Evening Star Newspaper, January 22, 1922, Page 63

Y SUNDAY - STAR, WASHINGTON, THE D. O, JANUARY 22, 1922—PART - - PLANS DAILY COMMUNICATION BETWEEN - NORTH POLE AND‘HOME FOLKS’ IN NORWAY DY EDWARD MARSHALL. NEW YORK, January 2L 192 discoverer of the south pole, Capt. Roald Amundsen, was 1alking to me in a New York hotel about the mnew, perilous und sclentifically important expedition on which he is about to make his start. Qut of doors the snow swirled. “It's too warm here," sald the big, bluft Norwegian, good naturedly but discontentedly, looking out of. the window at a rather exceptionally frozen New York city. *“Can’t get your breath here for the heat!” 1 shivered. But in an adjoining room the two far-northern children, one pure Eskimo aud one half-bred, whom thegcaptain bas brought down from the north s sending to his sister-in-law in Norway to be brought ; up as they should be, had been wors» worried even than hegis by steam; heat ever since they had been in New York city. Not content to rest upon his laurels as victor over one of the two greatest difficulties in the world, Capt. Amund- sen is intensely enthusiastic over his preparations for return to snow, ice and trackless, frozen seas, for the most extraordinary Jjourney ever schemed by an informed man, the jeurney in the course of which, he hopes, his ship will drift across the north pole, thus cnabling him and | the scientists who will accompany | him to complete man's general | knowledge of the arctic situation. i E R ! "HIS Journey will be far more than a mere remaking of the North- west Passage, which Capt. Amundsen was also first to do. It was in 1903- 1904 that he accomplished that achievement, which for centuries had been the dream of daring navigators and had lured many to their death.{ “The impending journey,” declared Capt. Amundsen, “will be principally valuable, strange as this may seem, to the farmers of the world. The next greatest beneficiaries will be the world's navigators. This reach of interest and the link letween the man who sails the,sea and him who tills the soil was baf- fling. The great explorer saw that I was puzzled. “Those two groups,” said he, “are those most interested in the weather. ‘The dependence of the farmer and the sailor upon weather is almost abso- lute. T hope this journey will reveal much about terrestrial weather in Ahe making."” His next statement was almost as startling as that which he had *'st made had been baffling. Remember that *his man is going to the world's remotest corners, to uncharted spaces, where no man ever has been before and where, therefore, are no telegraph signs or telephonic blue bells; he is going to sail on seas of which the water, as he explained a moment later, is too confined by ice to permit the penetration even of those scarce rays of light which are essential to the lowest forms of crude, deep-sea animal life. “It is not the co'd but the lack of light which excludes animal life from| the ice-roofed waters of both polar regions,” Capt. Amundsen explained. Now for the statement which amazed me: “I shall send daily reports upon tha| weather to the Norwegian govern-| ment. Tt will receive them, probably, each night and morning.” Tt was no wild statement, though it did take away the breath of one who long had fed upon the literature of the arctic in which ever has been emphasized the loneliness of the ex- plorers, from the days of Kane to those of Perry—their utter inaccessi- bility. T have a friend who but a few years since was in the north withSteffans- son. He made a thrilling and heroic journey across many miles of ice by dog-sledge, till his dogs died of ex- haustion, and after that upon his own terrifically frozen feet, to get a mes- sage of the sinking of the Karluk, Steffansson’s sturdy ship, to the outer world. ~ Yet Amundsen spoke of communi- cating dally with his government in Norway! =T | i ' 4 * ok ok Ok '\VELL. why not! These are the days of wireless. Capt. Amundsen will be perfectly equipped with wireless in the frczen north. There will be no reason why he sbould not send his daily telegraphic messages and re- ceive replies. It is not inconceivable that he might and will equip his ship with wireless telephonic apparatus, ena- bling him actually to converse with those at home. “At any rate, whether I telegraph or telephgne,” said Capt. Amundsen, “my family will hear from me each day.” He smiled happily. “Different from the old days, eh? “My daily reports upon the weather to the Norwegian government,” Capt. Amundsen continued, “will be timed s0 that they will reach the scientists of my own country night and morn- ing. By the Norwegian government these reports will be distributed to all parts of the world, I understand. They will help weather observers elsewhere very greatly. My expedi- | tion really is a governmental enter- prise, you know. “The grant of 500,000 kroner which finances it was made by a unanimous vote, an event perhaps unprecedented 1n like