St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 13

Men With Money to Invest huafn.aa ha Kt will r3(1 EDITORIAL SECTION. Sunday Wants and you may learn what P-t. Wants will do If through the little war.ta jra tell about that'shop you rave to sell. Consult the "EUSIKESS FOR SALE" Column. PART TWO.

ST. LOUIS, SUNDAY MORNING, AUGUST 9, 1903. AMERICA HAS LOST HER YOUTH; SHE IS BEGOM SENILE," COUNT "TOLSTOI SI py NG thelr ration." "And why not?" I asked. told me about the of dollars that Rockefeller had gren to tha He seemed to think that theso millions were of greut Importance. But i WOULD DIE RATHER THAN WORK FOR ROCKEFELLER- TOLSTOIS ONE AMBITION TO DIE A MARTYR'S DEATH.

'I have tried hard be sent to prison or to be hanged, but I have failed. I The Famous Russian Says the Greed for Wealth and Even the Automobile, Which Wastes Precious Tjme, Are Proofs of American Decay He Would Rather Die Than Work for Rockefeller President Harper, Who Visited Him and Told Him of the Uillions Rockefeller Has Given University, Tolstoi Considers "Quite a Barbarian." 1 Rockefeller." Rockefeller." ill 'lt Is the ambition of my life to 1 die for the faith that Is in me." i i i The trust and the labor onion tlntr ny using It constantly with. are merely rassing phenomena." out reason." I time by using It constantly without reason." i' -V- -5 fV "And your literary work? Have you abandoned that His Forthcoming Book An Epic. "1 am working now on a book I began many years ago. It Is an epic of the Caucasus, not a sermon.

The principal Is Hadji Mourat a native hero, who served Russia, then fought with his own people acainst Russia, and finally had his head cut off by the Russians. It is a story that pictures a people contemptuous of death. It Is not complimentary to Russia." "And when will the story be till after my death." "Why not before?" "Because I do not care to read the As we resumed our walk the count tok'd of his last gr.at work with some enthusiasm. "The Emperor Nicholas II is an Import w.i fgurc in the story." he paid. "His personality has grown so greatly in my work that I have decided to make him the subject of separate study.

It will be a despotism, for Nicholas was a eiespot." Ton talk of the trusts in America IT the question were important." he paid. "To my mind, those industrial are childish. The trust and the labor union "r' merely passing phenomena. A man does not have to live in an industrial center, when human slavery been established. Ho does not have to live in a city.

Because man hits spoiled a part of the earth. Is that reason iih pronlp should earth. Is that a reason why people should work for a man like Hoekrfeller. He should prefer starvation. He should con-alder It a religions duty to rrfunr to work for a truM.

"Let a man hi works for a trust in America, ajid who seeks relief let such a man go Into the country and get a small portion of ground to cultivate. Let him give up luxuries. Let him cease eating meat. The cost of living will be less than one sixth of what it was." "Rut our free lands are nrnoticaiiy ail gone. It takes money to buy land." "It takes very li'tle land to i import a 1 'fZ2ttkl 1 1 "HnrA 1 came to talk to him about matters I found him to be really ignorant-iuIte a barbarian.

He knew lesa about matters intellectual and moral interest than .1 might learn simply by reading ire Review of Reviews, for Instance. Think of such a university directed by such a man! And yet that is one of the results of these tn.st millions. "There Is only one principle for man, and that is the principle of true Christianity, peasants you see here aro Cnristians. Tbey They cannot read or write, but I find that they are more civilized than the aristocracy of which I have been a member. They are more truly intelligent and r-rlned than the barbarians whom our universities and drawing rooms develop.

They have the true religion In them." "And what is that" "It Is this: If I believe that I have a spark of the divine in me, then I am a part of God and I know my place in the universe, and I know that I have a duty to all other men. If I believe that I am simply an animal. I will live like an animal and work for myself. The man who becomes a true Christian has a center from which he can see all things clearly." "Yet you do not acknowledge the divinity of Christ?" "Ah. no.

