The long-suppressed anxiety of the people has changed into a heartrending sigh of anguish. These words of a national poet express the general sentiment, "Better far than servitude a death upon the gallows." A vicious circle has been established. The high-handed measures cause indignation, and the Governor-General is determined to suppress its expression. There is no safety in Finland for honest and patriotic men. The judiciary has been made subservient to General Bobrikoff. Latest advices are ominous. April 24, 1903, was a black day in the history of Finland. It witnessed the inauguration of a reign of terror which, by the ordinance of April 2d and the rescript of April 9th, General Bobrikoff had been authorized to establish.
Bobrikoff returned to Finland with authority, if necessary, to close hotels, stores, and factories, to forbid general meetings, to dissolve clubs and societies, and to banish without legal process any one whose presence in the country he considered objectionable.
For 700 years Finns have been free men; now they have become Russian serfs, and it is well to make closer connections between the Finnish railway system and the trans-Siberian road. Finns are long-suffering and patient, but who could endure all this?
While the expression of indignation is suppressed in Finland, outside of the Grand Duchy, especially in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, Russia's relentless tyranny has made the highest officers of state as resentful as the man in the street. Indeed entire Scandinavia is aflame with indignation and apprehension. The leading journals are warning Scandinavians "that the fate of Finland implies other tragedies of similar character, unless Pan-Scandinavia becomes something more than a political dream."
[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission from the American Review of
Reviews.]
In criticizing Russian policy in Finland a distinction should be made between its fundamental principles—i.e., the ends which it is meant to attain, and its outward expression, which depends upon circumstances.
The former,—i.e., the aims and principles, remain unalterable; the latter,—i.e., the way in which this policy finds expression—is of an incidental and temporary character, and does not always depend on the Russian authority alone. This is what should be taken into consideration by Russia's western friends when estimating the value of the information which reaches them from Finland.
As to the program of the Russian Government in the Finland question, it is substantially as follows:
The fundamental problem of every supreme authority—the happiness and prosperity of the governed—can be solved only by the mutual cooperation of the government and the people. The requirements presented to the partners in this common task are, on the one hand, that the people should recognize the unity of state principle and policy and the binding character of its aims; and, on the other, that the Government should acknowledge the benefit accruing to the state from the public activity, along the lines of individual development, of its component elements.
Such are the grounds on which the government and the people should unite in the performance of their common task. The combination of imperial unity with local autonomy, of autocracy with self-government, forms the principle which must be taken into consideration in judging the action of the Russian Government in the Grand Duchy of Finland. The manifesto of February 3-15, 1899, is not a negation of such a peaceful cooperation, but a confirmation of the aforesaid leading principle of our Government in its full development. It decides that the issue of imperial laws, common both to Russia and Finland, must not depend altogether on the consent of the members of the Finland Diet, but is the prerogative of the Imperial Council of State, with the participation on such occasions of members of the Finland Senate. There is nothing in this manifesto to shake the belief of Russia's friends in the compatibility of the principles of autocracy with a large measure of local self-government and civic liberty. The development of the spiritual and material powers of the population by its gradual introduction to participation in the conscious public life of the state, as a healthy, conservative principle of government, has always entered into the plans of the sovereign leaders of the life of Russia as a state. These intentions were announced afresh from the throne by the manifesto of February 26, 1903. In our country this process takes place in accordance with the historical basis of the empire, with the national peculiarities of its population.
The result is that in Russia we have the organization of local institutions which give self-government in the narrow sense of the word—i.e., the right of the people to see to the satisfaction of their local economic needs. In Finland the idea of local autonomy was developed far earlier and in a far wider manner. Its present scope, which has grown and developed under Russian rule, embraces all sides, not only of the economic, but of the civil, life of the land. Russian autocracy has thus given irrefragable proof of its constructive powers in the sphere of civic development. The historian of the future will have to note its ethical importance in a far wider sphere as well: the greatest of social problems have found a peaceable solution in Russia, thanks to the conditions of its political organization.
For a full comprehension, however, of the manifesto of 1899, it must be regarded as one of the phases in the development of Finland's relations to Russia. It will then become evident that as a legacy of the past it is the outcome of the natural course of events which sooner or later must have led up to it. The initiation of Finland into the historical destinies of the Russian Empire was bound to lead to the rise of questions calling for a general solution common both to the empire and to Finland. Naturally, in view of the subordinate status of the latter, such questions could be solved only in the order appointed for imperial legislation. At the same time, neither the fundamental laws of the Swedish period of rule in Finland, which were completely incompatible with its new status, nor the Statutes of the Diet, introduced by Alexander II., and determining the order of issue of local laws, touched, or could touch, the question of the issue of general imperial laws. This question arose in the course of the legislative work on the systematization of the fundamental laws of Finland. This task, undertaken by order of the Emperor Alexander II. for the more precise determination of the status of Finland as an indivisible part of our state, was continued during the reign of his august successor, the Emperor Alexander III., and led to the question of determining the order of issue of general imperial laws. The rules drafted for this purpose in 1893 formed the contents of the manifesto of 1899. Thus we see that during six years they remained without application, there being no practical necessity for their publication. When, however, this necessity arose, owing to the lapse of the former military law, the manifesto was issued. It was, therefore, the finishing touch to the labor of many years at the determination of the manner in which the principle of a united empire was to find expression within the limits of Finland, and remained substantially true to the traditions which for a century had reigned in the relations between Russia and Finland. It presented a combination of the principle of autocracy with that of local self-government without any serious limitations of the rights of the latter. Moreover, while preserving the historical principle of Russian empire-building, this law determined the form of the expression of the autocratic power within the limits of the Grand Duchy in a manner so much in accord with the conditions of life in Finland that it did not touch the organization of a single one of the national local institutions of the duchy.
This law, in its application to the new conscription regulations, has alleviated the condition of the population of Finland. The military burden laid on the population of the land has been decreased from 2,000 men to 500 per annum, and latterly to 280. As you will see, there is in reality no opposition between the will of the Emperor of Russia as announced to Finland in 1899 and his generous initiative at The Hague Conference. But, you ask me, has not this confirmation of the ancient principles of Russian state policy in Finland been bought at too dear a price? I shall try to answer you. The hostility of public opinion toward us in the West in connection with Finnish matters is much to be regretted, but hopes may be entertained that under the influence of better information on Finnish affairs this hostility may lose its present bitterness. We are accustomed, moreover, to see that the West, while welcoming the progressive development of Russia along the old lines it, Europe, has followed itself, is not always as amicably disposed toward the growth of the political and social self-consciousness of Russia and toward the independent historical process taking place in her in the shape of the concentration of her forces for the fulfilment of her peaceful vocation in the history of the human race.
The attitude of the population of Finland toward Russia is not at all so inimical as would appear on reading the articles in the foreign press proceeding from the pen of hostile journalists. To the honor of the best elements of the Finnish population, it must be said that the degree of prosperity attained by Finland during the past century under the egis of the Russian throne is perfectly evident to them; they know that it is the Russian Government which has resuscitated the Finnish race, systematically crushed down as it had been in the days of Swedish power. The more prudent among the Finlanders realize that now, as before, the characteristic local organization of Finland remains unaltered, that the laws which guarantee the provincial autonomy of Finland are still preserved, and that now, as before, the institutions are active which satisfy its social and economic needs on independent lines.
