The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1911-09-29

dent. 1t has completely swamped the
railways facilities. Pilgrims from the
remote interior of Asia, after travel
ing months, have been obliged to wait
days and weeks at Damascus, at the
imminent risk of missing the cere-
monies at Mecca, which, occurring but
once a year, give the participant the
right to the coveted title Of ''haji."
The best estimates obtainable, place
the number of pilgrims who kept Bal
ram this December at Mecca at more
than quarter Of million.
These pilgrims, who have always
been regarded as potent unifying
factor in the Turkish empire, are also
a means of spreading the worlds un-
rest, even as they are the greatest
single factor in the spread of cholera.
They carry to the remotest bounds of
Turkeys territory the disintegrating
news of the changes that have come
to pass, SO that an infidel Christian Is
proclaimed as the equal Of a faithful
follower of the prophet. They repeat
the stories Of the Young Turks re-
ligious laxity, and of the serious con-
sequences involved in the enrolment
of Christians in that army which be-
levers have regarded as the modern
sword of the prophet.
The Most Cosmopolitan City on Earth.
There are other grave consequences
involved in this wonderful coming to-
~o4,,o- ~ x,,,,l+;t,,doc from, m opv lor6c.
for be 1t remembered that the most
cosmopolitan city on earth is not New
York or London or Paris, but this
productless city of Mecca, in the ster-
lie desert of Arabia. However neg
ligible the pilgrims may be individual
ly, and the trainmen treat them with
utmost contempt, they are scattering
seeds of national unrest. Ottoman
Moslems hear how justice cannot be
bought, but is freely given to high and
low, in the Moslem ruled by Great
Britain and the United States.
They exchange news of the worlds
progress and politics; and who can
wonder if some well-informed pilgrim
from India or Egypt puts forth the
prophecy that soon airships will be
flying over the desert, setting at
naught the remoteness which has
been the Arabs immemorial defense
The average Moslem is appallingly ig-
norant, generally unable to read or
write, and sure, as they have told me,
that the greatest city In the world is
that wherein the Caliph has his
throne, Constantinople. They verify
believe-.that is, those in interior Tur'
key-that the other nations are incon'
siderable. At Mecca they are learn
ing otherwise, to the real peril OF
Turkeys power.
A Menace to Turkeys Power.
This is one explanation of the some
what reactionary policy which has
been noted of late on the part of the
Young Turks: They are deliberately
trying to allay the feeling of distrus'
on the part of the more rigid Mos
lens. They see that they must con
serve the one tie that makes them g
nation, the religion of Islam. If the
! Bedouins, who never have thought
much of the Turks religion, follow
| the more orthodox Wahabis, in theil
crusade for an Islam truer to type
then indeed will hard times have
dawned for Constantinople.
! Even the new movement of troops
which sends men from Syria and kuf
distan and Asia Minor into European
Turkey, and mans the Yrmen bar
rackx AID expeditions into Arab,