Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-12-02
NUMBER q.
The Century's Crime.

II any proof We're needed how thin
veneer of fertilization overlies the innat,
savagery of the nineteenth century tn,
present recrudescence of the Eastern
tquestion might be put conclusively In
evidence. The Balkan peninsula ii
composed of handful of states tot
weak to make head separately agains
their powerful neigh bors, too jealous o
each other to combine for their com
mon defence. TIE wreck of the Otto
man empire i'm Europe has left rich
and feeble prey asa constant tempta'
ton to Russia and Austria, and it ID
not national honesty but national eau.
ton which has, up to the present time
prevented the partition of the PENN.
sula. Bulgaria. Roumania, Servia,
Greece and Turkey in Europe must
sooner or latter, fall one by one to the
greed OF the Romanof or the Haps.
burg, and the Eastern question means
simply the question as to how long
this settlement can be deferred.
There is frank brutality about the
years history in the East, which is
calculated to undecelve the optimists
who preach about the progress and the
brotherhood of man. There is no ques-
| tod of right or wrong even alleged in
| the problem. There is hardly even
the pretence that the people of Bulga-
ria, the country which is Just now the
focus of interest, are to be considered at
| all in the settlement which must be
reached. Russia intends to dominate
Bulgaria simply for her own aggran-
dizement. The czar had Alexander
kidnapped, and his agents haye ever
since been stirring up the politics of
the principality into ferment for pur-
poses shamefully and flagrantly selfish.
| A Russian creature-an Asiatic satrap
of the Muscovite--is to be put upon the
| throne against the will of the people
and solely for the use and behoof of
Russia. Bulgaria. being weak, Is out
of the question. The solution sought
is one which will bring Russia SO much
nearer to the Bosphorus, no matter
at what expense of blood and treasure.
England represents the other end of
the controversy, not as the champion
of an oppressed people, but as the men,
aced enslaver of India. The core of
the question is, whether Russia shall
or shall not be permitted to threaten
the road to the East, as the possession
of the strong places at the eastern end
Of the Mediterranean would permit
that empire to do. It is national sell
fishness against national seltishness.
| t is Anglo-Saxon crime against Slav
crime. 1t is the struggle for booty be-
tween the two greatest marauders III
the world, and lnasmuch as England
is the more heartless and the more
shameless of the two disputants, the
worlds sympathy, despite the peculiar
facts, will be with the czar. Austria
comes in partly as the cat's-paw of
England, partly with all eye to the
loot. England has always fought her
wars against civilized people with sub
stitutes, sometime Spanish, sometimes
Hessian. sometimes French. Now the
honorable position OF guarding British
interests in the East is to be accorded
to Austria, and the English press teens
with arguments showing how vital it
is to Austria to resist the Russian ad-
vance. OF course Austria is not fooled
by this argument, but there are the
rich Balkan provinces, lying weak and
defenceless, ready for conquest.
Germany and France, with their duel
to the de. tn still to be fought, are SIM
ply mannuvring for position in the
present crisis; their interest Is merely |
great or small as the one or the other |
is affected.
So we see Europe on the brink of the
greatest war in the history of the world |
"a war in which more men and dead
lier weapons will be engaged than ever
were known beforehand for what?
Because the path of Russian aggrand-
iZement has met and crossed England's
and Austria's. Not one OF the three
have any business in the Balkan pen-
insnla. Each is an intruder, GRIM
inal trespasser, but each can deliver
of men 10 be killed in the
quarrel.
From the factories of Britain, from
the farmsteads of Austria, from the
pastures of Muscovy, will come the
of the best blood of the
Old World to clinch and to die fruit
lessly about Constantinople. There is
to be gained for humanity in
the struggle, there is much to be lost.
If the fight ends in a victory for one
side the shackles will be rivited more
than ever upon the toiling
of India, while the free states
Of the Balkan peninsula will become
the appanages of the house of Haps-
burg. If success gllds the other BAN
ners, Bulgaria. Roumania and Rou-
melia will be as Russian-Poland is to-
lay, enslaved under Calling military
under which none of the
plOCCSSCo vi SlltLotiob C0li |
A great war means the killing of many |
good and useful citizens, the ruin of i,
tenfold more, and new luster to the
crown of the czar or the kaiser, as the
event may prove.
We may talk learnedly about race {
and folk impulses, but the
md to which we come is this, that bar
oarism in Europe is, after all. but thin 6
y veiled. The robbers entrenched at
st. Petersburg. at Vienna, at London,
liffsr in power, but not in cu1pability,
rom the robbers who levied blackmail
'ut of the feudal castles in Scotland,
N the Danube, or on the Volga. We ]
rave changed our terms, not our mean '
ngs. The Old Adam is just as strong c
n the breast of the Emperor Francis '
Joseph as it was in the heart of Bar t
'arossa. The common people, the mo- e
,ile vulgar, are to be marshalled to
eath with all the pomp and circum-
tances of glorious war, that more prov r
nces shall call the emperor lord, that v
ew lands shall pay the exactions that f
re due to rulers bv right divine.