r innocent, terrorized, and, we used to
think, won respect. We know better now, especially those of us who were
eye-witnesses of the Russian revolution, and saw how the police provoked
a quarrel they could not handle.

[Sidenote: Crowds begin to be dangerously large.]

I watched the growth of the revolt with wonder. Knowing something of the
dissatisfaction in the country, I marveled at the stupidity of the
Government in permitting the police to handle its inception as they did.
Any hundred New York or London policemen, or any hundred Petrograd
policemen, could have prevented the demonstrations by the simple process
of closing the streets. But they let people crowd in from the side
streets to see what was going on even when the crowds were beginning to
be dangerously large, and, having permitted them to come, charged among
them at random as if expressly making them angry.

[Sidenote: Ease with which Czar was overthrown.]

I look back now at the time before the Revolution. The life of Petrograd
is much as it was to outward appearances except that the new republican
soldiers are now policing the streets, occasional citizens are wearing
brassarts showing they are deputies of some sort or members of
law-and-order committees, and there is a certain joyous freedom in the
walk of every one. Here, in one corner of this vast empire, a revolt
lacking all signs of terrorism, growing out of nothing into a sudden
burst of indignation, knocked over the most absolute of autocracies.
Just to look, it is hard to believe it true. As a Socialist said to me
to-day: "The empire was rotten ready. One kick of a soldier's boot, and
the throne with all its panoplies disappeared, leaving nothing but
dust."

I asked President Rodzianko of the Duma the other day:

[Sidenote: Revolution inevitable after Duma was dissolved.]

"From what date was the revolution inevitable?"

I expected him to name one of the days immediately before the revolt,
but he replied:

"When the Duma was dissolved in December without being granted a
responsible ministry."

"How late might the Emperor have saved his throne?"

"New Year's. If he had granted a responsible ministry then, it would not
have been too late."

[Sidenote: The Government brought Cossacks to Petrograd.]

The Government was either blind or too arrogant to take precautions. It
had fears of an uprising at the reconvening of the Duma and brought
13,000 Cossacks to Petrograd to put fear into th