They understand, likewise, the real causes of the increasing emigration from Finland. If, along with them, political agitation has also played a certain part, alarming the credulous peasantry with the specter of military service on the distant borders of Russia, yet their emigration was and remains an economic phenomenon. Having originated long before the issue of the manifesto of 1899, it kept increasing under the influence of bad harvests, industrial crises, and the demand for labor in foreign lands. Such is also the case in Norway, where the percentage of emigration is even greater than in Finland.
Having elucidated the substantially unalterable aims of Russian policy in Finland, let us proceed to the causes which have led to its present incidental and temporary form of expression. This, undoubtedly, is distinguished by its severity, but such are the requirements of an utilitarian policy. By the bye, the total of these severe measures amounts to twenty-six Finlanders expelled from the country and a few officials dismissed the service without the right to a pension. It was scarcely possible, however, to retain officials in the service of the state once they refused to obey their superiors. Nor was it possible to bear with the existence of a conspiracy which attempted to draw the peaceful and law-abiding population into a conflict with the Government, and that, too, at a moment when the prudent members of the population of the duchy took the side of lawful authority, thereby calling forth against themselves persecution on the part of the secret leaders of the agitation party. The upholders of the necessity for a pacific policy toward Russia were subjected to moral and sometimes physical outrage, and their opponents were not ashamed to institute scandalous legal processes against them for the purpose of damaging their reputations.
Very different is the attitude of the great mass of the population, as the following incident shows: The president of the Abo Hofgericht, declining to follow the instructions of the party hostile to Russia, was, on his arrival in Helsingfors, subjected to a variety of insults from the mob gathered at the railway station. On his return to Abo he was, on the contrary, presented with an address from the peasantry and local landowners, in which the following words occur: "We understand very well that you have been led to your patriotic resolve to continue your labors in obedience to the government by deep conviction, and do not require gratitude either from us or from any others; but at the important crisis our people is now experiencing it may be of some relief to you to learn that the preponderating majority of the people, and especially in broader classes, gratefully approve of the course you have taken."
It will scarcely be known to any one in the West that when signatures were being gathered for the great mass-address of protest dispatched to St. Petersburg in 1899, those who refused their signatures numbered martyrs among them. There are some who for their courage in refusing their signatures suffered ruin and disgrace and were imprisoned on trumped-up charges. Moreover, the agitators aimed at infecting the lower classes of the population with their intolerance and their hatred of Russians, but, it must be said, with scant success.
With regard to the essence of the question, I repeat that in matters of government temporary phenomena should be distinguished from permanent ones. The incidental expression of Russian policy, necessitated by an open mutiny against the Government in Finland, will, undoubtedly, be replaced by the former favor of the sovereign toward his Finnish subjects as soon as peace is finally restored and the current of social life in that country assumes its normal course. Then, certainly, all repressive measures will be repealed. But the realization of the fundamental aim which the Russian Government has set itself in Finland—i.e., the confirming in that land of the principle of imperial unity—must continue, and it would be best of all if this end were attained with the trustful cooperation of local workers under the guidance of the sovereign to whom Divine Providence has committed the destinies of Russia and Finland.
When we talk of the means requisite for assimilating Finland we can not help reckoning, first and foremost, with this fact, that by the will of Russian emperors that country has lived its own particular life for nearly a century and governed itself in quite a special manner. Another consideration that should be taken to heart is this: the administration of the conquered country on lines which differed from the organization of other territories forming part of the empire, and which gave to Finland the semblance of a separate state, was shaped by serious causes, and did good service in the political history of the Russian Empire. One is hardly justified, therefore, in blaming this work of Alexander I., as is now so often done…. The annexation of Finland, poor by nature and at that time utterly ruined by protracted wars, was of moment to Russia, not so much from an economic or financial as from a strategical point of view. And what in those days was important was not its Russification, but solely the military position which it afforded. Besides, the incorporation of Finland took place at a calamitous juncture—for Russia. On the political horizon of Europe the clouds were growing denser and blacker, and there was a general foreboding of the coming events of the year 1812. If, at that time, Czar Alexander I. had applied to Finland the methods of administration which are wont to be employed in conquered countries, Finland would have become a millstone round Russia's neck during the critical period of her struggle with Napoleon, which demanded the utmost tension of our national forces. Fear of insurrections and risings would have compelled Russia to maintain a large army there and to spend considerable sums in administering the country. But Alexander I. struck out a different course. His Majesty recognized the necessity of "bestowing upon the people, by means of internal organization, incomparably more advantages than it had had under the sway of Sweden." And the Emperor held that an effective means of achieving this would be to give the nation such a status "that it should be accounted not enthralled by Russia, but attached to her in virtue of its own manifest interests." "This valiant and trusty people," said Czar Alexander I., when winding up the Diet of Borgo, "will bless Providence for establishing the present order of things. And I shall garner in the best fruits of my solicitude when I shall see this people tranquil from without, free within, devoting itself to agriculture and industry under the protection of the laws and their own good conduct, and by its very prosperity rendering justice in my intentions and blessing its destiny."
Subsequent history justified the rosiest hopes of the Emperor. The immediate consequence of the policy he adopted toward Finland was that the country quickly became calmed and settled after the fierce war that had been waged there, and that in this way Russia was enabled to concentrate all her forces upon the contest with Napoleon. According to the words of Alexander I. himself, the annexation of Finland "was of the greatest advantage to Russia; without it, in 1812, we might not, perhaps, have won success, because Napoleon had in Bernadotte his steward, who, being within five days' march of our capital, would have been inevitably compelled to join his forces with those of Napoleon. Bernadotte himself told me so several times, and added that he had Napoleon's order to declare war against Russia." And afterward, during almost a century, Finland never occasioned any worries, political or economic, to the Russian Government, and did not require special sacrifices or special solicitude on its part.
If we may judge, not by the speeches and articles of particular Separatists, but by overt acts, during that long period of time the Finnish people never failed in their duty as loyal subjects of their monarch or citizens of the common fatherland, Russia. The successors of the conqueror of Finland spoke many times from the height of the throne "of the numerous proofs of unalterable attachment and gratitude which the citizens of this country have given their monarchs." And in effect, neither general insurrections against Russia's dominions, nor political plots, nor the tumults of an ignorant rabble—such as our cholera riots, workmen's outbreaks, Jewish pogroms, and other like disturbances—have ever occurred in Finland; and when disorders of that kind broke out in other parts of the empire or alarming tidings from abroad came in they never evoked the slightest dangerous echo there. It is a most remarkable fact that during the trying time the Russian Government had when the Polish insurrection was going on, and later, in the equally difficult period through which we passed at the close of the seventies, Finland remained perfectly calm; and in the long list of political criminals sprung from the various nationalities of Russia, we do not find a single Finlander.
