The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-10-04
THE TERROR IF
 A TURKISH SPY SGltan'S Chief of Police Invests
 In Rife UNSAFE EVEN IN NEW YORK His Idea of Democracy and Reaction. The Turkish Spy Organization. Crimes Are Plotted at
 the Palace.
UNSAFE EVEN IN NEW YORK

he was in this city. Every time looked
 at his expressive nervous and decidedly
 lined face and sharp little cruel gray
 eyes. l saw living picture of the Yildiz
 habitant who made Turkey the most un-
 happy spot on earth.
 As a former resident of Turkey, the
 pictures of past bloodshed, misery and
 suffering of thousands of my compatriots
 and friends forcible stood in my imag-
 nation And there was Zla the spy the i man whose hands were soiled with the ] blood the man who had caused the mis- cry of many human beings. But how I l pitied him. l could not hate him. On the verge of a nervous collapse. Trem-
 bling. with rife in his hand, which in
 q moment of panic he had bought here
 he was almost ready to shoot himself
 when he disclosed to me his identity.
 still living in the mental environment
 of a spy, mortified by loss of power in-
 tellgent enough to be well aware of his
 position and wrongs done to others, I found that it was impossible for him to
 forget the past and start life anew.
 Whatever he has experienced as Abdul
 Hamid's chief assassin has become part { ] try he believes that distinct principles l must be laid down for the rulers. For i Turkey, he said. considering her hetero- l geneous races religious fanatcsm and ignorance of the people, strict suppression l is essential. The ruler must rule, and 1 rule with iron hand In America, &C.,
 cordng to Zia Bey, a certain class is ] vampire on the people. as he and his were in Turkey only different methods are ] used here, because the people here are l different.
 Would Shoot His Friend. My efforts to convince him of the eff l ciency of democratic and liberal ideas 1 caused only a grim smile.
 l T have read all you say" he said, lin l the books. I have been reactlonary and will remain one. I have my own 1 principles; no matter how detestable they
 may be, they are mine; I cannot change them.''
 l '.Zia.' I asked him, suppose the old regime were re-estabshed in Turkey,
 and you were back at Yildiz and I was
 in Constantinope that would do with me
 after this acquaintance and the kindness
 which I have shown to you?' | Without hesitation, and with a serious 1 jest, he said:
 'I would be as cruel with you I l could be. I would shoot you, If that were
 the order of my master. For spy there l is no boundary of friendship. Father, 1 brother and sister must not be spared | if a spy is to be honest to his calling l The Turkish spy. organization, accord
 ing to Zia Bey, under the old regime,
 was most important institution for the country was governed by the spies, of l whom Abdul Hamid was the direct chief. l The Sublime porte,' which is supposed l! to be the highest governing institution,
 was degraded to be merely an office of { N..fa l how insignificant matter might have
 been, 1t went directly to the Yildiz Kiosk
 to the hand of spies. Thence orders were forwarded to the spy headquarters in l other parts of the empire. So important | was this institution to the Sultan that l even the army was neglected, for months 1 their salaries remaining unpaid, and the
 soldiers were kept hungry and ill clothed 1 while the spies were always supplied with plenty of money. Six Thousand Regular Spies. I In Constantinople alone there were 5000 regular spies. and everybody was encour- aged to spy upon his neighbor. The l scheme worked so well that 80 per cent 1 of the population got in the habit of giv- ling information. Part of the duty of ev- | cry paid officer in Turkey to act as i & spy. In foreign lands, every embassy, l every consulate, was a spy headquarters,
 
 diz not to the foreign office were noth- l, ing more than information about revo- 1 lutionary conspiracies and plots, most of 1 them imaginary. But they had to report, l and the more thrilling these fake re-
 uorts were, the better they suited the re- l quirements of the Yildiz clique. 1 Zia Bey divided the Turkish spies into 1 two classes, the bureau of accusers and | the bureau of administrators. The ac- 1 cusers were the spies-in regular pay or paid according to the importance of their reports-who informed the spy headquar- l ters of the everyday doings of the people. l If some one had i'll feeling against l another, it was an easy matter to see l spy lieutenant and accuse the man as a l member of the revolutionary committee. Such 9 report was welcomed because 1t was an excellent means in the hands of | the officers to extort money from he un- | fortunate victim. The other class. the ad- ministrators, were those who executed l the orders from the Yildiz. They would arrest an accused individual, put him in prison, beat him, torture him with most cruel instruments to compel him to con l fess crme which he had never commit 1 ted. Many have signed confessions, of l course imaginary written by spies. An Armenian young man, Armenag Kara | geozian, five months ago poured oil on l his body and burned himself to put an 1 end to the cruel treatment to which he was subjected. Such heartless treatment was not reserved only for Christians, for Young Turks have suffered similarly False News Spread. Stories of tortures and misery often l were recorded in the press abroad, but l spies in Europe and America acting un- 1 der direct instructions from Yidz palace, | approached influential newspapers and. l in direct or indirect ways bought denials of the truth and publication of these false
 stories to discredit the Ottoman liberals and workers for liberty, Zia Bey states that during the Armenian iinassacres great sums were spent to inform the world falsely that the Armenians in cited the Moslem fanaticism, and that the bloodshed and atrocitiesk were the work only of the Mohammedan popu- lace, and that the Sultan's government was endeavoring to establish peace. Now the truth is before the civilized world, and one who was in the Yidiz frankly admits today that the plots were made at the palace, and that the massacres were ordered by Sultan Abdul Hamid zia Bey's account of the corruption of news papers is more than interesting. He mentioned New York daily paper which he said received $50000 from the Sultan, explaining that articles composed and ed ited at Yildiz were sent to it for publica- tion.
 Extortion and Murder.