Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1924-01-17
Tho Same Turk
Soldier, RObber, Murderer

To the Editor of the Daily Kennebec
Journal:
l have just read in your Tuesday
morning issue, the speech given by
Mr.. Elwood Wilbur a Civil Engineer
in Turkey"-to the Kiwanis club
This respected Fresh from Turkey"
Mr.. Wilbur. from what he has to say
in regard to conditions in Turkey,
would like to quote.
OF the life and the habits of the
Turks, relating how one man whom
they had as Il foreman on q con-
struction job, was also the head man
of the town (Mayor?) and how no
would cause the town officials to
make rulings that would make the
job much larger and then he would
collect the difference after this had
been found out and the man fired. He
made all kinds of trouble for the
company and almost everyday for a
long time they were faced by the po
lice and compelled to do various
things for penalty of having the
whole crew locked up.
This is from one page from the
speech of Mr.. Wilbur. fresh from
Turkey to Kiwanis club"-now let's
see the other page and prepare to lis
ten,
However, the average Turk was
quiet, honest and a hard working
man. And that in his experience in
the Orient he had found perhaps
when the whole of his crew were
locked up the Turks, by far the best
people, there, and that it was his be-
lief that If any one people were to
rule, it should be the Turks. etc.
They have so ruled on him and
taught him a lesson, making good
friend out of him. But what is a
Turkish rule? Let me say that Turk
ish rule was, is, and always will be.
blight on all and everything that
comes beneath its sway. Yet Turkey
has never been without it's friends
and apologists. Travellers return with
the tales of the charm and hospi-
tality of the Turk. Everyone who
has met him as has Mr.. Wilbur, or
as an individual. will agree with
this. but as an administrator Of his
own or subject people, II is another
page of the story. Then we have been
told that he has promised to reform.
He is still promising and his earliest
promises are still unfulfilled.
The long and bloody record of Tur-
key proves that too well. that the
Turk is helplessly incompetent to
rule. even himself. and is a positive
menace to others Were the only re-
suits his rule inefficiency. waste and
corruption. he might claim considera-
ton on the ground that these faults
exist in other parts of the world.
Alas, The record shows that these
same venial faults combined with pc
cuIiar chronological conditions. rather
than inherent cruelty. cause the
pages to be stained with tales of
murder. rape and bloodshed-tales
that disgrace humanity.
One of the most extraordinary
movements in process of development
in the United States and other coun-
tries today. is the effort to rehahili-
tate the Turk in the good opinion of
the world In a thousand different
ways most of them entirely indirect.
the Turk is being presented to public
thought as something quite other
than what he really II. Taking ad-
vantage of the past decade, those
furthering the great Turkish propa-
ganda. present the Turk not only as
reformed character, but as a gen.
tleman. A private method is to in
sist that the Turkish question of TO-
day has little or no relation with the
Turkish question of the past, that
with the advent of the present Ma
tionalist and the shifting of the capt.
tai from the shores o. the Bosphorus
to Angora, the whole character of the
Turk has been changed.
Such a movement has had more