Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-09-06
TURKS TOLERANT PEOPLE
MULTIPLICITY OF RELIGIONS
AND SECTS IN SULTAN'S DOMAIN
Man in the Red Fee a Confirmed
Fatalist-His Resignation Verges
on Apathy.

w. NJ. Sloane, In Political Science Quarterly.
The easternmost Of the three great pen.
insulas which project southwark from
continental Europe into the Mediterranean
Is at the present moment historical Iabo
ratory. Almost every form of politica
and social experiment is there in progress
There are but few conceivable mixtures OF
human elements which have not been flung
into the retort. Races. religions, languages
institutions. traditions, aspirations; gov.
ernments, laws, administrations. tenden.
cies; social forms. usages, occupations and
organizations-everyc conception Of man in
social, political and commercial relations
may be concretely observed somewhere O,
another in that curious portion of the
earth. Our fathers called 1t Turkey in
Europe, and a part of it Is still SO desig.
mated by geosraphers. The schoolboy OF
two generations ago bounded it by Aus
tria, Russia: the Black sea. the Bosphorus
the Sea of Mar1nora, the Dardanelles, the
Aegean, Ionian and Adriatic seas. Unfor.
tunately at that time there was a wide.
spread and firm conviction that portions
of the earth shown on the map by coloreG
border lines were inhabited by peoples cor
responding to the given designations
England by the English, France by the
French, and SO on.
Turkey, OF course, whether in Europe
or in Asia, was to the common mind In
habited by Turks. This conception. being
utterly, radically false even then, has, like
similar receptions, persisted into our own
day and still works immense harm. TIC
those who constitute the overwhelmine
majority Of western nations, Byzantium
and the migrations Of peoples in eastern
Europe are matters either Of the vaguest
knowledge or. more commonly, of total
ignorance. They are not aware that
Turkey in Europe. entire. and Turkey in
Asia, in part. are populated by peoples
who. whatever they may be, are not
with their masters in blood, religion, insti-
tutions or aspirations The human crea.
ture who boasts himself the plain man.
the man on the street. who babbles abou,
anything and everything and forms the
self-styled public opinion with which in
telligence Is In perpetual warfare-this
person of the ma jorfty says: Why, OF
course, the Turks should have Turkey;
certainly; what business Is it of others to
NEEDLE with a man in his own home?
How They Took Byzantium.
Home, indeed! The beneficent occupa-
ton of a land makes it home land The
discovery and settlement of misused ter.
ritory makes 1t a home. We could even
think Of home which had neither been
conquered nor discovered, nor within his
toric times settled and occupied beneficent.
ly or otherwise. but which was merely a
handful of people who had always been
there. On the other hand. the commercial
and political adventurer has no home
where he dwells: the administrator Of q
trading factory has no home therein: the
herdsman and nomad has no home in the
wilds over which he roams. Even the
great colonizers Of the present world speak
lovingly Of England as home. though often
they have made a wilderness to blossom,
land to yield up its wealth. have founded
nation and established permanent.
beneacent settlements. The idea Of home
Is most complex, and in none of Its many
ingredients could it be tangentiai to the
relation in which the Turks have stood to
Turkey.
They were not even conquerors, for the
edihce they overthrow was already crum-
bling. When they occupied the Byzan-
tine empire they merely pitched their
tents in successive camping places, wan
dering westward until. little more than
two centuries ago, they reached the walls
Of Vienna, where they met the first virile
foe they had seen and were turned back.
With certain oscillations they have been
wandering backward ever since, slowly
and steadily withdrawing under a rather