circumstances in the history of any legislature. Even the social- ists voted for it. ‘This unanimity of enthusiasm in my own country was the greatest compliment ever paid to me. ~“And I believe that the reports which I shall send back to the busy reglons where men congregate from the frozen regions where will be our party and no other human life will be of value to those in the busy places now and in the coming generations. “The expedition ‘is strictly and en- tirely scientific. Its aim is to add to the sum of human knowledge. For this purpose it will be, too, the best equipped expedition of the kind which ever started out. It will carry with it the most modern instruments, some of them invented, or, at least, per- fected since the last ones taken to the| morth were made. “The scientific equipment of this expedition will be incomparably bet- ter. than any other ever put upen an arctic-going vessel. It will be our object to bring or send back reports far mors comprehensive than any hitherto attempted. Previous expedi- tions, necessarily, have confined their efforts to the study of the surface, “They have seen only what could be seen from ships or sledges, or by men laboriously tramping. We shall have & wider vision, greater possibilities; thanks to the vast sclentific advance which has occurred - during recent pears. We shall study with especial YAPT. ROALD AMUNDSEN, Now in New York, Tells of New Journey Into the Frozen North—Ship Equipped With Wireless Telegraph and Telephone, Two Airplanes, Scientifically Prepared Food, Motion Picture Camera and Delichte Instruments to Test Air - Currents—To Map., photographically. the World of Eternal Floe CAPT. PHOTOGRAPHED IN (Photo N Internati s and Dnifts. AMUNDSEN AND HIS TWO ADOPTED ESKIMO CHILDREN, SW YORK LAST WEEK. care magnetic conditions in arctic, a work to which scientile men attach great importance and one which, like the daily messages, may have its significance in making up the whole world's weather bulletins. * K ¥ ¥ ¢T;OR this effort we are being mag- nificently outfitted with the most highly developed instfuments by the Carnegie Institution, in Washington. Some of these instruments will be quite novel, and, it is believed, will enable us to make records of momen- tous value. Our other scientific equip- ment will be perfect, purchased by myself. out of the Norwegian govern- ment appropriation, after consultation with our scientific leaders and with eminent scientists of the whole world. “In detail, beginning with the space beneath us. we shall sound the sea’s depths with elaborate apparatus, studying the characteristics of the bottom of the northern ocean through samples brought up by our leads. Other deep-sea instruments will bring us water for analysis in our perfect laboratory on board which will test for saline and other contents; others will record deep-sea and surface water temperature, and still others will determine trends and speed of currents. If there be life in those depths we shall find out about it. “Meantime, of course, we shall be studying the land which is surround- ed by this water and the ice which CAPT. ROALD AMUNDSEN IN HIS NORTH POLE COSTUME. roofs so great a portion of these depths rendering mwany areas of ocean inaccessible for inquisitive penetra- tion. “So we shall not only have sounded the sea, studying its bottom through the material brought up by our in- struments, tested the temperature of its various depths with our deep-sea thermometers, measured its currents and analyzed its waters, but we shall have studied the land and the ice which covers it and the frozen, in- accessible reaches of the locked depths. Thus we shall get new knowl- edge of the surface and the subsur- face. “But, of course, in these days, we shall not have to stop with this, We shall.be equipped to make elaborate studies of the air above it.all, for we shall carry with us two small air- planes. While they are carefully nalyzing the spaces of both land and sea which they fly over, they also will be getting upper temperatures and, as far as this is possible to men in airplanes, studying air currents. * Xk x % ITTED with photographic map- making apparatus, as perfected to the last notch of efficlency when daring aviators during the war flew over enemy lines with automatically working cameras, to bring back per- fect records of the enemy’s positions, these airplanes of ours will survey and permanently record the surface characteristies of the regions which we visit for several hundred miles.on each side of the srip's route. “But study of aly currents from an airplane is not the best means of got- ting at the fullest knowledge of them. For the purpose of achleving this we [ the | shall take with us hundreds of small ! balloons. They will be released at frequent intervals and of course soon I will be lost to sight. But, lost, they still will serve a very useful purpose, for as they drift to the unknown, they will be observed through carefully adjusted