The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1914-06-02
IN
THE BALKANS
ARE VERY BAD
Thrace, Macedonia and A.
bania Are Boiling with ReIig-
iOuS and Racial Strife.

LONDON, June 2.-The troubles
OF Mexico and Ulster have wholly
overshadowed public interest in the
Near East during recent months. But
the formal ending of the Balkan war
has brought no rest-to that long suff-
ering region. Thrace. Macedonia and
Albania are boiling with racial and re-
ligious strife. Stories of fighting, OF
persecution and of massacres come TO
the London papers from many CORE
spondents, and are printed in small
type with little comment. Europe
has come to accept these conditions
as matter of course.
FOrcible Conversions"
The changes of boundaries and of
sovereignty which resulted from the
peace treaties, and the launching of
Albania as an autonomous state, are
responsible for the new era of strug-
gle and butchery. Every power CON
cerned in the new allotments is trying
to impress not only its laws but its
own state religion upon those who
have become its subjects, if the cur
rent historians are to be believed,
Forcible conversions" by whole
sale seem the order of the day. Be
tween the Christian and Mussulman
dispensattons, between Greeks, Turks,
Bulgarians. Roumanians, Servians
and Albanians. there is little choice of
standards of civilization. Much of
the information comes from Athens
which presents events only from the
standpoint of Greek interests; much
is disseminated by the newspapers of
Vienna, which is a fountain of can
ards.
The Turkish government is deter
mined to drive the whole Greek pop
ulation from Thrace, according to ac-
counts from Greek sources. 1t has
organized campaign of oppression
which is making life impossible for
people of Greek affiliations in the
country about Kirk Kilisse, Lulu
Burgas and all the land which Bull
garia conquered in the first wax and
lost through the final treaty. By
Greeks is meant the adherents of the
Greek church, since nationality is rec
ognized as following religion rather
than blood in those regions.
The Greeks are pictured as having
as desperate times in Thrace under
the rod of the Young Turk, as the
Bulgarians had in Macedonia under
Abdul Hamid. The methods of ter
rorism are the same.
Bandits Plentiful.
Irregular troops, who get their liv-
ing by loot. and bands of so-called
brigands, all supposed to be acting
under inspirations from Constantine
pie, are over running the country.
Burning villages light the sky, as dur
ing the days of war; cattle and sheep
are driven away; pillage and ravising
go on. Life made so intolerable
that Greek inhabitants are glad to
! escape to the coast with what bundles
they can carry on their backs. Ath-
ems reports that $4,000 refugees
have arrived at Salonika by ships, and
that $4,000 more are waiting on the
coast to get away.
The head of the Greek church at
Constantinople persuaded the British
ambassador TO demonstrate with the
Sublime Porte, and orders were tele-
/ graphed to the local governors to
repatriate all refugees. Truth" says
that these orders were meant only for
the ambassadors benefit, and that
the governors were given the word sa-
cretely to disregard them. That was
familiar strategem of the OLD Turk
ish diplomacy, when pressure from
the powers became too acute to be
ignored.
The Greek government, on its part,
does not lack enterprise at oppression
II witness from non-Greek sources be
credited. Restrictive laws against the
Jews in Salonika have been made so
strong that $4,000 are leaving that
once prosperous part. The battalions