The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-09-02

not mucn TO lose. Inc plnCh or
suffering is very real even if, as in the Balkans,
folk have grown used to 1t. There are two pain
marks by which you may recognize the path of
war in a 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 a baby
suspended just high enough to battle inquisltive
dogs or goats. Somewhere in the field, anywhere
In the Balkan valleys in May, you will see one
woman driving or leading a bullock or a buffalo.
While another behind her holds the pillow. The
men are in the army-or else they were there.
The memory | shall longest hold of Montenegro
is a picture taken by my guide, Antonio Reinwein,
OF this land of stony graves, 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 he that all these Balkan folk
were for years under the dominion of the Turk,
and that none of them have been free for half a
century. The Turk was most accountable when he
was asleep. When he was awake, he had his own
ideas of Union and Progress" Union meant uni
formity. A nation should have. one ruler, one flag
one religion, one language. Progress was his way
of bringing about this condition. This was by mas
scarce. And us the actual Turks were few in num-
Der, ruling over an empire of Slavs, Greeks, ItaI-
ians. Jews, Armenians, Albanians, Kurds, 'Egyp-
tians, Moors and Arabs, it demanded eternal Wig
lance to keep them all in a state of union and
progress.
IheSe people have had constantly before them
the choice Of revolt, conversion. assimilation, BAN
ishment and massacre. And at one time or an
other, some of each race have chosen each one of
these, often two or three of them at once. Mean
while, following the wicked lead of Bismarck and
Disraeli, Europe has kept the Turk alive, because
from hnanciers in each nation, the Ottoman sultan
has borrowed considerable sums of money.
Macedonia lies along the southern slopes of the
Balkan peninsula. 1t is a fertile region crossed by
chains of rounded mountains. with green valleys
and swift streams, in physical conditions not I'M
like the south of France. 1t has 5000 square
miles of territory, is about as large as the state of
Maine, with a population nearly two-thirds that
of the city of New York, and before the war of
liberation 1t had about 2,250,O00 people. The ma
jority of these were Bulgarian In blood and they
were allowed to have their own churches and
schools.
AS to the campaigns which have desolated
Macedonia in the last few years we need say only
a 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
a document of especial value In any
study ofothe conditions preceding the third Bal
kan war" which today has set the world in flames.
The first Balkan war was altrulstic as far as
any war can be. Its purpose was the relief of a
distressed people, suffering for centuries from the
laxties 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 was a Russian inspiration.
1t was planned by Hartwig, Russian minister at
Belgrade, "the evil genius of the Balkans" 1t
ended in the treaty of London, where the blind in
of the powers, bafied by Austrian in
trigue, agreed only on the kingdom of Albania,
leaving the states to fight it out so far as Mace
donia was concerned. This brought on the second
Balkan war, in which Bulgarian diplomacy made
all the mistakes it had a chance to make.
The treaty of Bucharest left Macedonia crossed