Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-01-05

| NOOlILLHueQ rTOu1 1Iur0 rage
gueroff was with him, but for some
| mysterious reason remained alive.
The death OF the distinguished leader
was kept q secret for two weeks until
the convention could flnsh its work,
| The outstanding personality at this
conclave in the mountains was Ivan
Michailof, until then chief aid to the
man that lay buried in the nearby wood.
BY unanimous vote young Michailof
| was elected to flll Alexandron's place.
+ Butcher for Vengeance.
Michailoff's immediate Job after his
election waS to uncover the completely
| against Alexandrof and to avenge his
death. There followed the most Venge-
| full butchery in the history Of the or
| ganization. Many who had beenS con-
nected with the infamous plot we're put
to the knife. Still the chief accomplice,
Tchauleff, was safely lodged in Vienna.
| Trailed there by Michailoff's terrorists,
he fed to Italy. The long arm of the
Macedonia organization reached into
| that country He was drinking coffee
in cafe in Milan when bullet pierced
his forehead.
But the Vienna group subsidized by
| Moscow, continued the separatiSt ac-
tivity under the leadership Of Panitza,
the old comitadji chieftain, who IS
J years before had shot Boris Sarafoff,
then leader of the Imro, because he
had been flirting with King Ferdinand
and mixing the Macedonian question
with Bulgarian aspirations.
Panitza was viewing a performance of
Ibsen's Peer Gynt" one evening at the
Burg Theater in Vienna, when during
| one Of the storniest scenes in the play
a dark, fiery-eyed Macedonian girl OF
20 snapped the trigger Of her revolver
and the old renegade slumped breath
less in his chair. This girl, Mentcha
Karnitcheva, acquitted by the Austrian
courts, Is now the wife Of Ivan
Michailoff.
Starts New Campaign.
After Michailoff had cleared out as
many as he could Of the accomplices in
AleXandroff'S assassination, he recouped
his forces and launched his campaign
Of terrorism in Macedonia. In the Fall
of 1927 his men shot the Serbian Gen.
Kovatchevitch. Early in 1923 a young
Macedonia woman, Mara Buneva, met
Velimer Prelitch on the bridge over
the Vardar River in Skoplje, the largest
| city In JugoSlav Macedonia, and, even
as Michailoff's wife had done in Vienna
drew her pistol and shot him. Then
| she turned the revolver on herself and
died with the words: "I love my coun-
| try!" It was later disclosed that Pre-
Itch, right-hand man Of the Governor
of Skoplje, had been sentenced to death
| by the Imro for his brutal persecution
of Macedonians suspected of connection
with the organization.
What measures are the Serbian au-
thoritieS taking to counteract these
comitadji outrages in their territory
! Twenty thousand gendarmeS, in addi-
| ton to large army, are constantly
| kept in that province. To intimidate
the revolutionists ruthless reprisals fol-
! low every outrage. While was talking
with Michailoff in the mountain hut he
did not know that the two men who
had escorted me to his camp had also
come to tell him that two days before
his own father and brother, peaceful
citizens Of the Yugoslav state, had been
| shot.
The comitadji leader did not shed
tear. Not day passes but what he
hears of some one killed in his own
ranks, or in the ranks of the enemy.
And, as the Bulgar proverb has it
again, the bear that goes from door to
door eventually comes to ones own
| door.
ut is not chivalrous," he commented
calmly, when he heard the news, Ito
shoot an innocent old man simply be-
cause he happens to be the father of
an enemy This probably is just trick
to decoy us into foolish reprisalS, but
they are sadly mistaken. We take only
such measures as are deemed advisable
and eXpedient without regard to any
provocations on the part of our enemy"
But what of conditions in the Imro
itself? We have SO far disposed Of only
two of the signers of the Vienna mani
festo. What of Gen. Protogueroff?
Protoguero1f was reelected to the
revolutionary central committee at that
same convention at which Michailoff
showed such energy and sagacity that
almost overnight he emerged as the
moving power Of the Imro and eclipsed
the old general who mad given 30 years
Of his life to the Macedonian cause.
The relations between the two men soon
became very strained. They would not
even meet. It became apparent that at
the next convention the general would
not be reelected to his place in the
committee.
But the astute Michailoff was not 80