The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-07-14
MONDAY, JULY II. 1913
Not the Turks, but Christians.

The reason advanced by the Balkan
allies, under the leadership of Bull
garia, for falling upon Turkey un-
awares, when the empire. was weakened
by the war in Tripoli-a highhanded
proceeding on the part of Italy if
ever there was one in history-was
that the Christian world stood aghast
at the terrible atrocities perpetrated by
the Moslems against inoffensive Chris
tians dwelling in the domain of the
Crescent Moon" that the civilized ma
tons should not and would not stand
by and permit Christian blood to be
shed so wantonly. We know that the
powers of Europe let the Balkan
armies tear the Ottoman empire to
pieces; that is, until it appeared that
Ferdinand, the Gar of the Bulgars,
had desires and ambitions of his own
pertaining to the Dardanelles and the
Bosphorous, when the well known
jealousy between the Lion and the
Bear Immediately got the concert of
powers to work for peace and the saw
ing of Constantinople. All this has
been dwelt upon so often that we need
not reiterate why Turkey has been
permitted to retain the key to the
Levant.
But what is the Christian world,
which stood aghast at the atrocities
perpetrated by the Moslem," to think
of the present doings on the Balkan
peninsula, where Christian massacres
Christian, where Christian men violate
Christian women, where Christian rul-
ers have priests and hundreds of men
stood up against a wall and shot dead
like so many mad dogs? 1t is with
a shudder of disgust and horror that
we read the news of what the Bulgars
have been guilty of toward the Greeks
and Serbs, their recent allies during
that holy" war against the enemy of
Christianity, for his outrages toward
Christians.
Things must be in a terrible con-
dition, indeed. when the King of the
Hellens asks the powers to interfere to
stop the massacres, when in public
letter he begs the civilized world to
take notice of what a Christian is
capable toward his Christian brother,
just because in the division of the
spoils of the late war grasping Bull
garia did not get all she asked in the
way of additional territory.
What a spectacle for the non-
Christian nations Is it wonder that
the late Mikado, when looking for a |
national religion for his newly mod
ernized empire. rejected Christianity? |
Is it wonder that the Moslems have |
nothing but contempt for a religion
that cannot keep its own devotees
from cutting each others threats over
the division of spoils taken from the
enemy of Christianity, because he i'll
treated Christian subjects?
We are no apologists Tor the Turk
or his Koran teachings, but what the
Moslems did at least had the excuse
of religious fanaticism. The masses
are told by the Sheik-ul-lslam and the
dreadful dervishes that it is the word
of Allah, as given through Mohammed,
his prophet, that to kill the inhdels will
assure them an especially favored seat
in paradise and its hours. But what
excuse is there for Christians to muir
der Christians in the civilized Europe
of the twentieth century?
None! And the sooner the appeal
of King Constantine is granted, the
sooner such Christians are deprived of
autonomy and independence, the bet
ter for mankind and for the Christian
religion.