He called himself the Son of God. Rut he called all men the s-ons of God." Presently we wer strolling beside the fields of waving rye again. We came to a brook and the count Jumped across nimbly. His strength was astonishing. Again he stooped to examine the wild flowers.

"What is needed in America Is a great religious movement. Truth will make your neoule free. When thev abandon pleasure as an object of life they will not so much money. Your worklngmen can u'ever win the fight against capital by labor unions. Capital will always have the government and the army on its side." Kishineff And the American Petition- "What about the massacre of the Jews at Kishineff.

count?" "Horrible!" he said. "It was hard for me to believe that Russian people could be ruilty of such a frightful rrime. Yet It is all tiue. Only today I heard the story from an eyewitness. It is like a tale wild beasts.

They even used fraudulent proclamations intended to make the people that the Emperor had ordered the muiders. And I have leen informed by res-ponsible witnesses that the slightest pro test was sufficient to turn the murderers and robbers away from their prey. The evidence shows that it would have been an easy thing to save the victims. "Ah, well" he raised his hands, clasped them and pressed them to his breast "flic Russian government by denying to the Jews the ights which the- accord to other subjects has trained the people to look upon Jews as an inferior caste. The Greek Church has taught the people an idolatrous religion and filled them with fanatical hatred of unbelievers.

Thse two things explain the massacre. "And now there Is to be a petition pre- I seated by Americans to the Emperor. IUh! It will do no good. The Emperor may re ceive and read the petition. That la possible.

He will be very polite. But he will say nothing. That will be the end of it. That Is the Russian way. It Is a very clever way.

"But why should Americans send a pe tition to Russ'a? We have a crime like the KlshinefT outbreak once in a period of years. In the United Rates you have lynchings every year, every month, every week, almost every day. You hang negroes, shoot them, roast them, it Is an ordinary thing In your country. Yet you feel that you can address a petition to the Emperor r.f regarding the Ushlneff mur-i tiers. What can su-h a petition accom plish? Nothing." "Then you do not think that It is a wise thing to send It to 3t.

Petersburg?" "I think that it is simply useless." "Are you do ng anything vourself to re lieve the Jews In Klshlnefn" "At the request of a Ix-ljislc publisher I I am about to write a tory whlrh Is to be I published for their benefit." Suddenly Tolstoi whweeled about and faced me. "When we are proud of our nation that is bad." he said gravely. "When we are ashamed of our nat'on this Is good. I find that Americans are always proud of one should work for a man like Koekrfelleri he ahould prefer Man at Ion; he abould die rather than assist In supporting men like "America la a nation absorbed In the jjursult of money." "Aa soon an you Invent something to save time you begin to waste peasant BY JAMES CREELMAN. TASNIA POLIANA, Province of Tula, Russia.

July 15. 13-G. WERICA has lost her youth." said Count Tolstoi, as 1 ilked through a deer wood on his estate with him this morning. "Her hair Is gray, her teeth are falling out; uhe becoming senile. Voltaire said that France was rotten before she was ripe, but vh-ix shall be said of a nation whose Ideals have perished almost in one generation? Your Emersonf, Garrisons and Whit tiers are all gone.

You produce nothing but men. In the years before and alter the war the soul-life of your people flowered and bore fruit. You are pitiful materialists now." The master of Russian literature sUl ankle-deep In wild flowers In the shadow of the fragrant lindens. Hi some venerable prophet. In spite ol his 73 years he was tall and straight.

He wore a gray linen peasant's blouse, fastened at the waist by a strong leather belt. On his head was a soft wh'te hat of coarse linen. His top boots were Mt with dew. In his hand he carried welkins sick. Is hard to describe this extraordinary being.

His forehead Is high and wide and deeply lined. His eyes gray ami gent I-'. deep-6et under shaggy trows eyes that look at you with tie penetration of a child's gaze, nose Is powerful and flat at the nostrils. The r.nvit'n is btr-je a mouth of compassion. A large gray beard.

