Imperial Valley press., 1914-06-15
TURKS ARE HOLDING
ANCIENT POWERS
(BY HENRY WOOD)

Constantinople, Turkey, June 9.-All
but wiped from the face of Europe
by the political calamities that in the
past three years have assaulted it,
Turkey still has within itself the pow
er to rise phoenix-like to one of the
most brilliant futures of modern
civilized nation. And this for the
very simple reason that up to the
present moment, one entire half OF the
Turkish people has conserved within
itself, intact and uncontaminated, all
those primitive virtues and qualities
of the race that once enabled it to
sweep across a goodly portion of Asia,
Africa, and Europe. That half of
the Turkish people is just now coming
into its own, and that half is the
Turkish woman.
So declared Madame Rifaat, wife IF
Rifaat Bey, and leader of the feminist
movement in Turkey to the United
Press correspondent. She declared it,
too, with a zeal, faith, a conviction
shining in her eyes and faith that
could not be greater than her zeal
and her faith and her conviction in
the eternal tenets of the Koran it
self. Madame Rifaat's exposition of
Turkish feminsm-and the consequent
future salvation of the Turkish race
and nation-took place in the salon
of her home surrounded by the other
women of the Turkish household all
of whom sanctioned her declarations.
As she talked Rifaat Bey, husband
and high official of the Turkish caT-
airy, passed the inevitable Turkish
cigarette to all present-women and
men alike-and listened with sympa-
thetic approval to his wife's state
ments. His attitude alone bore Won
derfui evidence of the progress fen.
inism has made in Turkey.
"The highest virtues of the Turk
ish race have been preserved intact
III the Turkish woman" declared Ma
dame Rifaat. an fact it is really re-
markable that centuries of sad almost
cloister-hke seclusion have i'll no way
sterilized the soul of the Turkish Wo-
man or inflicted n.uraEie warpings
on her heart. Coupled with this con-
servation of all the highest qualities
of the Turkish ra;a in general. the
Turkish woman has also retained one
quality particular to her which in it
self is sufficient to restore the great
ness of the Turkish people and that
is her love Of life. By love of life,
| do rot mean mere love of existence
but love of actual active living in the
highest sense of the term. Our faith
and our religion is an active one, and
our life must be the same.
"This inherent quality in the soul
Of the Turkish woman cannot be judg
ed merely by observing us who have
travelled, studied and come in con-
tact with European civilization. 1t can
instead be best judged in the countless
thousands of poor, Turkish women,
who went through that last great
tragedy of our race-the tragedy of a
lost war. When all their men had
been killed, these unheard of, hereto
fore segregated women loaded onto
the OK carts their miserable belong
ings, their babies and their helpless
aged, and following the carts on foot
for hundreds upon hundreds of miles,
founded new nests in which to rees-
tablish their life. This they did not
for religion, not for patriotism but
merely from heroic desire to
live, desire that could not be con-
quercd.
at is these qualities that are count
ing for the rapid strides which fem