Rocky Ford enterprise., 1916-09-08

not much to lose. The pinch of
suffering is very real even IT, as in the Balkans,
folk have grown used to it. There two pain
marks by which you may recognize the path of
war in land of farmers. The one is the charred
village, with Its whitewashed stone walls black
ened by fire. The other is the presence here and
there in the plowed fields of three poles fastened
together at the top, and from the crotch baby
suspended just high enough to battle inqusitive
dogs or goats. Somewhere in the field. anywhere
In the Balkan valleys in May, you will see one
woman driving or leading bullock buffalo,
while another behind her holds the pillow. The
men are in the army-or else they were there.
The memory l shall longest hold of Montenegro
Is picture taken by my guide Antonio Relnwein.
of this land of stony of the resolute people
of the limestone crags who have never done hon.
age to the Turks nor to any other outside power
1t will be remembered that all these Balkan folk
were for years under the dominion of the Turk.
and that of them have been free for half n
century. The Turk was most acceptable when he
WIS asleep. When he was awake, he had his own
ideas Of Union and Progress" Union meant uni
formity. nation should have one ruler, flag,
one religion, one language. Progress was his way
of bringing about this condition. This was by
scarce. And as the actual Turks were few In num-
Der, ruling over an empire of Slavs, Greeks, Ital-
lans, Jews Armenians Albanlaas, Kurds, Egyp-
tians Moors and Arabs 1t demanded eternal Wig
lance to keep them all in state of union and
progress
These people have had constantly before them
the choice cf revolt, conversion, assimilation, ban
other, some of each race have chosen each one of
these, often two three of them Mt once. Mean
while, following the wicked lead of Bismarck and
Disraell, Europe has kept the Turk alive, because
from fnanciers In each nation, the Ottoman sultan
has borrowed considerable sums of money
Macedonia lies along the southern slopes of the
Balkan peninsula. 1t is fertile region crossed by
chains of rounded mountains with green valleys
and swift streams, in physical conditions not un-
like the south of France. 1t has $4,000 square
miles of territory is about large the state of
Maine, with population nearly two-thirds that
of the city Of New York, and before the war of
liberation 1t had about 2,250,OOO people. The ma
jority of these Bulgarian in blood and they
allowed to have their own churches and
schools.
As to the campaigns which have desolated
Macedonia in the last few years need say only
II word. The history of the two Balkan wars Is
given with accuracy and justice in the monumental
report of the Balkan commission of the Carnegie
endowment, a document of especial value In any
study of the conditions preceding the third Bal
kan war" which today has set the world In flames.
The first Balkan war was atruistic as far as
any be. Its purpose was the relief of a
distressed people, suffering for centuries from the
laXites of Turkish rule, always incompetent and
everywhere INSCRIPTIONS, and on the other band
continuously overrun by the outlaw patriots which
kept the land In incessant turmoil.
The Balkan alliance Russian inspiration.
1t was planned by Hartwig Russian minister at
Belgrade "the evil genius of the Balkans" II
ended in the treaty of London, where the blind In
termeddng of the powers, bafled by Austrian in
trigue, agreed only the kingdom of Albania,
leaving the states to fight 1t out so far as Mace
donia was concerned This brought on the second
Balkan war. in which Bulgarian diplomacy made
all the mistakes 1t had chance to make
The treaty of Bucharest left Macedonia crossed