Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-04-21
Slavonic Waves.

Slavonic Waves.
Over this Aryan bed, out of the mystic
rious northeast, successive waves of Sla-
vonic migration have flowed down to the
Mediterranean and ebbed back again, each
leaving behind in the crevices it's colony of
exhausted camp followers. The Macedo-
MAN people are the spill-boX of nations.
These fragments of races have never ANAL
gamated. Physically as well as geographic
cally. nature seems to have meant Macedo-
mia to be museum for the preserva ton of
specimens of primitive peoples. After plac-
ing 1t where every tribe must pass by and
leave a few members, she crossed and
cr1ss-croSsed 1t with innumerable, irregular
mountain ranges. barriers more effective
than oceans, isolating for centuries one
mountain valley from knowledge of the
manners, gods and language of the next
Macedonia" is a convenient group name,
verbal advice to avoid tiresome repetition
of the Greeks and Vlachs and Serbs and
Bulgarians and Turks and Jews and ROu-
manians who live within Turkey in Eu-
rope"
Trouble in Macedonia.
In mixed nationality lies the chief reason
for the perennial cry Of trouble in Mace
donia." Out of knotty snarl of races
springs knotty snarl of politics. Tangled
roots of religious and racial prejudice
reaching deep into the past. tangled threads
Of utilization with neighboring kin-nations
In the present. tangled filaments of future
hope, each expecting that when the Turk
Is driven out his own race will be substi-
tuted-all hopelessly intertwined and twist
ed into a Gordian knot which only the
sword can solve. Wherever three Macedo-
rians meet, two will fall upon the third and
the third will cry out for foreign help.
Better this than that the dog of a Greek
should govern is the attitude of many
Macedonian Serb as the Turkish soldier
hogs him; anything rather than the Serbs
for masters" thinks the Macedonian Greek
Religions. customs. manners and fixed
habits of thought clash daily and hourly.
Rites and Creeds.
The sacred, rite of one creed Is the I'M
speakable dissertation of the other. A pass
ing Moslem in a moment of high spirits
shoots a bullet into a wayside cross; mis-
chievous Christian drives his neighbours pig
into village mosque, and a tribal conflict
is on. with all the frantic excuses of
holy war. In miniature. The tribe that is
temporarily strongest levies tribute from it's
neighbors. Tonight one hey with his fol-
lowers will pillage a town for tribute, to-
morrow night a rival hey will punish the
village for having paid tribute to his enemy
When two dogs gnaw at the same bone it
is hard on the bone: and the bone is usu-
ally the weaker Christian villages To all
these hatreds. acting and interacting, add
this. that these are a primitive, semi bar
barous people, with whom the vendetta Is
sacred institution. riot a preoccupa ton
and the homicidal impulse fixed habit of
mind. and you have a recipe for chaos
strong governing hand. even If it did
not weld these swords-point elements
might at least keep order among them
Ana II the governing class belonged to
higher civilization. it might, partly by in
huence. partly by force. obliterate the bar
barous and the primitive and substitute
common manners, customs and ways of
thinking. and Macedonia which is no
more composite than New York city might
be no less orderly. But the Turk tends to
rather than obliterate them. To deepen
grudges and start new feuds is his tradi-
tional policy.
Power of the Turk.
The Turk has always been numerically
inferior to his subject races Naturally
homogeneity in the enemy is little to his
taste 1t better suits his purpose to play
off one tribe against another. This is the
secret of his enemys weakness and of his
own power. divide and conquer is all
the diplomacy he practices. The Turk gov
erns Macedonia as Spain governed Mexico
and the success of his rule he measures by
the amount of revenue he can send to Con-
stantinople. The Turk has been in Europe
400 years. but he has never taken root
there; and when he is driven out he will go,
not with the sense of breaking home ties
but merely with the regret that comes of
giving up profitable vassal. In admins
tering Macedonia. Turkey has but two pur-
poses, to exact tribute and to remain the
governing class. The Turkish government
is tribute-collecting machine and is i'm
pervious clay to any other motive. To pick
out the tribe that is temporarily strongest,
to make 1t responsible for collecting the
tribute and to give it carte blanche to
manage things in It's own way, saves the
Turk lot of trouble, and he is by nature
indolent. Moreover. 1T enables him to saw
to protesting Europe, Il didn't do anything.
1t is the wicked Albanians, and they are
Christians. l deplore their villainy ex-