Mark Twain's Speeches

RUSSIAN REPUBLIC

      The American auxiliary movement to aid the cause of freedom in Russia was
      launched on the evening of April 11, 1906, at the Club A house, 3 Fifth
      Avenue, with Mr. Clemens and Maxim Gorky as the principal spokesmen. Mr.
      Clemens made an introductory address, presenting Mr. Gorky.
    

If we can build a Russian republic to give to the persecuted people of the Tsar’s domain the same measure of freedom that we enjoy, let us go ahead and do it. We need not discuss the methods by which that purpose is to be attained. Let us hope that fighting will be postponed or averted for a while, but if it must come—

I am most emphatically in sympathy with the movement, now on foot in Russia, to make that country free. I am certain that it will be successful, as it deserves to be. Any such movement should have and deserves our earnest and unanimous co-operation, and such a petition for funds as has been explained by Mr. Hunter, with its just and powerful meaning, should have the utmost support of each and every one of us. Anybody whose ancestors were in this country when we were trying to free ourselves from oppression, must sympathize with those who now are trying to do the same thing in Russia.

The parallel I have just drawn only goes to show that it makes no difference whether the oppression is bitter or not; men with red, warm blood in their veins will not endure it, but will seek to cast it off. If we keep our hearts in this matter Russia will be free.