The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1918-12-23
Continued from Previous Issue.l

Constantinople; all street signs were
printed in both French and Turkish.
one morning the astonished foreign
residents discovered that all these
French signs had been removed and
that the names Of streets, the direo-
lions on street cars, and other public
notices, appeared only in those strange
Turkish characters, which very few Of
them understood. Great confusion re-
suited from this change, but the ruling
powers refused to restore the detested
foreign language.
These leaders not only reverted to
the barbaric conceptions Of their an
c%estoTs, but they went to extremes
that had never entered the minds of
the wary sultans. Their fifteenth and
sixteenth century predecessors treated
the subject peoples as dirt under their
feet. yet they believed that they had
a certain usefulness and did not dis
dain to make them their serfs. But
this committee of union and progress.
led by Talaat and Enver, now decided
to do away with them altogether. The
old conquering Turks had made the
Christians their servants, but their par
venu descendants b~ettered their in
struction, for they determined to ex-
terminate them wholesale and Turkify
the empire by massacreing the nom
Moslem clements. Originally this was
not the statesman-lik conception of
Talaat and Enver: the man who first
devised it was one Of the greatest
monsters known to history, the red
sultan" Abdul Hamid. This man came
to the throne in 1876, at a critical pc
riod in Turkish history. In the first
two years Of his reign he lost Bulgaria,
as well as important provinces in the
Caucasus. his last remaining vestiges
Of sovereignty In Montenegro, Serbia
and Rumania and all his real powers
In Bosnia and Herzegovina. Greece had
long since become an independent ma
ton, and the processes that were to
wrench Egypt from the Ottoman en-
pire, had already begun. As the sultan
took stock Of his inheritance he could
easily foresee the day when all the rest
Of his domain would pass into the
hand of the infidel. What had caused
this disintegration Of this extensive
Turkish empire? The real cause, of
course, lay deep in the character of
the Turk, but Abdul Hamid saw only
the more obvious fact hat the inter
v@ention of the great European powers
had brought relief to these imprisoned
nations. or all the new kingdoms
which had been carved out OF the sui
tan's dominions, Serbia--let us remem-
Der this fact to her everlasting honor
is the only one that has won her
own independence. Russia, France and
Great Britain have set free all the
rest. And what had happened several
times before might happen again. There
still remained one compact race in the
Ottoman empire that had national as
pirations and national potentialities. In
the northeastern part Of Asia Minor,
bordering on Russia. there were six
provinces In which the Armenians
formed the largest element in the pop
u%lation. From tile times OF Herodotus
this portion of Asia has borne the
name of Armenia, The Armenians OF
the present day are the direct descend
ants of the people who inhabited the
country 5000 years ago, Their origin
Is so ancient hat 1t is lost in fable
and mystery. There are still undeci-
phered cuneiform inscriptions on the
rocky hills of Van. the largest Ar
menlan city; that have led certain
scholars-though not many, ! must ad-
] mit-to Identify the Armenian race witt
the Hittites Of the Bible. What IL
definitely known about the Armenians
however, is that for ages they have