ver raised its voice in defense of a guilty
Government._

Let not my testimony in favor of the Russians lead any one to believe
that I am idealizing them, or that my people, the Letts, have enjoyed
any special privileges under their government. On the contrary! I have
suffered more at their hands than at the hands of the Germans, and my
nation knows only too well how heavy is the hand of the Russian
Government, and how suffocating the atmosphere of Panslavism. In 1906 it
was the Lett peasant and intellectual classes who enjoyed most
frequently the privilege of being flogged; it was amongst these classes
that the greatest number of unfortunates were shot, hanged, or
imprisoned for life. And since that dreadful year there are to be found
in all the principal towns of Western Europe colonies of Letts, formed
of refugees who succeeded in escaping from the atrocities of the
punitive expedition sent by the Russian Government against my country.
But this fact is significant: _at the head of the majority of the
military bands commissioned to punish the country were German officers
who had asked for this employment, and showed so great a zeal in
shooting down men and setting fire to houses, that they went even beyond
the intentions of the Russian Government. In those days the places
might count themselves fortunate which were visited by dragoons
commanded by officers of Russian nationality; for where Russian officers
would have ordered the knout, German officers habitually inflicted a
sentence of death._

If my nation had ever to choose between a German and a Russian
government it would choose the latter as the lesser of two evils. I see
in the Lett newspapers that the reservists of my country left for the
war with enthusiasm. I do not imagine that this enthusiasm is due to the
thought that they are fighting for the glory of a nation which, by every
means in its power, seeks to hinder our national development, by
forbidding instruction in our native tongue in primary schools, by
attempting to colonize our land with Russian peasants, by compelling our
own people to emigrate to Siberia and America, by excluding all Letts
from any share in Government employment, etc. This enthusiasm
nevertheless exists, and it is because the war is being waged against
Germany, and because the Letts know that the Germans have long been
aiming at the possession of the Baltic provinces. To prevent this we are
prepared to make any sacrifice. We, who