Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-16
NOTED AT coNsTANTINoPLE.
The Sultan's Government Becoming
More and More Impossible.

FROM Chlcago Advance.
At Constantinople we made our first &C.
quaintance with the Turk, usually called
THE unspeakable." He is slow, procrasii-
mating, and as government disinclined to
move, and all this is perfectly natural His
religion forbids progress. 1t does not recog-
rize the rights of man a man upon when
all progress rests. Besides, It is fatalistc;
and things can happen in Gods way re-
gardless of hurry or railways or modern
facilities. Still more, every Turkish official
IS surrounded by spies eager to earn their
pay by reporting wrongdoing, and any new
departure is easily represented as criminal
1t took us over an hour to get through
the custom house. This was partly due to
exceptional circumstances A few weeks
ago, when bomb was thrown at the sui
tan one of the accused was found to be an
armenian just come from America Soon
after another American Armenian stabbed
a merchant in the city for. refusing money
to a revolutionary fund. The result was
that Americans were feared as men of dy-
n&mite, and our baggage was searched TO
the bottom. Two or three books were hand
ed over to special censor to read. Even
my wife's journal was carefully gone
through, and her gummed-in pictures of
William Tell and Augustus with cupids
holding him by the legs were severly
scanned. The Turks are afraid of books Is
we'll as of bombs, for in a sense they do
the same work. l was told of one book
on mechanics rejected because it spoke of
something making fifty revolutions in
minute" and of a chemistry cut-out be-
cause II. o. in 1t was regarded as .fHamio
Ii is no good
knowledge and liberty go together, and
the sultan is the deadly foe of liberty He
has absorbed in himself the power of the
cabinet. His ministers are only his clerks
.faA L., l. Z,
crees. so 1t is no wonder that 1t takes two
or three years for business to reach de-
cision. He lives In palace surrounded by
walls and guards, with a mosque within the
grounds. He refuses to go into old SIAM
boul. even once a year for worship, as his
predecessors did. He has a guard about
him by night which is paid $3.50 in gold
every morning. In fact, it is said the only
men In the empire who are promptly and
fully paid are the officials near the throne
ii the capitol. Since the last bomb throw
ing the sultan is being walled up more than
before. and the public will see him no more
going to his mosque on Fridays How long
Turkey can stand is a question; fall 1t
must some time, for 1t is an impossible
system in the twentieth century. | have
been told that Macedonia is ripe for sepa-
ra ton, and that within ten years it is eX-
pected to become part of Bulgaria, Austria
and Greece, according to the people in diff
ferent sections of it. A ruler that will not
allow telephone In his dominlons, nor
code for kilograms: who has in his capital
English, French, German and Austrian
post offices, because people do not trust
the government offices; whose mother was
an Armenian, and yet who murders Ar
menians till he has made all that survive
his deadly foes; who cannot allow guns TO
be fred announcing fires till telegram Is
sent to the police to explain what the shots
signify; who has his brother, heir to the
throne, kept prisoner in palace beside
his own, and who lives in terror and sus-
picion opposing, like Moslem pope, all
new light and life, and breeding corruption
and venality In all about him-such ruler
seems impossible.