Bisbee daily review., 1912-11-10

Better an end with horrors than
horrors without an end That cpl
gram was the living word on which a
Macedonian schoolmaster. named
Crouch, founded the famous secret so
ciety, known as The Internal Organ
ization," some seventeen years ago.
Crouch died as every Balkan out
law dies at last-in some obscure
skirmish with the Turks upon a noun
tain side. But his epigram lived after
him, and today it is thought of the
hundreds of thousands of patriotic
conscripts who are hurrying in four
countries TO the Turkish frontier
War Will Be Fierce
Ii will be a war, If Europe is too Su-
pine 10 avert it, OF mutual cruelty and
reckless revenge On the flanks OF
the armies which viii fight with some
thing Of modern discipline and science
guerrillas and peasant bands will Skin.
mish and harry with all the custom
airy savagery of the Balkans. Alb2n-
ians will be woOed from their noun
tains on the Slay villages OF the plains
and Bulgarian bands will rival she
exploits of Turkish irregulars.
II we would understand the motive
which has induced civilized men in
Soma, Athens and Belgrade to unlOOse
storm which no law or morals eau
control, We must bear in mind what
the alternative is. II is the horrors
without an end" Of Grouem's epigram.
The worst has never been the Occa-
sional massacre WHICH found its way
into the European press. The eXper-
fence which has made a potential rcb-
ell Of every Christian subject of TuT-
key and a knighterrant in his better
moments OF every free citizen of the
liberated Balkan states is the daily
life OF the Christian village under
Turkish rule.
Brutal Force Adhered
1t was bad where governments inter
yened by yenal justice, or brutal po-
lice. or corrupt and oppressive taxa
ton. IL was intolerate chiefly. in the
continual exploitation by the Turkish
landlord and his retainers of the peas
ant husbandman. Life was a daily
round of small Oppressions-the stolen
sheep, the fruit tree cut down, The
stream turned aside by hostile spades
from its purpose Of irrigation, the
daughter or the wife subjected to the
insults and lusts Of policeman or sol
der, brigand or country magnate.
il seemed for a moment as though
the end had come, and come without
horrors" When the Young Turks
overthrow the despotism OF Abdul
Hamid, the rebel bands dissolved, he
men who had borne a rifle on the
mountains carried their ballot instead
TO the polling booth The rival races
embraced aud danced in the market
place. while Christian priests and
Moslem hOdjas prayed TO the one God
in vast eonyenticles of rejoicing.
Oppression Vice
Experience brought its rapid disil-
lusionment. Oppression in Abdul
Hamid was a vice: in the Young
Turks il was a principle. They had
set TO themselves the ideal of welding
all these subject races into a Turkish
nation. With infinite tolerance aud
tact with slow progress through sew
eral generations, success was Just
thinkable. But these soldier reform
eTs were young men in hurry. They
felt the pressure OF a hostile world
on their frontiers, and they set to
work TO eoerce their subject races in
TO uniformity. as they might have drill
ed their recruits in the barrack yard.
Abdul Hamid oppressed the body:
they attacked the soul.
Turkey Wants Taxes
With all its sloyenliness and bru-
tally. old Turkey had always left to
the Christians their churches. their
schools and their languages. IL want
ed only their taxes and their labor.
Young Turkey, precisely because it
was more idealistic and better educat-
ed, was moved to interfere with all
these things in the interests OF unfit
cation and -Turkeyfication." There
came protests; IL closed the clubs,
suppressed the newspapers and con-
fiseated the presses which had sud
denly appeared in the new era OF free
dom. The subject races claimed their
rights as parties; IL gerrymandered
constituencies and voting lists until
it robbed them OF all real representa-
ton in the Chambers.
Then at length the agitation went
underground along the old channels.
The secret organization or revolt re-
vived. and when that stage was reach