as indispensable to hold us all
together from within, it always exposed our weakness when directed
toward external issues. I could not map out my own general education,
even; forced by the traditions of my family I was placed in charge
of the Holy Synod and taught by Pobedonostzev to regard myself as
the source of SPIRITUAL POWER and instructed to regard an unorthodox
opinion as a transportation offense. Now, while I reverence profoundly
the sacred tenets of my holy religion, I regard religious freedom as
indispensable to the dignity of spiritual belief. For that reason
I made that reformation in 1905. As I grew up I rebelled against my
intolerable confinement,--I went out among the PEOPLE and TALKED
WITH THEM. They were friendly in most instances and gave me very good
advice. I did not need a bodyguard to go about. I was as safe among
the people as I would be in the Winter Palace. Often have I walked to
the hotels alone to call on some particular friend without any thought
of fear. Nor was it necessary,--I liked the people as genuinely as I
believe they respected me. I learned their hunger for land by going
around; and it was on that account that I projected and completed our
Siberian Railways so as to give our people the coveted opportunity
and an outlet to the markets of the world. Given an opportunity to
accumulate and prosper, men will hesitate about going to war unless
THEY ARE MISLED. I saw such an opportunity in international trade. I
visited the Orient, extensively investigating the commercial field
in that direction. It was a mighty task, necessitating a reference to
others who should have been as much interested in the accomplishment
as I was myself. Their mistakes have made me quite unhappy and there
has always been CONTENTION between my Ministers and myself. If Witte
had kept his hands off when Count Solsky got after the plotting school
teachers and rebellious students, the propaganda against my reign
which has honeycombed the Empire with sedition might have been
checked in time to prevent this dissolution,--for it is more than a
"revolution." It is idealism run amuck. France, England, the people of
America, have been duped by the intelligentia--the Kadets--who never
seemed to realize that in order to hold this Empire together not
only FORCE but SUPERSTITION was required,--'_si mundus vult decipi
decipiatur_,' it is the only principle that will hold unorganized
ignorance in disciplinary subjection to orderly