New Britain Herald Newspaper, May 21, 1927, Page 13

OPHIA RASPUTIN, the pretty and talented daughter of Gregory Ras- putin, the monk' who played such a prominent part in the history of Russia just before the revolution and was fin- | ally murdered by Prince Youssoupoff, is dedicating the rest of her life to works of piety and charity. In order to fulfil what she feels to be her duty to the cause of religion and Ber fellowmen, she will not enter a nun- ery, but will engage in evangelistic work here in America under the leadership of some successful evangelist. All this, to those who know Miss Ras- putin, is not so surprising as the fact that she plans to follow the career of an evangelist without giving up the profes- sions in which she has already won con- siderable success—those of dancing, act- ing and singing. Like her late father, she believes that all the legitimate pleas- ures of life can and should be used to serve the catses of religion and philanthropy. “My father,” she says, “belonged to a Russian sect which believed that the joys of life are not sinful or immoral, but praiseworthy and virtuous things. It was his belief that we should not vul- garize our pleasures by considering them ignoble things in which we ought not to indulge ourselves. “He urged that we ennoble them by taking them into our religious life and surrounding them with beautiful rituals and prayers and hymns of praise and thanksgiving. And this is exactly what 1 shall try to do in the work I am under- taking here in America.” Miss Rasputin indignantly resented the idea that her pledging of herself to works of piety and charity is an effort to offer l&uement for what many stu- dents of Russian history think were the crimes of her father. In his daughter’s mind, Gregory Rasputin is no sinner at all, but the greatest of saints. The reputation for evil which he has gained in certain quarters is, she insists, the fabrication of his enemies. “What~ ever there may have seemed to be to condemn in his life,” she says, “was the result of the wickedness that surrounded him at the Russian court.” “My father was spoiled by the Czar- ina, who fell in love with him and pro- posed that he marry her morganatically,” says Sophia Rasputin, now in New York. “Since the Czar was in love with Mme. Viroubova, the Czarina found solace in my father, especially in his teaching that the love of a man and a woman, when spontaneous and sincere, was a highly religious sentiment. . C ' Q {6t arrests and is proud of it, but he is not a criminal. He has tramped to the corners of the United States and has been kicked into and out of the best jails available, and is proud of that. Tramping is his profession, and by his profession he has brought succor to many “down-and-outers,” men with- out a dime. Edwin A. Brown, sociologist, writer, tramp, landed proprietor and humanita- rian, is the title holder of arrests. He has walked the streets of America’s larg- est cities, broke; has been arrested so many times he has lost count—all for the needy man without a dime, and now suffers broken health as a result of his wanderings. This social scientist had wealth and position before he undertook this hu- manitarian work. He lived on a large ranch in Colorado, owned jointly by him- self and his cousin, William C. Brown, then president of the New York Central Railroad. He also had a very comfort- able hcme in Denver. One day a down-and-outer approached him on the streets of Denver. The “bum” asked for a coin. Brown inter- rogated him, and the man told a story of having left his home several hundred miles away for Denver, where he hoped to find employment. But his money gave out; he arrived, broke; employment was not immediately forthcoming, and he refused to go to the police for aid he needed so badly. S “I'd freeze before I'd sleep in jail, even though I'm not guilty of anything but being broke,” he told Brown. A day or two later Brown went to the Mayor of Denver and suggested that the city take some steps to take care of that type of man. The official looked at his caller in surprise. He knew that Brown had money, had known a life of comparative ease. The question coming from such a source was a surprise. “What do you know about the need of these men?” he asked. “Nothing,” Brown admitted, and at that moment was born his determination to find out what the down-and-outers of America needed, if anything, and to get it for them. HE holds the “heavyweight” title" Rasputin, the monk who figured so prominently in Russian history just before the revolution “My father’s philos- ophy of Love appealed so much to the Czar and the Czarina that they built a little chapel for him and equipped it with most artistic paint- ings and sculpture. It was kept a secret so that only my father and the family of the Czar could enter it. Nightingales furnished the music for the ceremonies from an adjoining conservatory. “I was never able to attend the chapel, but my father told of his rit- ualistic services there. Two beautiful nudes, a man and a woman, were the icons in this chapel—in life size, painted by Rubens. - There was also an- other big painting by some Dutch master. “The fact that the Czarina was pre- paring to’become the morganatic wife of my father was not generally known. To-day, having gotten everything for them that he could during his. active years, he has retired to his beautiful home at Del Mar, San Diego County, California, and there carries on the work by writing magazine articles looking to- ward help for needy men, and supplying money on occasion. “The home of the most arrested man in America is just to your right, ladies and