scientific instruments which will give us much valuable knowledge about the air currents which will af- fect their flight. “That which we shall learn from them will be of great scientific value, and others, larger, will serve other purposes, probably carrying instru- ments. But such work will be done principally by box-kites. These will lift elaborate, self-registering ap- paratus high into the air continually and from the records seswred thus it will be possible to compile much val- uable meteorological data. “We shall be very busy in our meteorological work. Observations will be taken every second hour of night and day. “During the day these observations will measure along with the speed of wind, the temperature and the humid- ity of the arctic air, the strength of the electric currents which every- where abound and which are thought to be rather stronger near the poles than elsewhere. “We shall carefully measure all the many snowfalls and get other data with regard to them; when there is rainfall we shall gauge and analyze it. “You think that by the time we get back home all this information will be stale? You forget what I have said about our wireless equipment. Probably we shall report thé arctic weather and all other meteorological facts twice a day by wireless to groups of scientists far, far to south- ward, where men abound and ice and snow are briefly seasonal or entirely unknown. “What value will these curiously detailed reports of air, water and other conditions away up by the north pole have down where men are civil- ized and comfortable? This: It is said that the weather of North Amer- ica is made at Medicine Hat, in north. west Canada. The Indlans once thought so, and with certain reasons which showed them to be very shrewd. “But, really, weather even as far south as New York, Buffalo, St. Louis, Atlanta, or even New Orleans, in De- troit and Kansas City, in Cedar Rap- ids, Jowa and Rochester, N. Y. everywhere throughout America and England, France, Germany and all the list is tremendously affected by the arctic air conditions, as ocean condi- lllonl further soutb are greatly influ- | enced by currents tn the Arctic. * X * x “THESE are not my specialties. I am no scientist. I am a sailor and a cook. But it is for the sake of giving scientists a chance to study all these things that I shall navigate and prepare meals upon this voyage we are planning.” This matter of being chief cook of the expedition {s one which Capt. Amundsen referred to more than once. Later he spoke of it at some length. “The wireless installation will be a splendid comfort to us. We shall be busy and have many things to tele- graph about. For example, the small laboratory on’the «hip will quite the most perfect of its size ever de- vised. 1In it these sea-water samples which I have said that we shall take will be analyzed each day. You know, knowledge of the polar sea is as im- portant to students of the world we live on in the latitudes of the United States as i3 knowledge of the polar air and that which 1s occurring to it to students of the weather in Wash- ington, or In the capital of my own country. “The effect of the continual flow of water from the north polar regions upon the fisheries far to the south is especially important. I am not cer- tain, but P think, that if the flow of water from the polar sea should sud- denly be stopped, life in the seas to southward soan would cease. That would be a world disaster of the greatest moment. Shut off the fisher- ies and you would shut off many mil- lion human lives. “The polar seas are the great puri- flers of the waters of both Atlantic and Paclfic. Water from the south- ward, flowing north, is cleansed, be- fore it reaches warmer Ilatitudes again, of all its animal impurities. And it becomes revitalized. It is the continual exchange of arctic and:ant- arctic water for the exhausted water of the warmer seas which Mnucl latter vital and able to suppor: fish- life. It is'the same with water as with alr. It the lower strata were not constantly beisg exchanged for purified and rivitslised air froms £ax above man would amount to little here below nor be that little long. “The expert whe will study sea waters upon our journey s the finest for the task in the whole world. He is a foremost scientist of Norway, Sverdrup. And he Is & wonder. Hel will have general tharge of all our sclentific work. ) “I have hinted, vaw, I think, at the main details of our oceanographic and meteorological plans. The next im- portant fleld of study will be that of the earth's magnetism. Sverdrup at the present moment is in Washington with Prof. Bauer of the Carnegle In- stitute, working out the most com- I PRINCE YOUSSOUPOFF, KNOWN 'AS SLAYER OF RASPUTIN, SAYS HE WILL BECOME CZAR BY HAYDEN CHURCH, LONDON, January 12, 1922. TUSSIA may, many say will, have a new czar some day. ‘Who will he be? The ultimate answer to that question may prove startling. There is a possibility, I have