The Savannah morning news., 1901-03-31


fully, particularly through the press.
Nine Novikoff Is one of the most skill
fur manipulators of newspaper opinion.
Journalists of the serious order, the men
who write the important political edito-
rails and pontificate in the monthly re-
views are unfailing at her receptions.
They call to get from her what is called
In Fleet street the picturesque strokes"
for their articles. And she supplies them
so skillfully that often a violent anti
Russian comes away half convinced that
the Tsar is a Democrat, that Siberia Is
paradise and that the process of being
'knouted" is little less uncomfortable
than that of taking a Turkish bath. Be-
sides influencing journalists. Nine. Novi-
koff writes herself. Nearly all the pa
pers in England and not few in Amer
lea have had her signed articles when
ever RUSSIA has been on the tapis I'm
possible to refuse such lively. well in-
formed, novel matter" mutter the edi-
tors at their desks. And so they run it
into their journals or magazines, label
ling it, perhaps, "a point of view" But
the point of view" is taken as the whole
truth by hundreds of readers; public opin-
ion, again, is nodded, as clay in the
hands of the potter.
Then there is the lecture-pla-form a
potent pulpit. China is getting some lee
ture-work done in the United States just
at this moment. when she badly needs it.
Dr. WI Ting Fang is not trotting about
from Washington to New York and Chi
cago and everywhere else that an audi
ence can be found without strong dash
of Celestial guile. Perhaps If DR.. WI
had been multiplied all over Europe with
his eloquent defense of Confusianism and
of China's claim to respect the United
States would not have proved almost the
only friend his country has had in this
momentous epoch of her history 1t is
true that the Chinese spellbinder is the
official diplomat of the Flowery Land, but
If China is spared to go ahead in peace
once more and to digest slowly a few
European notions, no doubt the DIR. WI
of future day will remain in peaceful
dignity at Washington while an unrecog-
nized subordinate does the lightning lee
ture tour business.
Turkey, the China of the near East, has
already got to that stage. Her official
ENJOYS to Europe and America remain
sublimely unconscious when the streets of
Constantinople or of Erzeroum are pud-
died with Armenian blood. But the Yil-
dir Kiosk has good Christians in its SER
vice who do all the explaining and pallia-
ton that is needed. The English, who,
with the Germans, have been the only
are kept constantly up to the mark by
Sir Ashmead Bartlett. His books, his
lectures, his numerous articles in maya
zines and newspapers, his speeches in the
English House OF Commons are a mine of
Philo-Turkism. The United States, by
the way, swarms with Turkish secret
agents of all social degrees. So many I'M
fortunate subjects of the Shadow of
Cod fly over the ocean to get, often by
with which to return and live unmolested
at home that the government of Turkey
maintains in our big cities more spies
and other agents than anywhere else on
the globe These dignitaries. often Eng
Christians, receive hand
some sums for denouncing all Armenian,
Greek, Arab, Syrian and Persian subjects
of Turkey who belong to revolutionary
societies in the United States or who are
even readers of the little plain spoken
Syrian sheet published in the downtown
Oriental quarters of New York. Once de-
nounced, these people may be fifty times
subjects of the United States; they need
never hope to live TRANQUILITY in the East
After a week in Turkey they are thrown
into prisons on some trumped-up charge,
and they never breathe the free air again.
These denunciators are at the lowest
rung of the ladder. But there are others
doing similar work in much higher
grade. 1t is their business to influence
public opinion among both Turkish sub
jects and pure blooded Americans in fav-
or of the Sublime Porte. A body of them
runs a pro-Turkish Journal circulating
among the sOrientals; others, established
in business or enjoying an appar-
ent leisure, are secretly working
in social and political circles
to the same end. Chicago
still remembers the scandal that
led to broken glass in a cafe in Dearbc
street some few years ago, when a rcl
Syrian merchant was with difficulty pre-
vented from sticking a knife into COM
patriot whom, as he loudly proclaimed,
he could prove to be receiving $4,000 a
year for experimenting "the Sultan's
dirty work for the Western states"
The fact is that, with a few exceptions
in the very highest ranks of the ''profes-
sion," the secret service agents of every
country on the European side of the At
lantic makes spying an essential part of
the days work. People who were In Paris
when the Dreyfus case was thickening
say that, as complication followed on
complication, and one country after an
other began to be drawn into the affair
Germany, Italy. Russia, England-there
was scarcely distinguished foreigner in
afraid that he would be denounced as
having been in touch with the alleged
traitor, so firm was the conviction OF the
wide scope of the International secret
service system.
To take a more recent example,: as the
Beers have had DIR. Leyds to represent
them officially for years in Europe, so
since the war broke out the English have
had their unofficial agents striving to I'M
dermine the doctors work. In Paris there
is a well-known society woman who has
long been discovered to be acting, and for
money, as an English agent in the dissem-
nation of the English view OF the matter
And at the Exposition Peace Conference
every speaker took 1t for granted that
Yves Guyot the editor OF the Paris Siecie,
was acting definitely under the instruct
ions OF Downing street in his articles and
only definitely pro- English paper in Paris
at this moment, and he the only public
man that defends the English action. II
would be interesting to know how many
English half pence he receives In return
for the numerous French kicks that are
lavished upon him.
Most of those unofficial diplomatists are
exceedingly we'll paid. They have to be
people of very marked ability, and they
must maintain considerable state, or
their work would fail pitibly. Some five
or six years ago German baroness died
suddenly In Paris. When her papers were
ransacked by the commissary OF police 1t
was discovered that she had been a Sc
nrat sarvfca ananf for her country Eroun