Innooejit of discipline, sweeps tho boa I chest. It Is the head and face of a Sla. -earnest. commanding, but devoid of humor. There Is a grandeur about the man which It Is impossible to put In words.

As we emerged on the brow of a little eminence thre was spread out before us a vast meadow, in tne dst of whlc i rr four peasant women, in red and blue dreesee. bareheaded, barefooted, brown-faced and broad-shouldered. As they raUc-d and tossed the day Into heaps they sang at the tops of their voices. Tolstoi sopped and watched the scene with a strange melancholy. "I shall soon die," he said gently.

"It Is natural for a yuung man to want to live and it Is natural for an 3ld rr.m to w-. nt to die." He Tried Hard To Be Hantred. He paused for a moment. The women in the hay field chanted joyously, their strong i voices keeping time with their movements. vigorous "I have tried bard to be sent to or to be hanged, but I have failed." said the count.

JT'i stooped, plucked a violet flower and twirled It between his big thumb and f) nger "Tried to be hanged?" "Yes; It is the lest end for a man except to be burned. Sacrifice is the best end-" a "Are you quite serious?" The count turned his great gray eyes tpon me and smiled. "I have done everything to win that destiny. It is the ambition of my life to die for the faith that is in me. They who sr.

crucified die well." "But what good could you do by being hanged on a Russian gallows?" For a moment Tolstoi watched the brawny women singing among the scented hay. Then he sighed and stroked his gray bcr rd. "I am afraid you cannot understand n.e." he said "They are about to put up a monument to John Husn, the Bohemian, who was burned at the stake for his religion In 1415." "Dut Martin Luther was not burned, and he lived to see the reformation succeed." "Luther lived to compromise his own principles. Huss died without compromise." "It Is realy hard to believe that you have deliberately sought to be condemned to death." "It la Quite true." mi -M III MmiiS i mm- mmmm "It is a aatioa founded upon liberty." Absorbed in the V. Pursuit of Money.

"It Is a nation absorbed In tbe pursuit nt money and yet" he f-lded his arms and bent his gray head "and. yet I will of the Anglo-Saxon race that those lev who are religious dare to live up to ih-ir principles. It is only Just to say tb.tt. But the Germans are utterly without re ligion. "It is a curious thing that the ordinary conception of the German Is that he ar Ueallsl and of the American and Englishman that they are practical.

That is only an external description. The truth Is thvt the German Is only an idealist In In poetry, while there are Americans e.ui Englishmen who can be idealists In deco-u" "Tins Is your rye field. Is It asked as we came upon another splendid stretch of grain. "Not mine; nothing la mine." "But It Is a part of the estate?" "I Yesnla Foliana to my wife n) child. That was a great mistake.

I shoull have given It to the peasants, as I gvm all my other property." "And you still refuse to take money your "I do." "Why?" for "Because I hold that no man has right to property." iha "But have you the moral right de- rrive your wife and children of the ln- come which your literary work would injure them?" He turned again with an Impatient gesture. "1 am weary of explaining that point the "world," he said. "It Is a religiouf tj'Ie." "How has the church's decrea of excommunication affected vou?" "Not at all. I have paid no attention to it. The church long ago rejected Christianity, and It Is only natural that It should reject a Christian.

Just now the church ia preparing to ope.it tho grave of a who died something like a hundred year ago. He is a saint. The church has alw taught that the body of a saint is imperishable. That was ne of the proofs of sainthood. The other day a commission was sent to open the grave and examine tha body.

The commission found dust and a few bones. The matter was kept secret until illegal leaflets exposing the facts wera privately circulated, and then the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg had to pubiic'y acknowledge that a saint's body could de-able. That was one of the proofs ol sainthood wrs to be found In the miracles worked at. the grave.

