RESCUING THE CZAR Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated by JAMES P. SMYTHE, A.M., Ph.D. THIRD EDITION 1920 PART ONE RESCUING THE CZAR FOREWORD by W.E. Aughinbaugh, M.D., LL.B., LL.M. Is the former Czar and his Imperial family still alive? There are millions of people in Europe and America who are asking this question. European governments have considered the question of sufficient interest to justify the investigation by official bodies of the alleged extinction of this ancient Royal Line. Millions have been expended for that purpose. Commissions have pretended to investigate the subject _after_ the event. Volumes have been returned of a speculative nature to authenticate a mysterious _disappearance_ that has never been explained. April 5; the Universal Service carried a cable from Paris reading: "Czar Nicholas and all members of the Imperial family of Russia are still alive, according to M. Lassies, former member of the Chamber of Deputies, who has just returned from a mission to Russia." This was several weeks after the manuscript of the following account of the _Czar's Escape_ was in my possession.[A] Yet this confirmation of the manuscript has not sufficiently overcome the universally persistent doubt that has grown out of many previous imposing reports. In certain Royal quarters the anxiety to disseminate the "reports" of their Commissions is too apparent to authorize a judicial mind to accept their speculative guesswork as convincing evidence of a legal _corpus delicti_ when no identified bodies have ever been produced. This eagerness to convince the world by substituting a mere _disappearance_, or the lack of evidence, for positive proof of the Royal assassination raises very naturally the presumption that certain circles are more interested in misleading than in satisfying the public mind. To those schooled in the methods and objects of international propaganda during the Great War it is evident that, in a period of revolution, when thrones and dynasties become unpopular within the area of hostility and discontent, the adherents of Royalty may not be unwilling to appease the demand for vengeance by some theatrical display of meeting it with a pretense or an artifice until the passions of the populace have subsided and sober toleration resumes its sway over the sated revolutionary mind. That such may be the fact will seem convincing from a careful study of the incidents narrated in the following rudimentary story of "Rescuing the Czar." In a technical sense it is not a story. Nevertheless, while partaking of the nature of a simple diary, it reads like a romance of thrilling adventure upon which a skilful novelist may easily erect a story of permanent interest and universal appeal. But it is this very lack of art--this indifference to accomplished technique--that makes "Rescuing the Czar" so interesting and so convincing a rebuttal of the Royal Executioners' Case.