Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1906-03-17
The suItan,a Turn Mart.

AhO sultan AuEn Next
With its laundering prelude to Ok
he attention of the world, the political
and social transformation OF Russia
dwarfs all other popular movements
for the time being, and the trend of af-
fairs with the immobile Turk has
scarcely been noted. The sick man
Of Europe was long ago set down as
degenerate incapable of reformation
and therefore a fit subject for chloro-
form. On this aspect of the case cor
respondent of the Advance, writing
from Constantinople, recently declared:
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
and messengers. ALI new laws are his
DEGREES, so it is no wonder that 1t takes
two or three years for business to reach q
decision. He lives in a palace surrounded
by walls and guards, with a mosque with
In the grounds. He refuses to go into old
Stamboul, even once a year for worship,
as his predecessor did. He has a guard
about him by night which is paid $3.50 in
gold every morning In fact. 1t Is said the
only men in the empire who are promptly
and fully paid are the officials near the
throne in the capital Since the last bomb
throwing the sultan is being walled up
more than before, and the public viii see
him no more going to his mosque on FRI
days. How long Turkey can stand Is a
question; fall 1t must some time, for 1t is
an impossible system in the twentieth
century.
hat cid sNf
and the reverse is given in the Paris
Review by NJ Sabaheddlne, Turk
who believes in his land and its peo-
pie. This writer says that the reforms
guaranteed in the Ottoman empire
when it entered the family of nations
in 1854 have been held up by reaction
airy elements, both Christians and
Mussulmans, in Turkey, but more es-
pecially by the Russian autocracy,
whose influence has been eXerted to
bring about decay and ultimate dis
memberment. Throughout the period
Of administrative rottenness there has
been, says NJ. Sabbahedine, an intel
lectual regeneration of a large portion
of the Turkish people, who caught the
reform idea half a century ago and
state to strike out in a new path takes
time for education and time to as
simulate new forces and get to work.
That the time has now come this pa
triotic Turk argues as follows:
The great schools of Constantinople,
Mulkie, Sultanish, the military school of
Pancaldi, the marine school of Haiku, the
agricultural school of Halkali, the med
ical, law and civil colleges, in which mod
ern and scientific instruction is given and
which annually turn out thousands of pu-
pills, have first given solid elements Of
resistance to the reactionary spirit and
have then acted as distributors of liberal
IDEAS Under the influence of all these
generations of students, writer's and sci
entists, all thirsty for reform and develop
ment the Turkish tongue has been re-
fined and purified: it has become suffi-
GENTLY elastic to express the most subtle
shades with remarkable precision. With
this literature there will necessarily be
propagated in Asia those grand ideas
which have transformed Europe; vast en-
ergies are being accumulated and con-
densed, ready to be employed in renewing
the orient We may then conclude that in
the new Turkish society there are suffi-
Gent vital elements to raise the nation
from the deep torpor In which 1t appears
to stagnate-and the hour of the awaken
ing Is near.
This is Russia over again, with the
intellectuals blazing the trail for the
powder cart to follow.