The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1906-01-19
suLTAN's GOVERNMENT.
swayed by a Religion That Is Warp
ing and Forbids Any
Progress.

AT COnStant1nOple we made our mrs
acquaintance with the Turk, usual.
called 1.-The unspeakaDle. He is slow
procrastinating, and as a government
disinciined to move, and all this II
perfectly natural, says the Chicago
Advance. His religion forbids prog
ress. 1t does not recognize the right!
of man as man upon which all prog
ress rests. Besides, it is fatalistici
and things can happen in Gods way
regardless of hurry or railways OF
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 circum-
stances. A few weeks ago, when a
bomb was thrown at the sultan, one OF
the accused was found TO be an Ar
menian just from America. Soon after
after another American Armenian
stabbed a merchant in the city for
refusing money for a revolutionary
fund. The result was that Americans
were feared as men of dynamite, and
our baggage was searched to the bot
tom. Two or three books were hand
Cd RI al IN
Even my wifeis jorunal was carefully
gone through, and her gummed-in pic
lures of William Tell and Augustus
with Cupids holding him by the legs,
were severely scanned. The Turks are
afraid of books as well 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 $50 revolutions in minute"
and of a chemistry cut-out because H.
9. in it was regarded as Homie II.
is no good
Knowledge and liberty go together,
and the sultan is the deadly foe Of lib
erty. He has absorbed in himself the
power. of the cabinet. His ministers
are only his clerks and messengers.
All new laws are his DEGREES, so it
is no wonder that it takes two or three
years for business to reach a deci-
sion. He lives in palace surrounded
by walls and guards, with a mosque
within the grounds. He refuses to go
into old STEAMBOAT, even once year
for worship, as his predecessors did
He has a guard about him by night
which is paid $3.50 in gold every morn
ing. 1t is said the only men in the
empire who are promptly and fully |
paid are the officials near the throne /
in the capitol. Since the last bomb |
thro wing the sultan is being walled |
up more than before, and the public |
will gee him no more going to his
on Fridays. How long Tur |
key can stand is a question; fall it
must some time, for it is an impossible
~ oCCLl Al IAC LWC1AllOIh NOAbuAg
have been told that Macedonia is ripe
,or separation, and that within ten
Years it is expected to become part OF
Bulgaria, Austria and Greece, accord
ng to the people in different sections
If it. A ruler that will not allow
telephone in his dominions, nor a code
or kilograms; who has in his capita
English, French, German and Aus
rian post offices, because people do
lot trust the government offices; whose
mother was an Armenian, and yet
Who murders Armenians till he has
made all that survive his deadly foes;
Who cannot allow guns to be fred an
fires till telegram is sent |
D the police to explain what the shots
ignlfy; who has his brother, heir to s
be throne, kept prisoner in a pal
ce beside his own, and who lives il Y
error and suspicion, opposing, like
Moslem pope, all new light and life, s
nd breeding corruption and venality '
l all about him-such a ruler seems c
npossibls. I