discovered, that the successor to Nicholas II on the throne of Russia may be no other than the Monte-Cristo-like young aristocrat who is already world-re- nowned as the reputed slayer of the monk Rasputin, who frequently has been lauded in the pre: the also plete equipment in this line that ever | Feputed saviour and chosen guardian has been got together. It will in- clude instruments especially devised for this particular; expedition. “I know very little of this subject and will not talk about it learnedly. But everybody knows, in these days, that knowledge of the \istribution and direction. of those magnetic cur- rents which pass around the earth and over is essential to the progress of that higher scieotific knowledge which humanity in these days is de- veloping so rapidly. * K KK “THIS expedition will make useful in these fields. contributions to investigations In our geographical work our two airplanes will give us ast advantages which none, before us has possessed up in those regions. I have already said that we shall use them' 'in map-making on both sides of our route. “Well, if we succeed in drifting across the top of the world, from the western to the eastern ocean, we shall have of a wide sone of this en- tirely unknown region maps as care- ful and as detailed ss any which were made by either side of enemy terrsin during the late war. In good weath- er, at high altitudes, working with high-power ses and telescopic photographic lenses, the range of ob- servation from ouv airplanes should be very great. “For this airplane work as for work trom the ship and during surface ex- plorations we shall use motion-pic- ture cameras as well as others. Per- haps we may take with us color-pho- tographic equipment, also, although there are few colors up there. Idon’t know much about such things. But there will be members of the party | who will know all there is to know about them. “It will be a fine ship which will carry us. She has been built in Nor- way, especially for this trip, mostly of the best oak that could be found. She is named the Maud, is 120 feet long, with a beam of forty feet, and differs from any other ship you ever heard of in that Fer hull is a yard thick of the best timbers in every part below the upper ice line. is to make her capable of resisting ice pressure, and she will be able at least to resist a greater pressure than any other ship which evar went up north. I do not say that there may not be sufficient pressure to destroy her. but I think it most unlikely. “She is built, you see, with her im- mensely strong hul\ rounded, so that ice pressure exerted from the sides will tend to push her upward, lift her till she sits upon the ice, in fact, in- stead of being crurhed by it. '0 man can be absolutely sure that this will happen in every ice emer- gency which may confront us in the Arctic. But we all hope it will. It would be very disagreeable for us if it did not.” The Norwegian navigator laughed rather solemnly. “Will she be metal-sheated?” asked. “No; 1 forgot to tell you that her yard of solid oak will be encased with greenheart, the hardest wood obtain- able. It is almost like iron in resist- ance, although for many other rea- sons it is far better than any metal could be. Our vessel is of 300 regis- tered tons. Here is the roster of our crew: “Leader and chief cook, myself; master of the Maud, Oscar Wisting, | 1 chief of all sclentide work, Dr. H. U-{"inig role of ‘a benefactor whose Sverdrup, than whom there is no greater man alive for such a post; our mate is Christian Hansen, an ol4 arc- ticker; two engineers, S. Olonkin, a Russian, and .Chris Sybertson, Nor- wegian. They have been with me long. * % % ¥ | of the Russlan refugees of the old regime in. England and throughout Europe, and who recently jumped into the limelight again as the vend- er of two historic Rembrandts that were bought by Joseph E. Widener, the American art collector. That he may be, in fact, no other than Prince Felix Youssoupoff, the most mysterious, most picturesque and, one may add, incomparably the best advertised, of all the members of Russia’s aristocracy living today. Prince Youssoupoff means to be Ruscia’s next czar. So do three Rus- sfan grand’'dukes. The latter are the Grand Duke Cyril, the Grand” Duke; Nicholas and the Grand Duke Dmitri. All of them, Cyril particularly, have incomparably better claims to’the suc- cession than Prince Youssoupoff. But while they are content with a polioy of watchful waiting, he is campalgn- ing tirelessly and skillfully, with the one end and aim of making himself the man of destiny in the eyes of all Russfan monarchists, against the day when, bolshevism having gone to ‘ir- reparable smash, the chance for a restorration of the monarchy may arrive. * k% % AND he is “some” campaigner! A mild sensation was caused in Paris recently by the production of a big new movie drama which purports to relate the true story o’ the killing {of Rasputin and the events that led up to