Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 183, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1917 — CELEBRATE THE RUSS REVOLT [ARTICLE]

CELEBRATE THE RUSS REVOLT

Civilians and Soldiers, in Remarkable Procession, Display Powers of Organization. In the NeVsky Prospekt the interminable procession was formed In two columns, marching parallel with each other and made up of groups of about a hundred men, women and children, old and youhg, walking arm in arm, according to the account of an eyewitness in Scribner’s. The flies w'ere of equal length, and no troops could have shown better alignment. At the head of each group, like a captain leading his company, walked a leader, who wore. a wide red scarf crosswise, to make him more easily distinguishable. When he lifted his hand the members of his group went forward; when he lowered it they stopped. It was exactly like the order and discipline of troops on the march, and trained soldiers could not have marched better — indeed, the soldiers did not, for one of the strange things about this prodigious procession was that in it civilians and soldiers were mingled. After some groups of workmen came battalions of troops, then workingmen and women again. This fusion of soldiers and civilians made an impression which I can never forget. And as they marched they sang revolutionary hymns; as a matter of course the “Marseillaise,” and also other songs which must have been composed only recently, for the marchers had not had time. to *learn the words by heart, and some read them from sheets which they carried in their hands. The soldiers also sang, and their thousands of deep voices made a chorus of marvelous power and sonority. ~ _ None of these songs were fierce or revengeful. On the contrary, they were sad, profoundly sad —the accents of mourning and not of hat,e. No police, no marshals were needed to control this manifestation. Those who took part in it policed themselves, and surely never was discipline better maintained. As I looked at this spectacle I thought of all the pessimists, all the philosophers steeped in gloom, all the prophets who only predict calamity for Russia. Why should not a people who are able to organize imd carry out such a wonderful display be capable of organizing themselves? 'Let us, then, give them our confidence —and also a little time.