In like manner fear of Finland's aspirations toward independence, of her inordinate demands in the matter of military legislation, of her turning her population into an armed nation; in a word, all the apprehensions felt that Finland may break loose from Russia are, down to the present moment, devoid of foundation in fact.
"Finland under the egis of the Russian realm," our present Emperor has said, "and strong in virtue of Russia's protection through the lapse of almost a whole century, has advanced along the way of peaceful progress unswervingly, and in the hearts of the Finnish people lived the consciousness of their attachment to the Russian monarchs and to Russia." In moments of stress and of Russia's danger, the Finnish troops have always come forward as the fellow soldiers of our armies, and Finland has shared with us unhesitatingly our military triumphs and also the irksome consequences and tribulations of war-time. Thus, in the year 1812 and in the Crimean campaign, her armies grew in number considerably; in that eastern war almost her entire mercantile marine was destroyed—a possession which was one of the principal sources of the revenue of the country. During the Polish insurrection and the war for the emancipation of Bulgaria Finnish troops took part in the expeditions, and when in 1885 the Diet was opened, the Emperor Alexander III., in his speech from the throne, bore witness to "the unimpeachable way in which the population of the country had discharged its military obligations," and he gave utterance to his conviction that the Finnish troops would attain the object for which they existed.
By way of proving Finland's striving to cut herself apart from Russia, people point to the doctrine disseminated about the Finnish State, to its unwillingness to establish military conscription on the same lines as the empire, and to the speeches of the Deputies of the Diets of 1877-1878 and 1879. But none of these arguments carries conviction.
The theory about the independence of Finland, as a separate realm, which was worked out for the purpose of devising "the means of safeguarding its idiosyncrasies," is far from proving that "Finland aims at separation from Russia." Down to the present moment separation has not been in her interests. She was never an independent State; her historical traditions do not move her to play a political part in Europe. Besides, her population is mixed. The Swedish element constitutes only the topmost layer, and is not powerful enough to move toward an independent existence or toward union with the Power which belongs to the same race as that layer, while the mass of Finns, dreading the oppression of the Swedish party, is drawn more to Russia by the simple instinct of self-preservation. That is why the Finnish patriot may well be a true and devoted citizen of the Russian Empire, and being, as Alexander III. termed it, "a good Finlander," can also "bear in mind that he is a member of the Russian family, at the head of which stands the Russian Emperor."
The unfavorable attitude of the Finns toward the proposal of the War Ministry for extending to them the general regulations that deal with the obligation to serve in the army is also intelligible. That obligation of military service is exceedingly irksome; and it is not only the Finns who desire to fight shy of it, nor can one discover any specially dangerous symptom in their wish to preserve the privileged position which they have hitherto enjoyed as to the way of discharging their military duties. They seek to perpetuate the privileges conferred upon them in the form of fundamental laws, and they strive to avoid being incorporated in the Russian Army, because service there would be very much more onerous for them than in their own Finnish regiments…
If we now turn from the political to the economic aspect of the matter, to the question how far the order of things as at present established in Finland has proved advantageous to Russia from the financial point of view, we shall search in vain for data capable of bearing out the War Minister's opinion that, for the period of a century the Budget of Finland has been sedulously husbanded at the cost of the Russian people.
Ever since Finland has had an independent State Budget, she has never required any sacrifices on the part of Russia for her economic development. Ill-used by nature and ruined by wars, the country, by dint of its own efforts, has advanced toward cultural and material prosperity. Without subsidies or guaranties from the Imperial Treasury, the land became furrowed with a network of carriage roads and railways; industries were created; a mercantile fleet was built, and the work of educating the nation was so successfully organized that one can hardly find an illiterate person throughout the length and breadth of the principality. It is also an interesting fact worth recording that, whereas the Russian Government has almost every year to feed a starving population, now in one district of the empire, now in another, and is obliged from time to time to spend enormous sums of money for the purpose, Finland, in spite of its frequent bad harvests, has generally dispensed with such help on the part of the State Treasury…
Under these circumstances it is hardly fair to assert that Finland has been living at Russia's expense. On the contrary, Finland is perhaps the only one of our borderlands which has not required for its economic or cultural development funds taken from the population of Russia proper. The Caucasus, the Kingdom of Poland, Turkestan, part of Siberia, and other portions of our border districts—nay, even the northern provinces themselves—are sources of loss to us, or, at any rate, they have cost the Russian Treasury very much, and some of them still continue to cost it much, but the expenses they involve are hidden in the totals of the Imperial Budget. A few data will throw adequate light on this aspect of the situation. It is enough, for instance, to call to mind what vast, what incalculable sacrifices the pacification of the Caucasus required from Russia and what worry and expense it still causes us. No less imposing is the expenditure which the Kingdom of Poland with its two insurrections necessitated in the course of last century…. And if we cast a glance at the youngest of our borderlands—Turkestan—we shall find that here also the outlay occasioned by the political situation of the country has already become sharply outlined…. When we set those figures and data side by side we shall find it hard to speak of "our expenditure on Finland" or of "the vast privileges" we have conferred on the principality.
It follows, then, that the system of administration established for Finland by the Emperor Alexander I. has not yet had any harmful political results for Russia, and that it has dispensed the Russian Government from incurring heavy expenditure for the administration and the well-being of the country, and in this way has enabled Russia to concentrate her forces and her care on other parts of the empire and to devote her attention to other State problems.
One can not, of course, contend that the system of government adopted in Finland satisfies, in each and all its parts, the requirements and the needs of the present time. On the contrary, it is indubitable that the independent existence of the principality, disconnected as it is from the general interests of the empire, has led to a certain estrangement between the Russian and the Finnish populations. That an estrangement really exists can not be doubted; but the explanation of it is to be found in the difference of the two cultures which have their roots in history. To the protracted sway of Sweden and Finland's continuous relations through her intermediary with Western Europe, the circumstance is to be ascribed that the thinking spirits among the Finns gravitate—in matters of culture—not to Russia but to the West, and in particular to Sweden, with whom Finland is linked by bonds of language—through her highest social class—and of religion, laws, and literature. For that reason the views, ideas, and interests of Western—and in particular of Scandinavian—peoples are more thoroughly familiar and more intelligible to them than ours. That also is why, when working out any kind of reforms and innovations, they seek for models not among us but in Western Europe.
It is, doubtless, impossible to look upon that state of things with approval. It is highly desirable that a closer union should take place between the interests, cultural and political, of the principality and those of the empire: that is postulated by the mutual advantages of both countries. As I have already remarked, Russians could not contemplate otherwise than with pleasure the possible union and assimilation—in principle—of the borderland with the other parts of our vast fatherland: they will also be unanimous in wishing this task as successful an issue as is possible…..
