CZAR AUTHORIZES DUMA

19.05

On the way the party stopped in Japan, where they were received with an enthusiasm greater than had ever before been witnessed in that country. It was a most significant testimony of Japan's admiration for the United States represented in Secretary Taft and the Congressmen, and its personal regard for President Roosevelt represented in his daughter. So far as leading to any practical results in measures of relief of the Filipinos from tariffs and other burdens, the tour proved almost barren of results. It did, however, lead to several marriage alliances between members of the party, the first and chief of which was that of Miss Roosevelt and Congressman Nicholas Longworth, whose engage ment was announced on December 13.

The demand for constitutional government, rising from every quarter of Russia, and from every rank of society save the bureaucracy, backed as it was by workingmen's strikes, peasant uprisings, and military and naval mutinies, caused the Czar, after making all sorts of ineffective promises, to take definite action. At first he tried to give the shadow instead of the substance of representative government by issu ing a manifesto on August 18 creating a national assembly or Duma, to be elected by a small body of highly qualified voters and to act solely in an advisory capacity to the autoeracy. The plan was received with general derision and answered by increased disorders. The Czar at last realized that his people could be tricked no longer, and on October 30 granted a Duma fairly representative of all classes, and with real legislative powers. At the same time the liberties of speech, the press, association, religion-in short, all the personal civil rights prevailing in enlightened countries—were promised the people. Minister Witte, who had been made. a count in recognition of his diplomatic victory at Portsmouth, was commissioned to carry out the program. The Zemstvo Congress, a convention of representatives of local

1905

BATTLE OF SEBASTOPOL

assemblies of the people, accepted the new proposals of the Czar, but only with great caution. It prom

ised to support the Ministry "only in so far as it will correctly and consistently carry out the constitutional principles of the Manifesto."

If the representatives of orderly agitation received the Czar's Manifesto with suspicion, it may be readily inferred that it had no effect whatever upon the disorderly elements. The Anti-Semites took advantage of the prevailing anarchy to massacre the Jews. By November 2 it was reported that 5,000 members of this peaceful race had been murdered in riots at Odessa and elsewhere. At Sebastopol the striking workmen were joined on November 24 by an entire squadron of the Black Sea fleet, including the "Kniaz Potemkin" that with an entirely new crew seemed still to carry in its forecastle the haunting spirit of mutiny. And not in its forecastle alone, for a Lieutenant Schmidt led the revolt. The mutineers killed Admiral Pisarevsky, captured the city, and stopped all railroad traffic. On the next day, however, the Government forces retook the ships, although not until after these had committed much destruction by shelling the city. Further trouble broke out at Cronstadt, the naval stronghold on the Baltic, and also at Vladivostok, but the revolts were sternly repressed. General confusion in the business world was occasioned by a strike, beginning on November 30 and extending well into December, of the postal and telegraph employees. It was occasioned by a Government order forbidding them to form a union. Every industry was becoming unionized. There was even a Peasants Union, formed by tenants for the purpose of securing possession of the land, which Tolstoy had taught them was theirs by natural right. During December there were many agrarian disturbances, chiefly in the Baltic Provinces, where the great landowners are Germans.

BRITISH LIBERALS REGAIN GOVERNMENT

1905

Labor was also coming to its own in Great Britain, where for the first time in the history of that land made great by handiwork, a manual laborer was chosen to a seat in its Cabinet. The disintegration of the Balfour administration, which Secretary Chamberlain started two years before by proposing to introduce Protection, had now reached the point of dissolution. The dwindling strength of the administration had permitted its defeat on several questions, and Balfour had been compelled to resort to very tenuous excuses to justify its continuation in power. Then Mr. Chamberlain completed his work by a speech in which he referred contemptuously to the humiliating position of the Prime Minister. In December Mr. Balfour and his associates resigned. The King at once summoned Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who formed a Cabinet of Liberal and Labor representatives to hold office pending a general Parliamentary election. Never before were so many men distinguished either for intellectual attainments or executive ability, or both, gathered together in a Government ministry. And not the least distinguished and certainly the most picturesque figure of them all was John Burns, President of the Local Government Board, who had risen from the position of an engineer to become a successful labor leader and a member of Parliament, and now had been chosen to form a part of a council to which were committed the destinies of a world-encircling empire.

