Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1934-10-24

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Washington. D. C.-WNU Service.
DROBABLY no people of Asia
Thought harder against the in
l. vasion of western customs
than the Afghans. Not many years
ago few were the foreigners who
crossed their borders and lived to
tell the tale. In recent years, how
ever, many visitors have given in
print frst-hand descriptions Of the
kingdom that reposes among the
mountains northwest of India.
In Asia, where headgear is a sign
of rank or race, the Afghan has re-
fused to "go high hat"
To the Durani leaders and Shin
wari tribesmen. the threat of
parliamentary procedure was bad
enough, for Afghanistan was more
a mountain-sandwiched mas of ag-
gressiyely independent tribes than
a united kingdom. But edicts pre-
scribing shorn boards, frock coats,
and top hats were last straws on
their tolerance of hasty centraliza-
ton. They felt that q h~igh-speed
dawn from the west was a false
dawn. And so they proved 1t.
Amanullah-the Peace Of God-fed.
After six years the turban re-
mains, a sign that, even In Asia,
haste makes waste.
To induce European thoughts in
Turkish heads, Mustapha Renal
Pasha tucked the Latin alphabet in
below European hats. Amanullah
hoped to accomplish even more rad
ical changes. But the patient At
CHAN m%ountaineer, q staggering
"he-man," II there ever was one,
persisted In sticking to his broad
turban or dressy astrakhan cap.
And thereby hangs q tale.
Afghanistan vas long isolated by
political jealousy as Mecca and
Lhasa are by prayer niche and pray
err wheel. The Afghans cherished
isolation as had their predecessors,
the Parthlans, who "held 1t as a
maxim to accord no passage over
their country to any stranger"
In 1917, when a traveller rode
southwark from Merv, Kushka was
the end of a blind alley. In 1921
when he went northwest through
the Khyber pass and faced that ia
nous sign reading: ut Is Absolute
ly Forbidden to Cross This Border
Into Afghanistan Territory" there
was a Gurkha guard to emphasize
the absolutely"
Couldn't Hustle the East.
BY 1917 not only was Afghani-
stan open to visitors but current
events speeded up. Before the end
of that medieval year King Aman-
ullah and Queen Souriya, monoga-
mist rulers Of q polygamous land,
had boarded their first steamship
and were at the threshold of west
ern culture, its permanent values
then reinforced by industrial ac-
tivity and bull markets.
The next six months were amaz-
ing. The vacatloning rulers rode
from triumph to triumph. enjoying
such European thrills as few Eu-
propeans know because westerners
have had decades to become accus-
toned to what the Afghan rulers
personally encountered during a
few weeks Of western hospitality.
Rome. Monte Carlo, Paris, Bel
GUM, Switzerland, Berlin, Leipzig,
London, Warsaw. Moscow, Ankara,
Istanbul, Teheran-thelrs vas no
commonplace trip. Nations. hoping
for commercial or political advan-
tage. outdld one another in honor
ing these rulers of a newly opened
buffer state between the native re-
publics of Soviet Turkestan and
that "No-man's Land" bristllng
with manhood.
Across the northwest frontier.
midas Chinese wall, many a con
oueror entered Hindustan. treas
ure house of gold and jewels. The
presence of poverty-stlcken and
nomadlc trlbesmen so close to III
guarded riches often proved disas-
trous TO India. IL is no wonder that
the British rulers invited the AT
CHAN king to be the first royal Wis
ltor ever to fly over London. and
staged a mock battle for his ben
eft