In abandoning the doctrine of the imperishable body, the Metropolitan cited the fact that iha shadow of St. Peter's body had power to heal. This grave is to be publicly opened In a few' lays In the presence of of the Emperor. I should like to be there to see tho faces of the people and to hear what they say when the church exposes Its own fraud. If I were strong enough I would certalnly be there the crowd." "Rapid Travel Is Preposterous." As he turned homeward the count gain vigorously protested tho American idea that the Invent! and multiplication of Industrial products are Important objects of endeavor.

"Some one asked lmer.ioi what ha should do If the sun snould grow cold and the earth die. He answered. 'I tnlnk that I could get along without That was a good rVply. It that was sure of his spiritual life. Why do Americans neglect their souls for the inke of trade, for the sake of inonsy, for the ke of pleasure? Some one invents the r.uto-moolle; at once everybody feels that automobiles must be used, p.jt why sh it man waste his time in dashing thn country' in an automobile? As toon as you Invent something to tir.e.

you I egui to wiLsto time by using it constantly nd without reason. "F.ve hundred -ears line the j- soendants of the race will look lurk witR astonishment to a time when their ancestors wasted their strength ii luilldu such nonsensical stru. -lures tnd tlct'ted a large part of their to preposterous rapid travel." And so. for hourf, Tijstol spoke wiill disdain of modern civllIriM jii. "I have but one ambition." he said.

"I would die a martyr death no ou see that a man whose mind is occupied wltH trusts, labor unions, politics or money 'jean hardly understand me." politicians:" he exclaimed. 'They've eausel all the trouble I've ever had with any of my enterprises. I could own and oprata all sorts of public utilities it It were not for the politicians. Iok what they hav done for me In the postofTlce de.p rt men t. But I getting rid of 'em as fast as I can.

and I'll show you bow I can manage business at a proft and In the public Interests. Am i less capable or honest than Germiny. or LVgland or France? If the nations can successfully eiperate big ail-re. ol and telegraph systems 1 reckon oifght to run a measly littlo bridge. "Besides, the 1iidge will not be in eharga of pollshians.

hut soldiers." what officer will control it Gen. Wood?" "Of course not: Wdn't I sav It woi not be In charge of iolitici.ts? I mif turn It over lo Furston. he h.us swtira enough rivers to tie entitled lo a brldg. Or miybe I'll extend Miles' term eif wervKa and place him In charge. He would is) sble to overawe the manager of the Terminal association.

But all thin Is specie lation. I haven't got the bridge yrt --may not get it 'Sti'l. you have demanded that bridge mpi.ry shew e.tuse h) should not confiscate its property. .4 can't J'i'sibly do bw'Auw everyone knows tlisit it has violated the provlsior Its "Young man." said fnle Sam. solemnly, 'the Men-hunts' bridge lues Uwirr.

and lawyers lme been showing me thing that were not there for more'n a hundred And that cloted the Interview. m. kb mm i i msmaKmm Count Tolstoi in the garb of a Russian man and his family. I say again the way to escape from trusts to leave lh: cities nii and dig In rh earth bread." "And If a man cannot in. what then?" ground to dig Would Rather Die illdn aclP XVOCKeieiier.

"lie should die ra'her than assist in supporting nun like r. It Is his duty put on die. If military uniform were tj and he were ordered to die he would do it proudly. For what? For patriotism, that evil thinj which has done so much harm in the world and which we should condemn and rertrict rather tlian defend spread. The trouble is that nioii arc not readv to die for the nghl thing.

The talk about American trusts bein cn evolution of science is stupid. There is no science about it. ETAO is no science In It. The trust will disappear as soon as people are brave enough to refuse to serve It. A Kreat deal is said about tho enormous increase In production accomplished ty the Rut Is such production necessary? I'ocp it make the people happier? "Hut the trust system nas produced Andrew Carnegie, end he is using his hundreds of of dollar- to provide- free libraries for the people." I suggested.