it. Of this film Prince Yous- soupoff is the hero. From beginning to end it glorifies him, depicting him as the would-be saviour of his coun- try and the 'principal friend in Russia of thc allies. But not, one hastens to add, as the slayer of Rasputin, a dis- tinction that never rightfully belong- ed to Youssoupoff and that, for rea- sons to be explained, has become highly inconvenient to him now that he has both eyes fixed on the czar- dom. The prince had this film made at a cost, I am told, of $175,000. He had to run in debt to that amount to do it, but as he had previously bor- Thl(‘ffl“'!d something like $250,000, partly to enable him to live and partly to finance various other forms of propa- ganda, & bit more on the wrong side of the ledger didn’t matter much. And the prince didn't worry, for, al- though he has had to sell the bulk of his splendid jewels, he still has, some of them left, including one of the finest black pearl necklaces in the world. And, besides. he was pretty sure that he at last had found, in Mr. ‘Widener, a customer for the two fa- mous Rembrandts that he has been trying to dispose of for so long, and of getting enough for them to pay his debts and leave something over. And he did. He got $500,000 for the two masterpleces of the Dutch artist from the American millionaire and art collector, who desired to add these two splendid portraits to the ten examples of Rembrandt's art that already form part of his great col- lection at Elkins Park, near Phlla- delphia. The price paid for these two por- traits was erroneously reported in Paris as $1,500,000 acd in London as $1,250,000, and the pleasing state- ment was made in the press of both capitals that the money thus ob- tained by the prince was “destined to relleve the poverty of the Russian refugees throughout Europe” It is munificence alone has enabled thou- sands of his impoverished country- men to keep body and soul together that Youssoupoff has all along been depicted to an admiring world. The legend has rumn, and has been repeated here recently, that the prince saved some of the finest of the Russian < HE tWo, ¥istors 10, 50 With US| . wn jewels from the wreck of the are K. M. Omda and V. N. Dahl. They have had training in the Norwe- gian air postal service. And I must not forget the native who will go with us. He now is with the ship. His name 1s Kakot and we found him in Si- beria. I know all these men. I know that they have strong, fine, depend- able bodies and souls both. They are physically, mentally and psychologi- cally to be relied upon. They are the kind of men for ruch & job as that which we are setting out to do. I have chosen them with an elaborate care. “We are not going to go hungry. We 3hall be provisioned for seven years, revolution, and that it is by disposing of these, in addition to his awn gems, that he has been able to come to the rescue again and again of his necessi- tous fellow aristocrats. * % ¥ ¥ ‘VHAT 1s the real truth about this mystery man whom legend has surrounded with an atmosphere sug- gestive of the Arabian Nights? What is the real story, among the many confiicting ones, of the doing to death of Rasputin, well known to have met his richly merited fate in the once splendid palace of the Youssoupoffs and lberally. Not that we intend to|yn petrograd? And what are the ac- be away that long, but—well, work- ing as we shall work we shall need three meals a day and good ones. 1 expect my job as cook will oeccupy me quite sufficiently to keep ‘me out of mischief. Everything that we are taking is selected with especial care and packed with sclentific caution. Bvery ounce of food which we shall take along with us will ki for all of the seven years. Of course, you say, we shall be living and therefore storing it in an automatic iee-box. Well, we shall take other precau- tions. i #Every tin, for instance, is painted with a certain kind of paint worked out sclentifically for this expedition. It makes each container airtight and rustproof. or this expedition all the food has beert put up in Norway. “That which we shall take along on this trip will be fish and meat pre- pared in the Norwegian atyle. But our fruits, the fruits which will preserve us from the scurvy, are being tinned for us in California. The world knows no other fruit which can compare with that of California. And we shall have fresh meat, slso. We shall go elaborately equipped for hunting. We shall have the best kind of guns and many, many thousands of cartridges, all carefully sealed against effect by cold or dampness. “We slrall get seals {n plenty and they help out in- arctic diet. A new gun which we shall carry is interest- ingly compact. It folds into a little case and when you wish to use it you screw it to that case which forms the breach. We shall use all soft-nosed byllets that will kill any animsl. Our cartridges will all be charged with high explosive. : “There will be no fishing after weo get up into the really truly