But what is not feasible is to demolish at one swoop everything that has been created and preserved in the course of a whole century. A change of policy, if it is not to provoke tumults and disorganization, must be carried out gradually and with extreme circumspection. The assimilation of Finland can never be efficacious if achieved by violence and constraint instead of by pacific means. The Finnish people should be left to appreciate the benefits which would accrue to them from union with a powerful empire: for an adequate understanding of their own interests will, in the words of the Imperial rescript of February 28, 1891, "inspire them with a desire to draw more closely the bonds that link Finland with Russia." There is no doubt that even at present a certain tendency is noticeable among the Finns in favor of closer relations with Russia: the knowledge of the Russian tongue is spreading more and more widely among them, and business relations between them and us are growing brisker from year to year. The desirable abolition of the customs cordon between the two countries is bound to give a powerful fillip to the growth of commerce, which is the most trustworthy and most pacific means of bringing about a better understanding and strengthening the ties that bind Finland to Russia.
Harsh, drastic expedients may easily loosen the threads that have begun to get tied, foster national hate, arouse mutual distrust and suspicion, and lead to results the reverse of those aimed at. Assimilative measures adopted by the Government, therefore, should be thought out carefully and applied gradually.
"Might can not dominate right in Russia," said M. Stolypin, Russian Minister of the Interior and President of the Council of Ministers, in the speech which he delivered in the Duma on May 18, 1908, when pressed by the various parties to declare his policy with regard to Finland. This noble sentiment has the familiar ring of Russian officialdom. It may, perhaps, be worth while to consider it in the light of recent history and present-day issues.
Alexander I., the first Russian sovereign of Finland, addressed a Rescript to Count Steinheil on his appointment to the post of Governor-General. Therein he wrote: "My object in Finland has been to give the people a political existence so that they shall not regard themselves as subject to Russia, but as attached to her by their own obvious interests." It is not the place here to give an historical account of subsequent events. It may, however, be briefly stated that the political ideal expressed in the words quoted here was at times forgotten, but was again revived, and, in such times, even resulted in the extension of Finland's constitutional rights. Then, again, this ideal was abandoned, and gave way to a totally different one, which found its most acute expression in February, 1899, when the Czar, a year after the issue of his invitations to the first Peace Conference at The Hague, suppressed by an Imperial manifesto the constitutional right of Finland. The arbitrary and corrupt Russian bureaucratic regime little by little forced its way into the country, while Finlanders watched with bitter resentment the suppression, one by one, of their most cherished national institutions.
This manifesto was condemned in many European countries at the time, and a protest against it was signed by over a thousand prominent publicists and constitutional lawyers, who presented an international address to the Czar begging him to restore the rights of the Grand Duchy.
In 1905, however, it seemed at last that a new era was about to dawn. The change was brought about by the domestic crisis through which Russia herself was then passing. An Imperial manifesto promulgated in October, containing the principles of a constitutional form of government in Russia, was followed as an inevitable sequel by the manifesto of November 4th, which practically restored to Finland its full political rights. In 1906, a new Law of the Diet was enacted. Instead of triennial sessions of the Estates, annual sessions of the Diet were introduced, while an extension of the franchise to every citizen over twenty-four years of age without distinction of sex gave to women active electoral rights. Moreover, the door was opened to new and far-reaching reforms, the fulfilment of which infused fresh life into the democratic spirit of Finnish national institutions. While, however, so much was done to improve the political, social, and economic condition of the country, the promises which were then made have not been fulfilled. The principal reason for this failure to redeem their pledges lies in a change of attitude among Russian officials and their interference in Finnish affairs. It is by consideration of this change and of its effect upon Finland that we may best judge how much truth there is in M. Stolypin's claim that in Russia "might can not dominate right."
Ominous signs of a reversal of policy had appeared before, but the first official expression to it was given in the speech of M. Stolypin already referred to. In this speech he claimed for Russia as the sovereign power the right of control over Finnish administration and legislation whenever the interests of the empire were concerned. This claim meant practically the restoration of the old Bobrikoff régime and was based on the same ideas as those underlying the February manifesto of 1899. M. Stolypin attempts to justify his attitude by arguing that the constitutional relations between Russia and Finland are determined only by Clause 4 of the Treaty of Peace between Russia and Sweden, dated September 17,1809. This clause runs as follows:
"His Majesty the King of Sweden renounces irrevocably and forever, on behalf of himself as well as on behalf of his successors to the Swedish throne and realm, and in favor of his Majesty the Emperor of Russia and his successors to the Russian throne and empire, all his rights and titles of the governments enumerated hereafter which have been conquered by the arms of his Imperial Majesty from the Swedish Army, to wit: the Provinces of Kymmenegard, etc.
"These provinces, with all their inhabitants, towns, ports, forts, villages, and islands, with their appurtenances, privileges, and revenues, shall hereafter under full ownership and sovereignty belong to the Russian Empire and be incorporated with the same."
After quoting this clause, M. Stolypin exclaimed, "This is the act, the title, by which Russia possesses Finland, the one and only act which determines the mutual relations between Russia and Finland."
Now this clause contains no reference whatever to the autonomy of the Grand Duchy, and if it were the only act by which the mutual relations of Russia and Finland were determined, then Finland would have no constitution. The political autonomy of Finland, which has been recognized for exactly one hundred years, would have been without legal foundation. Even M. Stolypin admits that Finland enjoys autonomy. "There must be no room for the suspicion," he said, "that Russia would violate the rights of autonomy conferred on Finland by the monarch." On what, then, does the claim to Finnish autonomy rest and how was it conferred? Clause 6 of the Treaty of Peace contains the following passage:
"His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, having already given the most manifest proofs of the clemency and justice with which he has resolved to govern the inhabitants of the provinces which he has acquired, by generosity and by his own spontaneous act assuring to them the free exercise of their religion, rights, property, and privileges, his Swedish Majesty considers himself thereby released from performing the otherwise sacred duty of making reservations in the above respects in favor of his former subjects."
This entry in the Treaty of Peace refers to the settlement made at the Borgo Diet a few months earlier, and it is under this settlement, confirmed by deeds of a later date, that Finland claims her right to autonomy. M. Stolypin recognizes the claim of Finland to autonomy, but refuses to recognize the binding force of the acts of the Borgo Diet on which alone it can legally be based. This claim gives Finland no voice in her external relations. All international treaties, including matters relating to the conduct of war (though laws on the liability of Finnish citizens to military service fall under the competency of the Finnish Diet), are matters common to Russia and Finland as one empire, one international unit, and are dealt with by the proper Russian authorities. This is admitted by all Finlanders. But M. Stolypin extended Russian authority by making it paramount in all matters which have a bearing on Russian or Imperial interests.
The attempt to curtail Finnish constitutional liberty has taken different forms. Early in 1908 the Russian Council of Ministers, over which M. Stolypin presides, drew up a "Journal," or Protocol, to which the Czar on June 2d gave his sanction. The chief provisions of this Protocol were briefly as follows: All legislative proposals and all administrative matters "of general importance," before being brought to the Sovereign for his sanction, or, as is the case with Bills to be presented to the Diet, for his preliminary approval, as well as all reports drawn up by Finnish authorities for the Czar's inspection, must be communicated to the Russian Council of Ministers. The Council will then decide "which matters concerning the Grand Duchy of Finland also have a bearing on the interests of the empire, and, consequently, call for a fuller examination on the part of the Ministries and Government Boards." If the Council decide that a matter has a bearing on the interests of the empire the Council prepare a report on it, and, should the Council differ from the views taken up by the Finnish authorities, the Finnish Secretary of State, who alone should be the constitutional channel for bringing Finnish matters before the Sovereign's notice, can do so only in the presence of the President of the Council of Ministers or another Russian Minister. But in practise it has frequently happened that the Council send in their report beforehand, and the Czar's decision is practically taken when the Finnish Secretary is permitted an audience.
