The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-05-08

art; IOStereQ no Industries. Its rulers
have been despots and its streets
have been dyed with blood. 1t has
been faithless to obligations and
treacherous to friend and foe alike.
The story of Turkey is the story of
cruelty and hate. Provinces have
been laid to waste, villages pillaged,
multitudes massacred. Treaties have
been violated, obligations avoided,
while a taxation unspeakably OPP
pressive has despoiled the people to
enrich the palace fatterers.
The Turk is a Moslem, not es-
pecially religious, but fanatical in
his hatred of the Christians. While
the Turks as class are bloodthirsty,
there is much courtesy and kindness
among individuals, and in the recent
massacre in Constantinople, there
were many acts of kindness, not a
few of the hunted Armenians being
defended at great peril by those
whose aid they invoked.
l saw the Sultan in company with
Osman Pasha, the new commander
in-chief of the Turkish forces. He is
a man of strong personality, coura-
geous bearing and imposing mien.
His record for military skill is the
highest and he is believed to be
without superior in Europe. l saw
representative companies of nearly
all the different divisions of the Turk
ish army. The soldiers have been
drilled with German officers, and
they fight with a frenzy of fanaticism
before which death is robbed of it's
terrors and opens the way to the joys
of Paradise. The Turkish fleet lay at
anchor in the Golden Horn. 1t was
brave only in appearance, for hulls
were foul with long disuse.
The other actors in this great
drama of the East are the six great
Powers of Europe. Jealous of each
other, they are leagued together in
what is called the concert of Europe
for the maintenance of the autonomy
of Turkey. England, watchful of
the encroachments of Russia on her
Indian possessions, knows that in the
breaking up of the empire, the nation
that has Constantinople and the
Dardanelles is the mistress of the
Mediterranean. Italy would be its
prey; the possessions of France in
Africa would be menaced. Germany
hates England for her lust of coloni-
al acquisition, and desires alliance
with Russia to preserve her western
while Austria covets the
Turkish territory adjacent to her
frontiers. In this unholy alliance,
this league of selfshness, the great
nations are united.
Christian nations, they have re-
fused to go to the deliverance of
Armenia, and have been the
aiders and abettors of the Crescent
in its conflict with the Cross. Free
England has made her
ships patrol to keep away those
who would aid suffering Crete to OBJ
tain freedom, and republican France
has united with the irresponsible
which she hates to rivet
the chains of oppression upon little
island struggling to be free.
There is no sadder story in mod
ern history than the Duplicates of
European diplomacy. Russia has
betrayed every ally and covered
every treaty with perjuries. Bis
marck confesses that France was
trapped into war by forgery, and
Palmerston outwitted the diplomat
lists of Europe by the novel device of
speaking the plain and simple truth.
The German nation, sturdy and in
telligent as it is, is Jealous only for
the increase of the output of her
shops and the enlargement of her
markets. She barred her ports to
American competition with lie; she
secured the Germanic federation by
a forgery, and has no rebuke for the
cruel utterance of her alf.demented
king that he would not risk single
German company to save the all i'm
perilled hosts of Armenia. 1t is one of
the evils of absolutism that there is
no national conscience. Russia and
Germany and Austria have no sover-
eign public opinion, and England.
France and Italy dare not break an
alliance which seems to be one of
safety, though it is one of shame.
War is terrible and is always to be
deplored. 1t wastes life, destroys
stirs the slumbering brute
in man, gives feryerish prosperity to
be followed by industrial and moral
But war is infinitely
to be preferred to supine acquies-
cence in injustice, to a peace-at any