The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1913-05-01
MONTENEGRO
ST I0niS Rnnuhlic.

and resolution within the present age is
not aerial navigation or the Panama Canal.
1t is the taking of Scutari by Montenegro.
Montegro has an area equal to that OF
half-dozen average Missouri counties.
Much of this is barren rock. It's total
population is one-third that of the City of
St. Louis. It's national debt is approx
mately a quarter of million dollars; the
combined salaries of all its high officials,
including the Prince, mount up to S43, 900
year. St. Louis has number of man
ufacturing 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 Scutar, sacrificing 5000 men in the
seige, killing 5000 Turks and taking 20, 900
prisoners. This Montenegro has done not
only single handed, without the aid of men
or money from the outside, but in open and
From London, Paris, Berlin, st. Peters,
burg, Vienna and Rome her Prince has
received peremptory orders to depart from
the gates of Scutari and retreat to his
mountain Businesses. A fleet of warships,
representing the proprietors of more than
five-s ixths of the entire naval strength of
all the seas of the globe, is standing on
and off at the base of the seagirt noun
tain rampant which the Montenegrin calls
home. But Scutar is twenty five miles 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 we're no warships in the
Mediterranean. And now that he has taken
Scutari he hurls defiance at the Powers.
If they want Scutari, let them come and
disposses him!
Why do not the Powers coerce the Mon
tenegrin on the financial side-cut off his
supplies of cash, deny him credit and de-
press the value Of his securities? Because
Because Montenegro has no financial side.
What could the money kings do to nation
with a national debt of $3.50, 900, which has
no desire to borrow money?
But the army? What of that?
Montenegro's entire budget for the Min
istry of War was, in 1909, S35, 900. Each
household puts one soldier in the field and
subssts him. This is done without taxes
and without compulson. So tiny Monte
negro, 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 effectiveness
for home defense. Let it be remarked in
passing that Montenegro has no poor relief
and no paupers and that every Montenegrin
is taught to read and write.
Back of this wonderful military prepar-
edness there is long and marvellous his
tory. The Montenegrin boy is born with
a sword in his hand. Ever since the Turks
entered the Balkan Peninsular bloody
and continuous warfare has been waged
against Montenegro. Army after army,
the flower of Turkey strength, re- reinforced
by the mountaineers of Albania, has at
tempted to scalethose impregnableheigh
army after army has been beaten back by
Montenegrin valor. Sometimes the Turks
have obtained entrance to the country and
have ravished and plundered; but ever
they have been driven out again and Mon
tenegro has exacted with fearful interest
every drop Of blood spilled in the national
defense.
An old tradition declares that there is a
Montenegro law that any warrior-which
means any Montenegrin-who turns his
back on the Turks shall be mounted on an
ass, with his head toward the animal tail,
and scourged through the streets of the
capital, a herald proclaiming his shame to
all within sound of his voice. The tradi-
ton adds that the punishment has never
been executed, for no Montenegrin has ever
turned his back on the Turks. That CAPT.
tai has fewer people than the number OF
votes cast by a single party in certain
st. Louis ward in 1908, but there is no city
in the world where public opinion works
more perfectly than in Cettinje, Montene-
gro, with its 1850 inhabitants
What is the power of Montenegro? The
power of the human spirit alone. IN
touched by modern social ideas, unre-
enforced by material wealth from fertile
plains and great industrial centers, unsus-
tanned by alliance with the mighty and the
strong, with nothing but his barren noun
tains, his passionate patriotism, his coun-
try's glorious past and his trust in the God
of Battles to help him against the Turk,
his back, defies principalities and Powers
and hurls defiance in the teeth of the navies
and the legions of the world!
What need have we of the Homeric
legend or the tales of Arthur and his
Knights Of the Table Round? Before oul
eyes, on those bleak crags in the most in
hospitable corner of Europe, the Homerie
Age lives again.
For though the giant ages heave the hill
/ And break the shore, and evernore
| Make and break and work their will
! Though world on world in myriad myriads roll
Round US each with different powers,
And other forms of life than ours
| What know me greater than the soul?
| The greatness of the soul is the great.
ness of Mnntenerrn