This important measure was brought about by the exclusive recommendation of Russian Ministers. Neither the Finnish Diet nor the Senate nor the Secretary of State for Finland, who resides in St. Petersburg, was consulted or had the slightest idea of what was going on before the Protocol was published in Russia. It has never been promulgated in Finland, and no Finnish authority has been officially advised of it. The whole matter has been treated as a private affair between the Czar and his Russian Ministers.
The excuse has been made that the Czar must be permitted to seek counsel with whomsoever he chooses in regard to the government of Finland. But this is not a question of privately consulting one man or the other. The new measure amounts to an official recognition of the Russian Council of Ministers as an organ of government exercising a powerful control over Finnish legislation, administration, and finance. The center of gravity of Finnish administration has, in fact, been shifted from the Senate for Finland, composed of Finnish men, to the Russian Council of Ministers.
The Finnish Senate protested to the Czar in three separate memoranda, dated respectively June 19, 1908, December 22, 1908, and February 25,1909. The Finnish Diet adopted on October 13, 1908, a petition to the Czar to reconsider the matter. On the occasion of the opening of the Diet's next session the Speaker, in his reply to the Czar's message, briefly referred to the anxiety prevailing in Finland, with the result that the Diet was immediately punished by an order of dissolution from the Czar. The Senate's memoranda, as well as the Diet's petition, were rejected, the Czar acting on the exclusive recommendation of the Russian Council of Ministers. They were not even brought before him through the constitutional channels, the Finnish Secretary of State having been refused a hearing. As a result all members of the Department of Justice, or half the number of the Senators, resigned.
In the same year another but less successful attack was made on the Finnish Constitution. In the autumn of 1908 the Finnish Diet adopted a new Landlord and Tenant Bill, but before it was brought up for the Czar's sanction the Diet was dissolved in the manner just described. The Bill being of a pressing nature, the Council of Ministers was at last prevailed upon to report on it to the Czar. The latter then gave his sanction to it, but, on the recommendation of the Council, added a rider in the preamble. This was to the effect that, though the Bill, having been adopted by a Diet which was dissolved before the expiration of the three years' period for which it was elected, should not have been presented for his consideration at all, the Czar would nevertheless make an exception from the rule and sanction it, prompted by his regard for the welfare of the poorer part of the population.
The Senate decided to postpone promulgation of this law in view of the constitutional doctrine involved in the preamble. It was pointed out that this doctrine was entirely foreign to Finnish law. The preamble which, according to custom, should have contained nothing beyond the formal sanction to the law in question, embodied an interpretation of constitutional law. Such an interpretation could only legally be made in the same manner as the enactment of a constitutional law, i.e., through the concurrent decision of the Sovereign and the Diet. The Senate, therefore, petitioned the Czar to modify the preamble in such a way as to remove from it what could be construed as an interpretation of constitutional law.
In reply, the Czar reprimanded the Senate for delaying promulgation, recommended it to do so immediately, but promised later on to take the representations made by the Senate into his consideration. Five of the Senators then voted against, while the Governor-General and five others voted for promulgation of, the law. The minority then tendered their resignations. The inconveniences resulting from this new constitutional doctrine proved, however, of so serious a practical nature that the Czar eventually, in July, 1909, issued a declaration that "the gracious expressions in the preamble to the Landlord and Tenant Law concerning the invalidity of the decisions of a dissolved Diet do not constitute an interpretation of the constitutional law and shall not in the future be binding in law."
A third and most important encroachment by the Russian Council of Ministers on the autonomy of Finland was also carried out at the instigation of M. Stolypin. The Finnish Constitution makes no distinction between matters that may have, or may not have, a bearing on the interests of Russia. At the same time Russian interests have never been disregarded in Finnish legislation. It had been the practise, when a legislative proposal was brought forward in Finland, and a Russian interest might be affected by it, to communicate with the Russian Minister whom the matter most closely concerned, in order that he might make his observations. This practise was confirmed by law in 1891. In its memoranda of 1908 and 1909, on the interference of the Russian Council of Ministers in Finnish affairs, the Senate suggested that, in case the procedure under the ordinance of 1891 were not satisfactory, a committee of Russian and Finnish members should be appointed to discuss a modus procedendi of such a nature that the Constitution of Finland should not be violated. On the recommendation of the Council of Ministers, the Czar rejected these suggestions, but the Council of Ministers took the matter in hand and summoned a "Special Conference," consisting of several Russian Ministers, other high Russian functionaries, the Governor-General of Finland, who is also a Russian, with M. Stolypin as President. Their business was to draw up a program for a joint committee to be appointed "for the drafting of proposals for regulations concerning the procedure of issuing laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland." This conference accordingly drew up a program, approved by the Czar on April 10, 1909, in which it was resolved that the joint committee should suggest a definition of the term "laws of general Imperial interest concerning Finland." These laws, it was proposed, should be totally withdrawn from the competency of the Finnish Diet and should be passed by the legislative bodies of Russia, that is, the Council of State and the Duma. The only safeguard for the interests of Finland suggested in the program is that a representative for Finland should be admitted to these two bodies when Finnish questions were discussed there.
It is impossible to say what laws concerning Finland will be defined as being of "general interest." Having regard, however, to the wide interpretation which Russian reactionaries are wont to put on the expression, there is every reason to suppose that the Russian members of the committee will insist on its extension so as to include every important category of law.
The Finnish members through their spokesman, Archbishop Johansson, declared that they proceeded to work on the committee on the assumption that in case alterations in the law of Finland should be found necessary, having regard to Imperial interests, such alterations should be made through modifications in the constitutional laws of Finland. The Finlanders are prepared to do their duty by the empire, but, the Archbishop said: "Sacrifices have been demanded from us to which no people can consent. The Finnish people can not forego their Constitution, which is a gift of the Most High, and which, next to the Gospel, is their most cherished possession."
M. Deutrich, who spoke on behalf of the Russian members, explained that any law resulting from the labors of the committee would not be submitted to the ratification of the Finnish Diet.
So M. Stolypin's way was now clear. The sanction of the people will not be required. The Finlanders have practically no other help than that given by a consciousness of the justice of their cause. They have no appeal.
In November of 1909 the Finnish Diet was dissolved by a ukase of the Czar. Since then the Russian Government has been passing decree after decree for Finland, giving the constitutional authorities no voice even of protest. So ends Finland.
On April 23, 1911, an automobile was driven along the hard, smooth sand of a Florida sea beach, covering a mile in 25-2/5 seconds. And it continued for a second mile at the same tremendous speed. These were the fastest two miles ever made by man. They were at the rate of a trifle over 140 miles an hour. As this record was not equaled in the three years that followed, it may be regarded as approaching the maximum speed of which automobiles are capable. And as another automobile, in endeavoring to reach such a speed, dissolved into its separate parts, practically disintegrated, and left an astonished driver floundering by himself upon the sand, we may assume that no noticeably greater speed can be attained except by some wholly different method or new invention.