morth. I think those waters are entirely free of life. Yater I shall know about this, exUver S tusl facts regarding the ssle to Mr. Widener of the two wonderful Rem- brandts, known respectively as “A gentleman with a high hat and gloves in his hand” and “A lady with rich feather fan in her right I am able to answer these ques- tions, thanks to an interview I have just had with a personal friend of the prince, a titled Russian who is at the very heart of the royalist movement. Youssoupoff himself, it appears, is now in Cannes and is not likely to be in London for some time to come, so my original hope of get- ting a talk with him through our mutual acquaintance was not des- tined to be realised. From personal knowledge, however, his friend, who did not wish his name mentioned, was able to give me the follewing extraordinary account of the mysteri- ous young aristocrat whose ambi- tion, he deéclared, is no less lofty a one than to be Russia’s next czar. “Of ‘the four leading claimants to the throne” he sald, “Primce Yous- soupoft is by far the most active, and ho has left ‘mo act unperformed that would serve to ingratiste him with those of our countyymen Who 8Up- port the dynastio system. He had a seeret interview recently with the Pops, whose backing he sought, un- successfully, to sscyre, and during his stay in Jtaly I met him and heard from him, among other things, the inside story of the sale of his two Renibrandts to Mr. Widener. The prince did not, as reported in Lon- don, go to the United States to nego- tiate the sale of thé pictures. At his pe L OFTY Ambition Behind Recent Sale ofl Famous Rembrandt Paintings to Amer- ican Collector—Prince Means to Succeed Nicholas II, But He Has Rivals for the Czar- dom if Present Government of Russia Falls Through — Propaganda Film — Fortune in Jewels, and the Famous Black Pearls. THE MAN WH curity. It was only by getting the permission of the man in whose pos- session they were that he was able to show them to Mr. Widener, who ultimately paid $300,000 for them. Youssoupoft told me that he at once| paid back the $425,000 he had bor-! rowed ($175,000 of which he spent on | the production of the Rasputin film recently shown in Paris), and that he was, therefore, richer by the sale| of the pictures only to the extent of $75,000." l * ¥ ¥ X { HAS for these pictures, §t is not ai fact, as was stated in the Lon- don Times, that they remained in Russia during the revolution and were smuggled out under the very noses of the bolsheviks. The actual facts are these: As punishment for his connection with the murder of Rasputin, Youssoupoff was arrested and his property sequestrated. He contrived to escape and remained in hiding until the revolution, when he reappeared and gave his support to the first provisional government. It was during the existence of that gov- ernment that he removed the bulk| of his possessions, including the two| Rembrandts and most of his family jewels, first to Paris and afterwards to London. “He has never had any of the Rus- slan crown jewels in his possession. Like most of the other rich Russians who fled from their country when the tolsheviks came into power, he had 1ived sinée the overturn of the mon- | { i THE GRAND DUKE DMITRI PAVLOVITCH, COUSIN OF ' LATE CZAR, AND ONE OF THE CANDIDATES FOR THE RUSSIAN THRONE, IF THE SOVIET GOVERN- MENT DOES NOT PROVE PER- MANENT. archy by the sale of one after the other of the family gems. Most of these belonged to his mother, who is now visiting at Cannes. She was Princess Youssoupoff-Samarokoff and married a German named Slston. Youssoupoff has now sold most of his Jewels and is compelled to live com- paratively modestly. He atill, how- ever, has his wonderful black pearl necklace. Jt is the largest in the world and is said to be worth $400,000. “Should the prince ever ascend the throne of Russia,” the speaker went on, “it will be a world calamity, for he is as much an extremist as the reddest of the ‘Reds’ His hatred of the Jews is iptense., “Youssoupoff based great hopes on the result of his recent secret inter-. view with the Pope, but these appear to have been quickly dispelled. The prince proposed to Benedict XV that the Vatican should exert its influ- ence, when the time came, in his fa- vor as a candidate for the czardom, and promised, should this backing be forthcoming and he be seated on the throne, to grant epecial privileg Roman Catholics in Russia. “The Pope listened to him, how- ever, with growing irritation which | ! piotures | he made no attempt to co! ‘When b aa naebed, Benediot XV beta: “eyour highness must have been misinformed i you gained tha ides WOULD BE CZAR OF RUSSIA YOUSSOUPOFF, WITH THE PRINCES! PRINCE FELIX that we would countenance any ar- rangement such as that which you suggest. We want only equal rights for our people in Russia, and desire no special privileges. So far as the czardom is concerned, it is for Rus: sia hierself to choose her form of gov- ernment and those whom she would place at its head. The influence of the Vatican will be exerted in favor of no one.’ * ok ok «THERE was nothing, accordingly for Youssoupoff to do but to ow himself out.” “What is the basis of the prince’s claim to the throne?” was asked. “Youssoupoff married a niece of the late czar. She was the Grand Duchess | Irene, daughter of the Grand Dichess Xenia, who was a sister of the late emperor and of the Grand Duke Alex- ander Nikailovitch. This constitutes the prince’s only claim to the throne, and it is manifestly a slight one. Russia, however, needs at her head a man of abliity, of strong character and of exceptional prestige. When a restoration takes place, as assuredly it will, the choice of a czar will de- pend less on any claim to the suc-) cession by right of birth than on the personal characteristics of the re- spective candidates. This is perfect- 1y realized by Prince Youssoupoff, who depends on his reputation as a man of action and his prestige as the ‘guardian’ of the distressed Russian aristocrats throughout Europe to give him the crown.” “And what about the other candi- dates " “Assuming that the Grand Duke Michael, the czar's brother, is dead— he ‘disappeared’ from his bolshevik prison at Perm about a month before the murder of Nicholas II and his family—the Russian with the best claim to the throne is the Grand Duke Cyril. As the eldest of the three .sons of the late Grand Duke Vladimir, he is a cousin of the late, emperor and senlor iIn line after| Grand Duke Michael. He lives quite modestly at Cannes and is fairly act- ive in political wire pulling. He married a daughter of the late Duke of Edinburgh, whose first husband was a prince of Hesse-Darmstadt and a brother of the late czarina. Cyril believes that the collapse of the so- viet government will come from with- in and is patiently biding his time. He is a man of resolute character and enlightened views and may be de- scribed as a liberal. If called to the throne he could be trusted to rule wisely, “After him, the Grand Duke Nich- olas, as an uncle of the late czar, undoubtedly has the clearest title to the throne. As commandedr-in-chief of the Russian army he showed him- self an able organizer an tactician, and his removal from the supreme command was solely due to the fact that he declined to take or- ders from the court party. resides at Cannes. conservative center group. * ok kX the most picturesque of the four i you except Youssoupoff—the Grand b 1 Duke. Dmitri. Although the credit of | this film, ‘removing’ Rasputin has always been given to Youssoupoff, it rightfully be- longs to Dmitrl, who is renowned for | th his courage and intrepidity. That Dmitri was the slayer of the monik | 8e was well known to the czar, who, as| to punishment, exiled Dmitri to the Per- sian front, thus enabling him, as it|sooner or later. fell out, after the revolution, to join|comes from outside, | him with their revolvers. {ment, He belongs to the| The latter is killed by the playyed in the murder or tne momz would probably bar him from the czardom. Much will depend on the influence of the Russfan Church, which is still strong. And the church takes a serious view of murder.” “But,” 1 objected, “the commorly accepted story is that Youssoupnff shot Rasputin after first attempting to poison him. Was it actually Dmitri who killed the priest?” 1 “Three men, of whom Youssoupoft was not one, were equally responsi- ble for ‘removing’ Rasputin,” was the reply, “but it was Dmitrl who gave him the coup de grace. Youssoupoff himseif told me that he was not even present when the priest w slain. Of the many varying accounts of the affair that have been publigh- ed, all are inaccurate in one detail or another, “The decision to ‘remove’ the priest was come to by a little group of con- servatives, of whom Youssoupoff was one. Rasputin was decoyed to the Youssoupoff palace by means of a letter which stated that Princess Youssoupoft was iil and desired to avail herself of his powers as a heal- er. After the letter was sent, how- ever, Youssoupoff withdrew from the affair and left hurricdly for Aitori, in the Crimea, where his mother-in-la the Grand Duchess Xenia, Lad an es- tate. He had left the paluce three hours when Rasputin arriv Prin- e that h. cess Youssoupoff remained d. however, to play the part been allotted to her. * % % * ¢\\JHEN Rasputin arrived at the palace three men were await- ing him, the three at whose hands he was to die. They were the Grand Duke Dmitri, the Deputy Pourishke- vitch, a member of the reactionary group in the duma, and an officer in the Russian army. Suggesting that the priest should first partake of some refreshment, they took him into the dining room, perhaps the most superb in Petrograd. “Rasputin was first given a cup of poisoned wine, which was expected to finish him. At the end of half an Lour, however, as the poison still showed no signs of taking effect, his three executioners decided to shoot They ask- ed