The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-04-26
GREAT OF SOUL
Are People of Little Country
of Montenegro.
Why Powers Were Helpless to
Save Scutari.
Vain THREATS OF SIX
MOntenegrins Have No Debt or
War Budget.
Every Native a Soldier Thrice
Armed for Conflict.

St Louis Republic: The greatest
triumph of human courage and reso-
luton within the present age is not
aerial navigation or the Panama
canal. 1t is the taking of Scutari by
Montenegro.
Montenegro has an area equal to
that of a half-dozen average Missouri
counties. Much of this is barren
rock. Its total population is one
third that of the City of ST. Louis. Its
national debt is approximately a
quarter of a million dollars; the COM
bined salaries of all its high officials,
including the prince, mount up to
$4,000 year. st. Louis has a num-
Der of manufacturing concerns whose
yearly output has from two to five
times the value of the total annual
exports of Montenegro.
Yet this lilliputian country, this tiny
patch of steep-sided valleys, sky
scraping crags and bare rock wastes,
Inhabited by peasants and Shepherds
has just taken, by storm, the capital
of the Turkish province of Scutari,
sacrificing 5000 men in the siege,
killing 5000 Turks and taking 10000
prisoners. This Montenegro has done
not only single-handed, without the
aid of men or money from the out
side, but in open and fragrant def
ance of the six great powers. From
London, Paris, Berlin, st. Petersburg,
Vienna and Rome her prince has re-
ceived peremptory orders to depart
from the gates of Scutari and retreat
to his mountain Businesses. A fleet
of warShips, representing the propri-
etors of more than five-sixths of the
entire naval strength of all the seas
of the globe, is standing on and off,
at the base of the seagirt mountain
rampant which the Montenegrin calls
home. But Scutari is twenty-five
mills up the shallow and tumultuous
Drin, and the Montenegrin has gone
on his way, as if Downing street and
the Wilhelmstrasse were not and
there were no warships in the Medi-
terranean. And now that he has TAX
powers. If they want Scutari, let
them come and dispossess him.
Why the Powers Are Helpless.
Why do not the powers coerce the
Montenegrin on the financial side
cut off his supplies of cash, deny him
credit and depress the value of his
securities? Because Montenegro has
no financial side. What could the
money kings do to a nation with a
national debt of s250,0OO, which has
no desire to borrow money?
Army Budget of Only $4,000
But the army? What of that?
Montenegro's entire budget for tho
ministry of war was, in 1909, $685.
900. Each household puts one soldier
into the field and subsists him. This
is done without taxes and without COM
pusion. So tiny Montenegro, without
war budget or war taxes, is able, at any
time, to put into the field 10000 of
the finest troops in the world, and to
retain like number of less effective
ness for home defense. Let it be re-
marked in passing that Montenegro
has no poor relief and no paupers and
that every Montenegro is taught TO
read and write.
Back of this wonderful military pre-
paredness there is a long and marvel
Gus history. The Montenegro boy is
born with a sword in his hand. Ever
since the Turks entered the Balkan
warfare has been waged against Mon
tenegro. Army after army, the flower
of Turkeys strength, REINFORCED by
the mountaineers of Albania, has at
tempted to scale those impregnable
heights; army after army has been
Sometimes the Turks have obtained
entrance to the country and have raw
ished and plundered; but ever they
have been driven out again and Monte
negro has exacted with fearful interest
every drop of blood spilled in the ma
tional defense.
An Old Tradition.
An old tradition declares that there
is a Montenegrin law that any war;
means any Montenegrin-
who turns his back on the Turks shall
be mounted on an ass, with his head
toward the animals tail, and scourged
the streets of the capital q
herald proclaiming his shame to all
within sound of his voice. The tradi-
ton adds that the punishment has
never been executed, for no Montene-
grin has ever turned his back on the
Turks. That capital has fewer people
than the number of votes cast by
single party in a certain st. Louis ward
in 1908, but there is no city in the world
where public opinion works more per-
fectly than in Cettinje, Montenegro,
with it's $500 inhabitants.
What is the power of Montenegro?
The power of the human spirit alone.
by modern social ideas, I'M
reinforced by material wealth from
fertile plains and great Industrial CEN
ters, unsustained by alliance with the
mighty and the strong, with nothing
but his barren mountains. his passion
ate patriotism, his country's glorious
past and his trust in the God of Bat