In contrast to this picture of "speed maniacs" darting more swiftly than ever eagle swooped or lightning express-train ran, let us contemplate for a moment that first automobile race held in Chicago in 1894. A twenty-four horse-power Panhard machine showed a speed of thirty miles an hour and was objected to by the newspapers as a "racing monster" likely to cause endless tragedy, menacing death to its owners and to the public. Thus in the brief space of seventeen years did the construction of automobiles improve and the temper of the world toward them change. The present day may almost be called the "automobile age." The progress by which this has come about, and the enormous development of this new industry is here traced by two men who have followed it most closely. The narrative of the "auto's" triumphs by Mr. C.F. Carter appeared first in the Outing Magazine. The account of the industry's growth by Mr. Isaac Marcosson appeared in Munsey's Magazine, of which he was the editor. Both are given here by the permission of the magazines.
When the marine architects and engineers catch up with the automobile makers they can build a ship capable of crossing the Atlantic in twenty-three hours; or, if we forget to make allowance for the difference in longitude, capable of making the run from Liverpool to New York in the same apparent time in which the Twentieth Century Limited makes the run from New York to Chicago. That is, the vessel leaving Liverpool at three o'clock in the afternoon would arrive at New York at nine o'clock the following morning, which, allowing for the five hours' difference in time, would make twenty-three hours.
When the railroad engineers provide improved tracks and motive power that will enable them to parallel the feats of the automobile men, if they ever do, the running time for the fastest trains between New York and Chicago will be reduced to seven hours, while San Francisco will be but a day's run from the metropolis.
And when the airship enthusiasts are able to dart through the air at the speed attained by the automobile, it will be time enough to think of taking seriously the extravagant claims made in behalf of aviation.
For the automobile is the swiftest machine ever built by human hands. It is so much swifter than its nearest competitor that those who read these lines to-day are likely to be some years older before its speed is even equaled, to say nothing of being surpassed, by any other kind of vehicle.
So far as is known, but one human being ever traveled faster than Robert Burman did in his racing auto on the beach at Daytona, Florida, on April 23, 1911. This solitary exception was a Hindu carrier who chanced to tumble off the brink of a chasm in the Himalayas. His name has not been preserved, he never made any claim to the record, he was not officially timed, and altogether the event has no official standing. Still, as he is the only man who is ever alleged to have covered so great a distance as six thousand feet in an obstructed fall, the matter is not without interest; for, according to the accepted rule for finding the velocity of a body falling freely from rest, he must have been going at the rate of seven miles a second when he reached the bottom.
About Burman's record there can be no doubt, for it was made in the presence of many witnesses, and it was duly timed with stop-watches by men skilled in the art. The straightaway mile over the smooth, hard beach was covered from a running start in the almost incredibly short time of 25.40 seconds.
The next fastest mile ever traveled by human beings who lived to tell about it was made in an electric-car on the experimental track between Berlin and Zossen, in 1902. As the engineers who achieved this record for the advancement of scientific knowledge of the railroad considered such speed dangerous, it is not at all likely to become standard practise. The fastest time ever made by a steam locomotive of which there is any record, was the run of five miles from Fleming to Jacksonville, Florida, in two and a half minutes by a Plant system locomotive in March, 1901. This was at the rate of 120 miles an hour. As for steamships, the record of 30.53 miles per hour is held by the Mauretania.
These things, if borne in mind, will serve to throw into stronger relief the things that an automobile can do, and to supply a substantial basis for the premise that, at least in some respects, the automobile is the most marvelous machine the world has yet seen. It can go anywhere at any time, floundering through two feet of snow, ford any stream that isn't deep enough to drown out the magneto, triumph over mud axle deep, jump fences, and cavort over plowed ground at fifteen miles an hour. It has been used with brilliant success in various kinds of hunting, including coyote coursing on the prairies of Colorado, where it can run all around the bronco, formerly in favor, since it never runs any risk of breaking a leg in a prairie-dog hole. Educated automobiles have been trained to shell corn, saw wood, pump water, churn, plow, and, in short, do anything required of them except figure out where the consumer gets off under the new tariff law.
But to get back to the subject of speed, as automobile talk always does, the supremacy of the motor-car has been established by so many official records that any attempt to select the most striking only results in bewilderment. The best that can be done is to recite a few representative ones.
That was a most interesting illustration, for instance, of the capacity for sustained high speed made by a Stearns car on the mile track at Brighton Beach in 1910. In twenty-four hours the car covered the amazing distance of 1,253 miles, which was at the average speed of 52-1/5 miles per hour. This record is all the more remarkable from the fact the car was not a racer, but a stock car which had been driven for some months by its owner before it was borrowed for the race, and did not have any special preparation. The men who drove it were not notified that their services were wanted until the morning of the race.
While this is about the average rate per hour of the fastest train between New York and Chicago, it should be remembered that the trains run on steel rails, that curves are comparatively few, and they are not sharp, while the automobile was spinning around a mile track made of plain dirt, and was obliged to negotiate 2,506 sharp curves. Besides, the locomotives on the fast trains are changed every 120 to 150 miles, while the entire run of 1,253 miles was made by one auto which had already run 7,500 miles in ordinary service before it was entered in the race.
Unfortunately for the automobile, it has achieved so many remarkable speed records that its name is suggestive of swiftness. If the English language were not the stereotyped, inelastic vehicle for the communication of thought that it is we should now be speaking of "automobiling" a shady bill through the city council instead of "railroading" it. There are few places where it is permissible to attain record speed, and fewer men who, with safety to others, may be entrusted with the attempt. The true value of the automobile to the average man lies in its ability to keep right on going indefinitely at moderate speed under any and all conditions.
One of the innumerable tests in which the staying qualities of the automobile were brought out was the trip from Pittsburg to Philadelphia by way of Gettysburg by S.D. Waldon and four passengers in a Packard car, September 20, 1910. This run of 303 miles over three mountain ranges, with the usual accompaniments of steep grades, rocks, ruts, and thank-you-ma'ms to rack the machinery and bruise the feelings of the riders, was made in 12 hours and 51 minutes.
A little run of three or four hundred miles, though, is scarcely worth mentioning by way of showing what an auto can do in a real endurance contest. A much more notable trip was the non-stop run from Jackson, Michigan, to Bangor, Maine, in November, 1909, by E.P. Blake and Dr. Charles Percival. The distance of 1,600 miles was covered in 123 hours, which meant traveling at an average speed of 13 miles an hour in rain and snow and mud over country roads at their worst. In all that time the motor never once stopped. In the Munsey historical tour of 1910 a Brush single-cylinder car covered the 1,550 miles of a schedule designed for big cars and came through with a perfect score. If you know the hill roads of Pennsylvania you'll realize what that means in the way of car performance.