the priest, before they took him upstairs to the princess, to offer prayer for her recovery. In one cor- ner of the apartment, according to the Russian custom, there was an Ikon. When, complying with their request, Rasputin eank on his knees in front of this sacred picture, the three dis- charged their revolvers into his back. The priest collapsed and lay appar- ently dead. Having satisfied them- selves that he was so0, they left him Iving on the floor and went upstairs to tell Princess Youssoupoff that they had rid Russia of the man who had been her evil genius. “The princess heard with relief that the ‘execution’ had been con- summated, but was anxious that not a moment should be lost in remov- ing Rasputin’s corpse from the pal ace. She urged them to get rid of the body at once, and they left her to attend to th To their amaze- however, when they reached the top of the staircase leading to the hall outside the dining room they beheld the man they had left for dead, crawling across the hall on all fours with a revolver in his right hand. Dmitri was the only one of the three who had retained his ‘gun,’ the others having left theirs behind in the princess’ apartment. “Raising himself with a supreme effort, Rasputin fired two shots at the three as they stood paralyzed with astonishment. Both shots missed. Dmitri then fired at Rasputin, his bullet penetrating the priest’s chest. Rasputin then fell dead, but so tre- mendous was the man’s vitality that, Pourishkevitch told me, for more than an hour after he had ceased to breathe his eyelids continued to twitch convulsively.” “In wiew of what you have told me.” said the interviewer, “how comes it that Prince Youssoupoff is every- where known as the slayer of Ra: putin?” My Russian friend smiled. “A good deal of credit that actu- ally belongs to others has been ‘handed’ to the prince,” he said. “To take another instance, those of us who are aware of the actual facts smile when we read, as we do read again and again, that Youssoupoff has been the ‘saviour’ of the Russian emigres and that these get enough to eat only when he has sold some of Lis jewels or pictures. Youssoupoff, it is true, has contributed generously to the Russian relief funds, and for a time the European headquarters of the Russian Red Cross in London was a house in Belgrave square which he rented. What he has given, however, probably does mnot represent one- tenth of the contributions to the sup- port of their impoverished country- men that have been made anony- mously by, among others, that other mystery man, Sir Basil Zaharoff. “Does the prince himself appear in his Rasputin film?” was asked. “He is its hero, but is represented d brilliant|by @ good-looking young French actor. In this entirely imaginative film story of the events which led up to the murder of Rasputin, Youssoun- He also|off is not the slayer of the priest. fatner of a girl with whom he is supposed to have had an intrigue. The csar and now come to the last of the |czarina are represented as having claimants to the czardom and|been pro ¢|sired a defeat in the fleld. -German and as having de- Nothing could be farther from the facts. But , from beginning to end, is propaganda for Youssoupoff and is de- signed to forward his ambition to be e next Czar of Russia.’” “And what &> Russians like your- 1f think are the chances ¢f a ves- ration of the monarchy ™" “We consider that it is certain, Unless assistance the breakdown the British army, in which he became |of the soviet government is a mat- a captain. “As the only son of the Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovitch, Dmitrl nephef of Nicholas II. He is 29 years|The soviet ter of months. And should such as- sistance be forthcoming, it will mean is a|only a prolongation of the agony. tem will perish through old and has just returned to London |its own ‘weakness. The great mass from Cannes. He is very good look-,of th ing and is a keen tennis player and dancer. Early in 1914 it was report- ed that he had renounced his right to the throne in order to marry a young |t and beautiful American girl whom he e Russian peasantry are anti- bolshevist, and even the workmen are aisappointed and disillusioned by the breakdown of life throughout our coun- is that Leni ‘The probability was said to have met while sketing|government will be succeeded by & in Petrograd. That was probably mere fable. constitutional monarchy. Presentcon-. It was, as a matter of|ditions in Russia make a republic fact, Dmitri's great wish to marry|out of the question. The bulk of the the csar's eldest daughter, the Grand | population is illiterate. Fifty years Duchess Olga, but his chances of do-|of education will be necessary te ing so vanisbed when it became|make our people capable of exercising ¥nown to the royal family that it|the was he who killed Rasputin. In the|such event-of & restorartion, the part he impracticable.” tranchise intelligently, and until education exists & republic is.