"Yes: but libraries are not necessurilv blessings. A ibrary of good books Is a good thing, bu: a library largely ma do up of bad books a I do not understand that Mr. Qirnegie Mils his libraries with good books only. The ordinary idea is that a university is a good thing. we have here In Russia univers ties which are sbsolutelv tad.

"Iast year President Harper of the Pnl-versfty of Chicago came to see me. He property, because it has violated its charter provisions. Vnele Sam was found well, no matter where? it would never do to betray him to other voracious not to say veracious! reporters, and the interview begun. Undo Sam lighted two tons of cigars, his hourly allowance, and placing his feet on th Rocky mountains, begun: you want to know about the bridge? Well, what of it?" "The like to know." was the "what you will do witn the bridge when you get It?" I'ncle Sam blew a puff of smoke (Smoke I. Jones has made a report of It) and answered: "Hanged if I know, exactly: you see I never owned a bridge l.ke this before.

I would probably turn ir -r to the war department." "Ar.d what would the war th It?" persisted the reporter. "Well. I reckon for one thing. It would carry supplies over It to Jefferson Barracks and the postofflce. That alone mWht p.y the expense of operating the bridge, by saving what the bridge arbitrary has been charging ns," "But would you permit the bridge to be used for general commercial purposes, as a competitor of the Eads bridge, and you charge for such una! to, 1 WHAT UNCLE SAM WOULD DO WITH THE MERCHANTS' BRIDGE WHEN HE POSSESSED IT Being the First Interview Ever Granted By Our Uncle, Who Talked Right Straight From the Shoulder.

would you endeavor to make a profit out of the bridge, and "Hold on. young man, you are akirg too many questions nt ence. Ya, I "posi I would allow the briige to l-e vsed for i general commercial jiurpises. b-it I wouH scarcely charge more, than necessary to cover the cost of oper-ition. I wouldn't try to make money out of It.

It wold le too much like taking money out one pocket to place In ann'hr." I "But such competition wouH be ruinous -to the Terminal Associaflin the 1 other bridge? Or.e ft its principal fcources I of revenue Is that bridge. Iz can chue what It pleases under the presort arrangement, and the shippers mut pay In order to get their giorts ncros the river." I'nrfie Sam smiled a wicked mr-: -New look here, young man." he running this government for the Terminal Asf-oeiatton for the such competition would not minors. St. Louis needs tw iven more bridge, and by charging only for the use of my bridge. I would not te "ruinla" jny comjetitirs.

I woul 1 only foice tnet.i to rifnt with a re irn for their money; the water -t i.f the'r stock. They would nil their properties. eulpm-nt and couM charge a legitimate piofi ll.e us of 'here." I "Another thing Sam. In taking thW Irfidg jim would bf r. nklnr a Socialist of yourself; O'Vtier- v.lp.

paternalism, and th.it rt of ti.l'ig You k-ow th- lars .11 that these things would be he death Mow-to our free Institutions." A feat unparalleled In the annals of Journalism ha been accomplished by a representative of the Tost-Dispatch. It was an Interview. Now an Interview Is ordinarily no great matter. You select your King, or your tiook, or your President, and send In your card stating what you want, und the King or the Cook or the President receive ycu and talks about two columns that you have to condense into two "sticks." and flat Is all there Is to it. But this was a different kind of an interview.

It was with a personage who had never before been Interviewed, and was thought to be unapproachable. No less a personage than Cncle Sam himself! Of course, there had to be a subject for the Interview. Tou can't Just go and ask a man to turn loose nnd tell you all be knows about everything (though this. In the case of some Kings ami Cookt and Presidents, would take as much t-pate as you might think), so the representative tt the Poat-Dispatch resolved to Interview I'ncle Sain on the matter of the Merchants' bridge, which, as everyone knows, may soon be confiscated by our uncle. Through the war department t'nde 8am lias served notice on the Merchants' Pridiie Association that It must show causa wlth-ta text why should not forfait 1U t-s.