Still more remarkable endurance tests are the transcontinental trips which are undertaken so frequently nowadays that they no longer attract attention. One such trip which shows what very little trouble an automobile gives when handled with reasonable care was that made in 1909 by George C. Rew, W.H. Aldrich, Jr., R.A. Luckey, and H.G. Toney. Traveling by daylight only, they made the journey of 2,800 miles from San Francisco to Chicago in nineteen days in a Stearns car. They might have done better if they had not loitered along the way. On one occasion they stopped to haul water a distance of twenty-five miles for some cowboys on a round-up. The motor gave no trouble whatever, while the only trouble with tires was a single puncture caused by a spike when they tried to avoid a bad stretch of road by running on a railroad track.
The time record from ocean to ocean was held by L.L. Whitman, who left New York in a Reo four-thirty at 12.01 A.M. on Monday, August 8, 1910, and arrived in San Francisco on the 18th, covering the 3,557 miles in 10 days 15 hours and 13 minutes. This achievement may be more fully appreciated by comparing it with the transcontinental relay race in which a courier carried a message from President Taft to President Chilberg, of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, in September-October, 1909, in 10 days 5 hours, by using thirty-two cars and as many different drivers who knew the roads over which they ran.
Those who are fortunate enough to have friends who own cars know that automobiles can climb hills; and that the accepted way to do it is to throw in the extra special high gear, tear the throttle out by the roots, advance the spark twenty minutes, and push hard on the steering wheel. The fact that the car will overlook such treatment and go ahead is a source of never-failing wonder. Indeed, when it comes to hill-climbing the automobile is so far ahead of the locomotive that it seems like wanton cruelty to drag the latter into the discussion at all.
The steepest grade on a railroad doing a miscellaneous transportation business climbed by a locomotive relying on adhesion only is on the Leopoldina system in Brazil between Bocca do Monte and Theodoso, where there is a stretch of 8-1/3 per cent. grade with curves of 130 feet radius. There are some logging roads in the United States with grades of 16 per cent. How trifling this seems when compared with the feat of a Thomas car which climbed Fillmore Street, San Francisco, which is alleged to have a gradient of 34 per cent., with twenty-three persons on board. As 25 per cent. is regarded as the maximum safe gradient for an Abt rack railway, since the cog-wheel is liable to climb out of the rack on any steeper grade, it will be seen that the strain upon the credulity of the hearer of this story is almost as great as that upon the car must have been.
Enthusiasm may be expected to run high in the presence of such astounding triumphs, and it should, therefore, not be deemed surprising that accounts of hill-climbing contests are generally lacking in definiteness. The name of the car and the driver are always given with scrupulous care, but such incidental details as length of ascent, minimum, maximum, and average gradient, maximum curvature, and so on, are generally left to the imagination.
Among the few exceptions to this rule was the hill-climbing contest at Port Jefferson, Long Island, in which Ralph de Palma went up an ascent of two thousand feet with an average gradient of 10 per cent. and a maximum of 15 per cent. in 20.48 seconds in his 190-horse-power Fiat. A little Hupmobile, one of the lightest cars built, reached the top in 1 minute 10 seconds. De Palma climbed the "Giant's Despair" near Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, an ascent six thousand feet long, with grades varying from 10 to 22 per cent., in his big machine in 1 minute 28-2/5 seconds. A Marmon stock car reached the top in 1 minute 50-1/5 seconds. Pike's Peak, Mount Washington, Ensign Mountain, in Utah, and lesser mountains elsewhere have also been climbed repeatedly by automobiles. As the mere announcement of the fact vividly exhibits the staying powers of the auto in a long, stiff climb, the engineering details may be disregarded.
Next to its ability to do the exceptional things when required, the most useful accomplishment of the automobile is its wonderful capacity for standing up to its work day in and day out in fair weather or foul, regardless of the condition of the roads. This is shown every year in the spectacular Glidden tours, otherwise the National Reliability tests, in which a number of cars of various makes cover a scheduled route of two or three thousand miles, in which are included all the different kinds of abominations facetiously termed "roads." Other tests without number are constantly being evolved to demonstrate the already established fact that an automobile can do anything required of it.
There was the New York to Paris race, for instance. Starting from New York on February 12, 1908, when traveling was at its worst, and arriving in Paris July 30, the winner floundered in snow, mud, sand, and rocks, over mountain ranges and through swamps, in eighty-eight days' running time for the 12,116 miles of land travel. That was a demonstration of what an automobile can do that has never been surpassed. Yet the Thomas car that did it was restored to its original condition at a cost of only $90 after the trip was ended.
Another remarkable demonstration of endurance was that given by a Chalmers-Detroit touring car, which was driven 208 miles every day for a hundred consecutive days over average roads. When the 20,800 miles were finished, just to show that it still felt its oats, the car which had already covered 6,000 miles of roads through Western States before the test began, ran over to Pontiac, Michigan, and hauled the Mayor 26 miles to Detroit. Then it was run into the shops and taken down for examination. Being found to be in perfect condition except for the valves, which required some trifling adjustment to take up the wear on the valve stems, and for the piston rings, which needed setting out, it was reassembled and started on another test.
But, after all, the most wonderful thing about an automobile is its almost infinite capacity to endure cruel and inhuman treatment. No matter whether the brutality is inflicted through ignorance or awkwardness, or, rarest of all, through unavoidable accident, the effect on steel and wood and rubber is the same. Yet the auto stands it.
In brake tests it has been demonstrated that a car traveling at the rate of eighteen miles an hour can be stopped in a distance of twenty-five feet. The knowledge that this can be done in an emergency is a great comfort, but it should be equally well known that it does not improve the car to make all stops that way. Yet how often are drivers seen tearing up to the curb at twenty miles an hour or more to slam on the brakes at the last instant with a violence that nearly causes the car to turn a somersault, bringing it to a standstill in twenty feet, when there was no earthly reason why they should not have used four times that distance. Or if occasion arises for slowing down in a crowded street, the same kind of driver throws out his clutch and applies the brakes with the throttle wide open so the motor can race unhindered.
With the greenhorn the automobile is long-suffering. There was a new owner in Boston, whose name is mercifully suppressed, who took his family out for a first ride. In going down a hill on which the clay was slippery from recent rain it became necessary to turn out for a car coming up. The new driver made the turn so successfully that he turned clear over the edge of the embankment. Having nothing but air to support it, the auto turned completely over without spilling a passenger and landed right side up and on an even keel in a marsh fifteen feet below. It was necessary to get a team to pull the car out of the mud, but once on the solid road the new owner simply cranked 'er up and went on his way rejoicing.
Another new owner could not find the key to fasten one rear wheel on the axle when he unloaded his auto from the car in which it had been shipped from the factory. Nevertheless, he started up the motor according to directions and traveled twelve miles with one wheel driving. By this time the outraged motor was red hot. Whereupon the new owner stopped at a farm-house and dashed several buckets of cold water on it. Then he plugged around the country a week or so before he decided to go to the agent to lodge a complaint that his derned car didn't "pull" well.
Still another new owner complained that his car did not give satisfactory service. The agent was not at all surprised that it didn't when, upon investigation, he found that the car had been driven five hundred miles without a single drop of oil being applied to transmission gear and rear axle.
