The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1895-12-21
ANARCHY IN TURKEY.
The Terrible State OF Afair1 Ia
the Sultan's Realm.


tisns.
At no time in the history OF Turkey
has the situation been so serious as it
is now. Armenians and Moslems seem
to be about equally desperate, and both
to have lost all hope of any succor from
the powers of Europe on the one hand
or their own government on the other.
The sultan is shut up in his palace,
afraid OF his life, for he is cursed by
Turks as much as by the Arabs or Chris
tians. The grand vizier, Kiamil Pasha,
from whose ability and honesty much
was expected, found the burden of q
government which could neither COM
mand nor purchase the obedience of its
officials or the loyalty of it's troops too
heavy for his advancing years. He re-
signed, and has been succeeded by a
ministry of very respectable character
and ability, but utterly inadequate to
the crisis. The heads of the Christian
communities are in their turn practical
ly prisoners within their palaces.
Throughout the country there is al
ready anarchy. The sturdy noun
taineers of the Taurus, who only within
: quarter of a century have acknowl-
edged even a nominal allegiance to the
sultan, are in arms, and the city of
Marash is in terror over the strife be-
tween these men of Zeitoon and the
equally indomitable Turks. The mas
sacre at Trebizond was only less an
outrage than that at Sassoon, in that
men only were killed, that the chief
hindrance to the looting of the shops
might be removed. At Ak-Hissar the
local governor himself ordered the XII
ing of so Armenian men, telling the
Turks to spare the women and children
for future distribution. There is per-
feet reign of terror in the mountains
from Trebizond to Erzeroum and Diar-
bekir, and letters from the American
missionaries at Bitlis, Marsovan, Har-
poot and elsewhere tell of personal
peril, only to be avoided by incurring
greater peril in any effort to escape.
In Constantinople itself there has
been little or nothing done to quiet
the people. A gentleman, thoroughly
posted, writes that he knows of but one
man who has been arrested for par
ticipation in the riots, when not less
than 200 Armenians. most of them alb
solutely innocent even of the posses
sion of arms, were shot down, and he
was released, after two days confine-
ment, only to kill another Armenian
because he didn't like his looks" The
death in prison of a prominent Turkish
lawyer and editor for presuming to
criticise the government for its mis-
management, and the execution of
eight members of the sultan's Albanian
bodyguard, are indications of the pre-
vailing feeling Of hostility to the sys-
tenn that has made one of are most
beautiful and fertile lands on the face of
the earth a desert, and has driven from
the capital almost it's entire commerce
and trade.
Perhaps the most serious aspect of
the situation is found in the belief that
is gaining ground everywhere, not only
in Europe, but in Turkey, that the
whole series of attacks on the Ar
menians has been ordered from Con-
stantinop;e and by the sultan himself,
for the double purpose of getting rid
of a people whom he detests and show
ing the European governments that
any interference OF. their part will re-
suit in worse disorders than those they
seek to remedy. There are many things
that confirm this report-the absolute
failure of every effort to secure reform,
the simultaneous attacks in widely dis
tant sections of the empire, and, most
of all, the bitter feeling among those
Turks who have sense enough to see
that it is suicide TO destroy the most
Industrious and prosperous class in the
community. It would seem also as II
the ambassadors had the same idea,
u. a realized that nothing short OF ac-
t.sal Occupation by foreign troops would
avail anything. That they hesitate is
scarcely surprising. Winter Is at hand,
and the passes OF the Kurdish and
Taurus mountains are already covered
with snow. To make feint without
securing complete occupation would
mean massacre upon massacre More
over, no satisfactory plan of immediate
action or of subsequent partition, such
as must come, has as yet been devised,
and China, Japan and Corea appear as
dangerous elements in the problem.
So the English feet lies in the harbor
of Lemnos, the Russian troops rest IN
their barracks in the Caucasus. the am
bassadors make daily visits to porte
and palace in the vain hope that some
impossible solution may yet appear
which will make unnecessary the
bloody and costly war which all dread
and Turks and Kurds improve every
opportunity to kill Christian men. that
they may loot Christian shops and ap-
proprintc Christian women.-AarPers
Weekly.