . Consequently, it is felt in officials quarters here that while at first sight the Russian program appears to be in conflict with the readjustments desired by the Allies, a detailed examination shows it not to be so in spice of the insidious workings of German propaganda to create a chasm.