Music, art, literature, and the stage suffered greatly by death during the year. Theodore Thomas, the great American composer and orchestra leader, died at Chicago, on January 4, at the age of 69. George H. Boughton, the English painter, died on January 19 at the age of 70. General Lew Wallace, the author of "Ben Hur" and other novels of great popularity and enduring merit, passed away at the age of 78 in his home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, on February 15.

1905

DEATHS OF THE YEAR

On March 24, Jules Verne, whose hundred or more works of imaginative fiction, based on the marvels of nature and modern science, have both entertained and instructed youthful readers in every quarter of the globe, died at his home in Amiens, France, aged 77 years. On April 23, Joseph Jefferson, the most beloved actor of the American stage, made his exit from life at Palm Beach, Florida, aged 76 years. On May 21, Albion W. Tourgee, whose novels of the days of Southern reconstruction attained great vogue a quarter of a century before, died at the age of 67 in Bordeaux, France, where he was American consul. Maximo Gomez, the Cuban patriot, closed a long life of revolution at Havana on June 17, in the calm assurance that his beloved country had entered upon an era of undisturbed peace and prosperity. J. J. Henner, a French painter, noted as an original colorist, died at Paris, July 23, at the age of 76. Adolphe W. Bouguereau, another French artist of possibly greater talent but certainly less genius, whose ideals of beauty always fell in with the popular taste and hence won for him great popularity, ended his life at La Rochelle, France, at the age of 80. Henry Irving (the stage name, legalized in 1889, of John Henry Brodribb), the greatest actor of the English-speaking stage, died in London on October 13, aged 67.

But none of these brilliant men left behind him works or influences at all comparable to the institution and idea which a plain business man, George Williams (who died in London, on November 6, at the age of 80), gave to the world in the Young Men's Christian Association, which he conceived and founded a half-century ago.

EVENTS OF 1906-1912

Workmen's Councils Boycott the Duma-Disorders in Baltic Provinces -M. Fallières Elected President of France-Conference of Powers at Algeciras-Coal Strike-Contest in Congress Between Administration Forces and Insurgents-Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius-Earthquake in California-Packing Houses Investigated-Pure Food Law-Provisional Government for Cuba-Anti-Japanese Agitation -Brownsville Riots-Panic of 1907-Standard Oil Company Fined $29,240,000-Oklahoma Admitted to Statehood-Panama Canal Construction_Placed in Charge of Army-Jamestown Exposition -Kingston Earthquake-William H. Taft and James S. Sherman Elected President and Vice-President-King Carlos I. of Portugal, and Prince Luiz Felippe Assassinated-Hon. Herbert Henry Asquith Becomes Prime Minister of England-Olympic Games-Quebec Tercentenary Celebration-White House Conference-Battleship Cruise -Austria Annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina-Bulgaria Proclaims Independence Island of Crete Repudiates Turkish SuzeraintyCities and Towns of Sicily and Italy Destroyed by EarthquakePresident Taft Inaugurated-Ex-President Roosevelt Sails for Africa on Big Game Hunt-North Pole Discovered by Peary-Frederick A. Cook's Claims-Lieut. Shackleton's South Pole Expedition -Second Cuban Republic-Turkish Revolution-Sultan Abdul Hamid Deposed-United States of South Africa-Alaska-YukonPacific Exposition-Hudson-Fulton Celebration-Paris FloodsEnglish Budget Rejected-New Parliament Elected-BallingerPinchot Controversy-Defeat of Speaker Cannon-The Lorimer Bribery Case-Forest Fires-Newfoundland Fisheries Case-Wellman's Balloon Experiment-Census Report-Death of King Edward VII The House of Lords Shorn of Power-Diaz Reelected President of Mexico-Japan Annexes Korea-Revolution in PortugalThe Canada-United States Reciprocity Measure The McNamara Case The Alaska Coal Lands-Prosecution of Trusts-Abrogation of Russian Treaty-Mexican Revolution-Persia's American Financial Adviser-The War Between Italy and Turkey-The Chinese Revolution-The Moroccan Dispute-Coal Strike-Admission of Arizona and New Mexico-Amundsen's Dash to the South Pole.

ITH the opening of 1906 the disorders in Russia assumed a new character, all the more ominous

W

because orderly. On January 2 the Workmen's Council of St. Petersburg joined the representatives of various proletarian organizations across the Finnish border in a momentous conference. On January 18 there met at St.