gentlemen,” cries the “spieler” of the tourist bus as he points out to visi- tors the attractions of Del Mar. And the surprised “rubbernecks” see a beau- tiful home in a lovely setting and won- der what connecetion a criminal can have with such pleasant surroundings. Brown lives quietly, displaying none of the ecriminal tendencies which thoughtless police attributed to him be- fore they were aware of his identity. Brown, who is a sociologist as well as a humanitarian, says there are at least three types of penniless wanderers loosely called tramps or vagabonds. “There are, first,” he explains, “those we know gs bums, broken men, often diseased physically or mentally, beggars and generally worthless. “Then there are the hobos, often quite sound, who steal railroad transportation, but seldom anything else; who beg food, but seldom anything else, and who will not work. “The third group is the itinerant worker or casual laborer, sometimes known as the ‘dynamiter,” who is quite willing to work but is unskilled, and drifts with the labor demand, from harvest to berry-picking to road build- ing, to snow shoveling and back again. Like the bum and the hobo, he ‘rides the rods’ on freight trains and he may beg for food, but he is beginning to be recognized as a valuable and necessary part of society.” The conclusion which Brown draws from his wanderings and studies of hu- manity crawling across the continent, always in search of some Utopia, is: “If a tramp begs, the community sup- ports him; if he steals, the community supports him; if he becomes ill from hunger and exposure, the community supports him; and if it embitters him by throwing him into jail, it eventually pays the cost.” oWorks OF Piety and Charity Sophia Rasputin, who plans to follow an evangelist’s career and at the same time work as an actress, singer and dancer Abundant evidence that this was her plan is to be found in the carefully guarded private diary of the late Empress. “l was once taken by my father to the palace, where I met the Czarina and fed M » NAN \ NN A4 L Because of these facts, he advocates the communities of the United States providing for him, in the first place, a ntunicipal lodging-house which would no more be considered a charitable institu- tion than a public library. His general plan for such a lodging-house calls for a complete service. “Every city in the United States Edwin Brown, the “gentle- man tramp” and friend of all down-and- outers Copyright, 1927, her daughters, being presented to them as a member of the family. ‘Sophia, my child,’ or, ‘Sophia, my sister,’ that is how I was addressed by the Czarina and her daughte I had a dinner in my father’s suite with the Czarina and her » “These should approximate in purpose those at New York and Buffalo, where moneyless men and moneyless women can go. “Each applicant gets a germicidal bath and a medical examination. Then he is handed clean nightclothes and sent to bed in well-ventilated dormitories, while clothing is fumigated. After a good fast, any man or woman, even though broke, can seek honest work with a stout heart and bear no honest grudge t society. 1 have associated intimately with tramps from coast to coast and have been thrown into jail often with young men who had never been there before. They were guilty of no crime but being broke. I never knew of a case in which it did not embitter them. Often they say that if they are to be jailbirds with- out just cause, they may as well be crim- inals, too. “The missions of large cities do their best to meet a bad situation, but they cannot prevent the spreading of disease. And where some one might suggest that the establishment of houses where these men can be taken care of properly would invite tramps, the answer comes imme- diately that a germicide bath, medical by Johnson Features, Ina. daughter, Tatiana. The Czarina told me that in one more year I would live in the palace and be & member of her family. “She ordered French and German tutors employed to teach me, and all my living expenses were paid from the court treasury. My monthly allowance was 1,000 rubles, although I was only twelve years old. While my father lived most of the time in the palace, I was living in an apartment paid for by the court.” Miss Rasputin made a thrilling escape from Petrograd when the fury of the revolutionists was turned against every- body connected with the court. As the daughter of the most powerful favorite of the imperial family, she was one of the persons most hated by the mob leaders. With about two thousand rubles ($1,000) in gold in her posses- sion, she was able to bribe her way to Riga. From there she continued on to Nice, where her father had bought a villa with the Czarina’s money. Miss Rasputin lived somhe years quietly in Nice, where she still has a modest villa. It was there that she started to prepare herself for the stage by studying drama, dancing and music. She made a debut in Rome and was hailed as a marvelous actress and ballerina. Later she played in motion pic- tures in France and Ger- many, under the stage name of Sophia Gregorieva. Miss Rasputin recalls many interesting things about the strange ‘‘melodic seances” with which her father used to influence his followers. She believes that the rhythm of the beat of small, Oriental drums and the melodic cadensas of the chants in these rit- uals actually had a hypnotic influence on many listéners. She declares that her father dictated the pol- icy of Russia for the last five years of the monarchy. The Czar and the Czarina never hesitated to do what he asked them to do. Cabinet Ministers were appointed and dismissed at a