The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-01-19
sULTAN's GOVERNMENT. 1
swAysd ~ i Religion That = Warp
ing and Forbids Any
Progress. s

At Constantinople we made our first
acquaintance with the Turk. usually
called 'the unspeakable." He Is slow,
procrastinating, and as q government
disinciined to move, and all. this is
perfectly natural. says the Chicago
Advance. His religion forbids prog
ress. It does not recognize the rights
OF man as nan upon which all prog
ress rests Besides, 1t is fatalistic;
and things can happen in Gods way.
regardless Of hurry or railways or
modern facilities. Still more, every
Turkish official is surrounded by spies
eager to earn their nay by reporting
wrongdoing, and any new departure is
easily represented IS criminal.
It took US over an hour to get
through the custom house. This was
partly due to exceptional circum-
stances. A few weeks ago, when
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 q 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
ed over to a special censor to resn.
Even my wife's 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 sense they do the same work.
l was told of one book on mechanics
rejected because 1T spoke Of something
making 80 revolutions in a minute"
and of q chemistry cut-out because H.
o. 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
ROWSk VI IAC CdOAASLs hid AAiA46ICAo
are only his clerks and messengers.
All new laws are his DEGREES, so 1t
is no wonder that it takes two or three
years for business to reach 4 deci-
sion. He lives in a palace surrounded
by walls and guards, with mosque
within the grounds. He refuses to go
into old STEAMBOAT, even once q year
for worship. as his predecessors did.
He has guard about him by night
which is paid $3.50 in gold every norm
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
throwing the sultan is being walled
up more than before. and the public
will gee him no more going to his
mosque on Fridays. How long Tur-
key can stand is question; fall it
must some time, for it lis an impossible
system in the twentieth century.
have been told that Macedonia is ripe
for separation, and that within ten
years it is expected to become part Of
Bulgaria, Austria and Greece, accord
ing to the people in different sections
of it. A ruler that will not allow
telephone in his dominions, nor code
for kilograms; who has in his capital
English, French, German and Aus
trian post Offices. because people do
, not 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 fired an
nouncing fires till telegram b sent
to the police to explain what the shots
signify; who has his brother, heir to
the throne, kept prisoner in pal
ace beside his own, and who lives in
terror and suspicion. opposing, like
a Moslem pope, all new light and life,
and breeding corruption and venality
in all about him-such ruler seems
impossible.