George Robertson, the racing driver, in tuning up for the Vanderbilt race, went over the embankment at the Massapequa turn on Long Island at the rate of sixty miles an hour. The car turned over twice, but finally stopped right side up. Robertson received a cut on one arm in the fracas, but neither he nor the car was so badly injured but what they could get back to New York, a distance of twenty-five miles, under their own power. There the steering wheel was repaired at a cost of $5, the radiator at a cost of $3, and Robertson's arm at $2.
But the prize-winner was the Fiat racing machine which threw a tire while going fifty-five miles an hour on the Brighton Beach track. The flying racer, now utterly uncontrollable, dashed through two fences, one of them pretty substantial, cut down a tree eight inches in diameter, and finally came to a stop right side up. E.H. Parker, the driver, and his mechanician, were somewhat surprised, but otherwise undamaged. They put on a new tire and in twenty minutes were back in the race again.
What the automobile can do in the way of cheapness was shown by the cost tests, sanctioned and confirmed by the American Automobile Association, between a Maxwell runabout and a horse and buggy. In seven days, in all kinds of weather and over city and country roads, the horse and buggy traveled 197 miles at a cost per passenger mile of 2-1/2 cents. The runabout made 457 miles in the same time, and the cost per passenger mile was 1.8 cents. This covered operation, maintenance, and depreciation, and, incidentally, all speed laws were observed.
The Winton Company, which conducts a sort of private Automobile Humane Society, offers prizes for chauffeurs who can show the greatest mileage on the lowest charge for upkeep. The first prize winner in the contest for the eight months ending June 30, 1909, drove his car 17,003 miles with no expense whatever for up-keep. The second prize winner drove 11,000 miles at an outlay of thirty cents, while the third man drove 10,595 miles without any expense. This makes a total of 38,598 miles by three cars at a cost of thirty cents for repairs. And all the cars were two years old when the contest began.
The moral for those who really want to see what an automobile can do is obvious.
Every automobile that you see is a link in a chain of steel and power which, if stretched out, would reach from New York to St. Louis. What was considered a freak fifteen years ago, and a costly toy within the present decade, is now a necessity in business and pleasure. A mechanical Cinderella, once rejected, despised, and caricatured, has become a princess.
Few people realize the extent of her sway. Hers is perhaps the only industry whose statistics of to-day are obsolete to-morrow, so rapid is its growth. In 1895 the value of the few hundred cars produced in the United States was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; in 1910 the year's output of approximately two hundred thousand machines was worth two hundred and twenty-five millions. Behind them is a stalwart business representing, with parts and accessory makers, an investment of more than a billion and a quarter of dollars. Four hundred thousand men, or more than five times the strength of our standing army, depend upon it for a livelihood, and more than five millions of people are touched or affected by it every day.
Through its phenomenal expansion new industries have been created and old ones enriched. It withstood panic and rode down depression; it has destroyed the isolation of the farm and made society more intimate. There is a car for every one hundred and sixty persons in the United States; twenty-five States have factories; the honk of the horn on the American car is heard around the world.
Such, in brief, is the miracle of the motor's advance. Its development is a real epic of action and progress.
Before going further, it might be well to ask why and how the automobile has achieved such a remarkable development. One reason, perhaps, is that it appeals to vanity and stirs the imagination. A man likes to feel that by a simple pressure of the hand he can control a ton of quivering metal. Besides, we live, work, and have our being in a breathless age, into which rapid transit fits naturally. So universal is the impress of the automobile that there are in reality but two classes of people in the United States to-day—those who own motor-cars and those who do not.
It must be kept in mind, too, in analyzing the causes of the automobile's amazing expansion, that it is the first real improvement in individual transportation since the chariot rattled around the Roman arena. The horse had his century-old day, but when the motor came man traded him for a gas-engine.
Characteristic of the pace at which the automobile has traveled to success is the somewhat astonishing fact that while it took inventive genius nearly fifty years to develop a locomotive that would run fifty miles an hour on a specially built track, it has taken less than ten years to perfect an automobile that will run the same distance in less time on a common road.
Since this business is so invested with human interest, let us go back for a moment to its beginnings. Here you find all the properties, accessories, and environment to fit the launching of a great drama.
Toward the close of the precarious nineties, a few men wrestled with the big vision of a horseless age. Down in Ohio and Indiana were Winton and Haynes; Duryea was in Pennsylvania; over in Michigan were Olds, Ford, Maxwell, with the brilliant Brush, dreaming mechanical dreams; in New York Walker kept to the faith of the motor-car.
At that time some of the giants of to-day were outside the motor fold. Benjamin Briscoe was making radiators and fenders; W.C. Durant was manufacturing buggies; Walter Flanders was selling machinery on the road; Hugh Chalmers was making a great cash-register factory hum with system; Fred W. Haines was struggling with the problem of developing a successful gasoline engine.
Scarcely anybody dreamed that man was on the threshold of a new era in human progress that would revolutionize traffic and set a new mark for American enterprise and achievement. And yet it was little more than ten years ago.
Those early years were years of experimentation, packed with mistakes and changes. Few of the cars would run long or fast. It was inevitable that the automobile should take its place in jest and joke. Hence the comic era. With the development of the mechanism came the speed mania, which hardly added to the machine's popularity.
You must remember in this connection that the automobile was a new thing with absolutely no precedent. The makers groped in the dark, and every step cost something. New steels had to be welded; new machinery made; a whole new engineering system had to be created. The model of to-day was in the junk heap to-morrow. But just as curious instinct led the hand of man to the silver heart of the Comstock Lode, so did circumstance, destiny, and invention combine to point the way to the commercially successful car.
Out of the wreck, the chaos, and the failure of the struggling days came a cheap and serviceable car that did not require a daily renewal of its parts. It proved to be the pathfinder to motor popularity, for with its appearance, early in this decade, the automobile began to find itself.
Now began the "shoe-string" period, the most picturesque in the whole dazzling story of the automobile. There could be no god in the car without gold. Here, then, was the situation—on the one hand was the enthusiastic inventor; on the other was the conservative banker.
"We will make four thousand machines this year," said the inventor.
"Who will buy them?" asked the banker in amazement; he refused to lend the capital that the inventor so sorely needed.
The idea of selling four thousand motor-cars in a year seemed incredible. Yet within ten years they were selling fifty times as many, and were unable to supply the demand. No fabulous gold strike ever had more episodes of quick wealth than this business. Here is an incident that will show what was going on:
A Detroit engineer, who had served his apprenticeship in an electric-light plant, evolved a car which he believed would sell for a popular price. He tried to interest capitalists in vain. Finally, he fell in with a stove-manufacturer, who agreed to lend him twenty-seven thousand dollars.
"But I can't afford to be identified with your project," said the backer, who feared ridicule for his hardihood.
That small investment paid a dividend as high as thirteen hundred per cent. in a year. To-day the name of the struggling inventor is known wherever cars are run, and his output is measured by thousands. This, in substance, is the story of Henry Ford.
A young machinist worked in one of the first Detroit automobile factories, earning three dollars and fifty cents a day. One day he said to himself: "I can build a better car than we are making here."