The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-02-24

vi assuming liiuJ lnelT man NcHlLeiO
could deliver the Greek army and tn,
Greek people to the entente powers
whenever they wanted TO use Greece fol
their advantage, regardless of the inter
ests of Greece as an independent ma
ton.
There are just two things about oui
desperate struggle to save ourselves from
destruction that | am going to ask The
Associated Press to try to make clear tC
the people of America. The rest will
have to come out some day-all the
blockades and censorships in the world
cannot keep the truth down forever I'm
derstand, ! am not presuming to sit in
/ Judgment on the entente powers. | APP
preciate that they have got other things
TO think about besides Greece. What
say is meant to help them do justice to
themselves and to us, a small nation.
"The first point is this; We have two
problems on our hands here in Greece
an internal one and an external one. The
entente powers have made the funda-
mental mistake of considering them both
as one. They said to themselves: 'Veni-
! zelos is the strongest man in Greece and
he is heart and soul with us. He can
deliver the Greeks whenever he wants to.
| Let us back Venizelos therefore and when
we need the Greek army he will turn it
over to us
We'll, they were wrong, as think you
have seen for yourself since you have
been here. Nenizelos was perhaps the
, strongest man in Greece, as they thought
But the moment he tried to turn over
| tba EranE IN ba ant ont IL w
were lot of mercenaries, he became the
weakest man in Greece and the most de-
spised. For in Greece no man delivers
the Greeks. They decide their own des
TIMES as free people, and not England,
France and Russia put together can
change them, neither by force of arms
nor by starvation. And they have tried
both. As for Nenizelos himself--you had
a man once in your country, a very great
man who had even been vice president of
the United States, who planned to split
the country in two and set himself up
as a ruler in the part he separated from
the rest"
s'Your majesty means Aaron BURR"
Precisely. But he only plotted to do
a thing which he never accomplished.
Venizelos, with the assistance of the al
lied powers-and he never could have
done it without them--has succeeded for
the time being in the same kind of
Burr traitor. Well. that's what the
Greek people call Venizelos.
The impression has been spread broad
cast that Venizelos stands in Greece for
liberalism and his opponents for absolut
ism and militarism. 1t is just the other
way around. Venizelos stands for what |
ever suits his own personal book. His |
idea of government is an absolute dieta- |
torship--a sort of Mexican government, |
| take it. When he was premier, he |
broke every man who dared to disagree |
with him in his own party. He never |
sought to express the will of the people; |
he imposed his will on the peo-
Pile. The Greek people will not stand
that. They demand a constitutional gov
eminent in which there is room for two
parties, liberals and conservatives, each
with definite program, as in the United
States or England, or any other civilized
not a personal government
where the only party division is into
Venizelists and Nenizelists.
THAT is one thing | wanted to say.
The other is about the effect of the So
allied German propaganda in Greece. The
,ntente powers seem to have adopted the
attitude that everybody who is not will
ng to fight on their side must be a pro-
Ierman. Nothing could be falser in re-
ipect of Greece. The present resentment
Igainst the allies in Greece--and there is
good deal of it, especially since the
blockade is due to the allies themselves
nd not to any German propaganda. The
roof of il is that when the so-called
ierman propaganda was at its height
here was little or no hostility in Greece
owards the allies. 1t has only been !
ince the diplomatic representatives OF
ii the central empires and everybody :
lse whom the Anglo French secret po- ..
ice indicated as inimical to the entente, !,
ave been expelled from Greece and any +
'erman propaganda rendered virtually !
that there has grown up any !,
opular feeling against the entente.
Part of this is due to the ententes
lentifcation of their greater cause with
he personal ambitions of Venizelos; but !,
great deal has also been due to the :
cry unfortunate handling of the allied u
ontrol in Greece. When you write a
ersonal letter of no possible interna- 7
onal significance to friend or relative !,
ere in Athens and post it in Athens and :.
Is held a week, opened and half its =
,ntents BACKED out it makes you pref =
: eross-not because it is unspeakable
'ranny in q free country at peace with !. !.
] the world, but because it is so silly. u
or after all, if you want to plot with a
an living in the same town you don't -"
rite him a letter. You put on your
It and 90 and see him. Half the people =. -
Greece have been continually exasper- y
ed by just this sort OF unintelligent "
ntrol which has irritated the Greek y
ople beyond any telling. But to say =
at they are proGerman because they
slike having their private letters opened
their homes entered without any legal
thority whatsoever is childish. It's
cious circle. The entente take excep-
,nallv severe measures because they al
ye the Greeks are pro-German. The
eeks very naturally resent the meas
es thus taken, as would the Americans
anybody else. The entente then turns
ound and says: You see that proves
at the Greeks are pro-Germsn, as we
spected.'
The fact of the matter is that there
even now less pro-German feeling in
eece than in the United States, Hol-
I'd or any of the Scandinavian coun