hint from Rasputin. Even the World War was partly brought about because Ras- putin told the Czar that he should not humiliate himself and be a bellboy of the inspection, an employment bureau and efficient management would discourage this class.” In meeting the itinerants of the coun- try, Brown follows the procedure of dressing the part of a tramp, even to the characteristic odor which clings to the unwashed. Once so decked out, he hunts a job; and if he finds one, he will work for his bed and board; otherwise, he will “stick around” until a cop tells him to “move on.” Then he asks, “Where to?” Often the officer suggests that he go to the Salvation Army, but Brown tells him they charge 25 or 35 cents for a bed, and that he is broke—“the man without a dime.” A kindly officer will then usually suggest some mission which will turn away no one as long as the “boys can pile in.” Brown has tried these places often and finds them always willing, bt that they have a larger task than they can bear. They open their doors until they become so crowded as to be unpleasant, if not unsanitary. If the policeman is not kindly disposed he arrests Brown as a vagrant and a trip to the jail follows. Brown’s next move is to visit the Mayor and tell him about the condition to which the penniless worker is sub- jected. After his visit to Boston the Mayor masqueraded and found out some things for himself and then secured an appropriation of $50,000 for a municipal lodging nouse. After his visit to Washington, D. C., Congress appropriated $45,000 for such a purpose. Minneapolis built a house which would care for 100 mep after Brown had been there with his message. St. Louis felt his presence similarly .nd, partly due to his influence, Buffalo raised $250,- 000 for one of the best institutions in the country. Why has this phi- losopher-social scien- tist left a warm bed continue her Kaiser, when Germany sanctioned Aus- tria’s march into Servia. “When the dead body of my father . was found in the frozen Neva River,” says Miss Rasputin, “the Czarina hurried to the morgue and took the body in her own motor car to the chapel, where she wept over it day and night until it was buried. “The Czarina insisted that he be bur- ied in the burial chapel of the Romanoft dynasty in the fortress of St. Peter and Paul, but the ministers of state and the Holy Synod objected. So the Czarina secretly buried my father in the park of the palace of Czarskoe Selo and would have built there a chapel of the Hlysty Sect had the revolution and war not prevented. “A few weeks after the death of my father I was taken to the palace. The Czarina kissed me and told me that she considered me her adopted child and would care for me as if I was her own daughter. It was then that she told me: ‘I loved your father as I never loved an- other man and we were to have been married next summer.’” It is the hope of Sophia Rasputin to make the arts of dancing, acting and music play the important part in re- ligious worship that they have played in the past. She would have worshipers “dance be- fore the Lord” just as they did in the old days of Isreal. She would have the great moral lessons of the Bible give reality through dramas like those often given in churches during the Middle Ages. And every service would be em- bellished with vocal and instrumental music finer than any now heard in con- cert or at the opera. Just as her father used music and the other arts to sway the attendants at his strange rituals, so she would use them in a much greater variety of ways, and with, of course, an entirely different end in view. She believes that only by linking the arts with religion and giving religious worship an irresistible beauty, can the world be roused to the awakening which must come if our civilization is to endare. In New York or some other American city she hopes some day to direct the building of a great church where the drama, the ballet, and the finest music will take their place along side of prayer and sermons, In the meantime she seeks an oppor- tunity with some evangelist to demon- strate the value of her plan for combining religious work with acting, singing and dancing. OtherMan| to do these things? Because, as he wrote in his poem, “The Man Afoot on the Road”: Some will carry their beds on their backs, Aund oft will the plane, the hammer Add weight to the heavy packs. 1 shall meet the man who hah placed th ~ And ‘the man who has laid the rai The man whe has bound a mighty land . With threads of shining steel. The man who has opened our mines of wealth, And watered the thirsty plain, Who comes again in the harvest heat To garner our fields of grain. The hand that has built the dam and the bridge, Every village and city abode, “And the very highway we drive upon, Is his road. that's afoot om the Brown is getting to be an old man. He is 70, rather old for the rigorous “work” of the road. He prefers now to compose at his piano as he listens to the roar of the Pacific, a hundred yards away. Since he slept on the ash-heaps with co-tramps in Pueblo he has been slightly deaf, but he does not think that he has retired and given up the investi- gations which have been responsible for his many arrests. He wants yet to put over his idea of helping the casual worker to keep his self-respect, and be- lieves that once his idea is started it can never be “arrested.” Ninety per cent of the men who g0 on the road are honest, he believes, and either search work or are driven on by health or other good reasons. He will continue to try to find some way to ease their lot until he has to leave the endeavor in the hands of younger men.