Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/74

50 There has been much discussion as to the motives which may have impelled the Czar to make this appeal. Many of those who consider him sincere, call the manifesto a mere outburst of generous sentimentality which, although laudable in itself, loses sight of existing conditions and of the practical exigencies of the moment. If it really was mere generous sentimentality, it was sentimentality of that sort which in the history of mankind has not seldom served to give impulse and inspiration to great movements of progress in justice and humanity, overcoming with its optimism that dreary and pusillanimous wisdom which reasons that existing evils cannot be rectified simply because they are strongly intrenched in existing conditions. If it was that sentimentalism, it did honor to the Czar's heart, and, inasmuch as it attacks a terrible evil which eventually must be remedied, it did no discredit to the Czar's head.

Others have questioned the Czar's sincerity and good faith, suggesting that the peace manifesto was merely a diplomatic stratagem designed to dupe his competitors for territorial conquest. This is, in view of the solemnity of the Czar's words, so atrocious an imputation that only hardened cynicism will readily accept it. It is, however, all the more to be deplored that the Czar, at the time when the belief of the world in the sincerity of his benevolent purposes is so important, should himself endanger that belief by ruthlessly suppressing the constitutional rights and liberties of the good people of Finland, which he had solemnly sworn to maintain, and which his predecessors, even so stern a despot as Nicholas I., had faithfully respected. The performance of two acts so different in character by the same person may be explained on the hypothesis that in the one case the Czar, being sincerely alarmed by what he himself experienced of the evils and dangers of excessive armaments, could not resist the impulse of attacking them, and did so in good faith, while