I need look back over only as many months as I can count on my fingers to realize the appalling price these daring men and women of the skirmish line of the revolution pay for devotion to their ideals of a free Russia. Some died where they stood when they cast their one blow for Russia; some died, blindfolded, bullet-riddled, as the dawn wind blew fresh across the fortress courtyard; others swung ignominiously from a hangman’s scaffold, the sunlight and the wide, blue sky shut away from their last vision by a hood of black; at least two checkmated their captors and laughingly claimed their heritage of death by their own hands; several lie in living death in the far north; several rot in pestiferous prisons; a handful are in voluntary exile abroad--dreaming, planning, watching for the moment when they may most effectively return to the fight. Terrorism and assassination are the monumental bugbears--in America. Of all the complexities of the Russian situation, nothing is so little understood, so frequently--I might almost say so universally--misunderstood in America as terrorism. Terrorism in America means “anarchy,” and that suggests Haymarket riots or Czolgosz fanaticism--both of which are entirely outside the pale of terrorism as it is understood in Russia. Terrorism is a philosophy and a policy, rather than the impulsive action of human passions. It is true, of course, in individual cases, that the father or husband of an outraged girl will seek reprisal himself when hopeless of lawful aid, but cases of individual revenge have nothing in common with terrorism properly so-called. Incidental to the terrorism of political origin is a certain amount of assassination worthy of mention. I mean assassination resulting from specific acts of military or administrative officials. For example, last year a number of women teachers in the Caucasus met to confer upon educational methods, and to lay out a plan for an improved curriculum. The government disapproved of their taking so much upon themselves, and sent Cossacks to break up the meeting. Not content with dispersing it, the colonel of the Cossacks said to his soldiers: “These women are yours.” The Cossacks then outraged all the teachers. Neither the colonel nor any of his men were punished. It is not difficult to understand how the friends and near ones of these young women felt toward the colonel who was responsible. It is not to be wondered at if some one--a father, a brother, a lover, or perhaps one of the dishonored women--took up bomb or revolver in retaliation. What would American fathers, or brothers, or lovers, do under like circumstances?