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Show THE CITIZEN police stations and railroad depots. They stopt trains and robbed the express coaches of funds and they invaded municipal headquarters ' and destroyed records. Every act had a specific purpose. The livuor stores were raided because they were government institutions and as such represented the might of Russia. The trains were robbed of government funds (passengers were never molested), because funds were needed to purchase arms and to prepare for the general revolution to come. The railroad depots were invaded and the safes opened, because in every railroad depot were the secret Russian plans for mobilization, which plans were to be carried out by the depot masters in the event of war. The destruction of these plans alone cost Russia millions in money and years in effort. By 1907 the Russian government had placed 250,000 soldiers in ' Poland on police duty, but the depredations of the rebels continued while the soldiers were content to fraternize with the people and to be . laughed at. Becoming convinced that a revolt at this time was impossible Pilsudski' withdrew his men gradually and sent some of them to the United States, some to Galicia in Austria, and some to other parts of Europe. He continued to organize his secret military forces and to provide for their training. In 1912, in Galicia alone, there were 300 of his organizations. In 1914 the world war offered him and his patriots their opportunity. At first they fought Russia and were aided by the Germans and Austrians. In 1915 Pilsudski declared that Russia was defeated and he and his adherents began to form a military force to fight Germany. His legionnaires in Warsaw were ordered to take the oath of allegiance to Germany. The offices, as one man, stepped forward at parade, and broke their swords across their knees. Officers and legionnaires on all fronts were ordered under arrest and they remained in prison until released by the Socialists of Germany after the armistice had been signed in 1918. Pilsudski hurried to Warsaw where he found conservatives in charge of the regency government. He accepted the post of minister of war and with the aid of his men disarmed the German soldiers and interned them. Named dictator, he conducted affairs so successfully that he became the republics first president with Ignace Jan Paderewski as his premier. In the present campaign he has been pitted against General Brussiloff, the one Russian general who never was defeated during the course of the struggle of the nations. The French were defeated in several engagements and the Ottomans, being no respecter of persons among infidel dogs, massacred the French soldiery and civilians. Now the French have entered into an armistice arrangement with Mustapha Kemal, leader of one of the Moslem armies. Because they saw that they could not maintain themselves against the Turks the French withdrew from Cilicia and fell back to the Syrian littoral. The government at Paris believed it better to accept defeat than to send an army of 100,000 or more men into Asia Minor and to incur the expense of hostilities amounting almost to a great war. -- FRANCE AND THE TURKS . Without desiring to be too prophetic we venture to predict that every change in the situation in Asia Minor for a long time will confirm the wisdom of congress in refusing to accept the Armenian mandate. One of the ugliest situations of the centuries during which the shadow of the Ottoman Turk has overgloomed the land is developing. The Turkish treaty was the harshest and most humiliating of g. ajl the conventions resulting from the war, but few there are in Christendom who can be found to sympathize with the brutal barbarians who, after centuries of working their slaughterous will with Christians, were finally driven to bay and subjected to chastisement. But in the day of their disaster the Turks are doing their best, for their best has always been fighting. They arc fighting back hard and strong with the skill and intrepidity which have made them the terror of all their foemen since the' day when obscure causes set their horsemen in motion from sterile Tartary and impelled them toward the rich and luxurious south. There has been no unity of action among the allies in Asia Minor except that unity of action which caused them to divide the 9 lands of the Turk. Since then each power has been left to shift for itself. France was first to feel the force of the Turks maddened resentment. By some mysterious means myriads of Turks were able to begin hostilities with most efficient and complete equipment despite the fact that they were ringed about with foes and presumably cut off from sources of armament. 5 We can imagine the chagrin and indignation of the British, who must now assume the burden of holding the Turks in check. The Greeks will have their hands full in Thrace and Smyrna while the British are striving to support themselves in Constantinople, in the Bosphorus, on the Asiatic shores of the straits, in Palestine and in Mesopotamia. To complicate the situation the Bolsheviki have driven back the British outposts in Persia and their partisans in Armenia and Mesopotamia are instigating turmoil. In Palestine the Moslems are killing the Christians whenever opportunity favors and British overlordship in that region is threatened with obliteration by the retreat of the French, for now the road is open for Kemal Pasha to strike toward the Suez canal by way of Palestine. In Egypt the rebels are doing what they can, by means of money and occasional outbreaks, to aid their Islamic brethren of Asia. In India the Moslems are rebellious and are joining with the rebels of other sects to weaken the fabric of British control. Once again the Turks are apt to triumph through feuds among Christians. Once more they are seeking the aid of a Christian race this time the Russians against their white foes. It must be apparent to the allies that they can crush the Turk and maintain control of Asia Minor only by military The alternatives are to abandon the country altogether or to make the most liberal terms of peace. However much we may deplore the greed that has comingled with loftier motives in the breasts of the allies who have divided Asia Minor few of us can contemplate without horro the retirement of the Europeans from the Holy Land and from other-regionwhere Christians and Jews would thereby be utterly abandoned to the pitiless will of the barbarians. If we had accepted the Armenian mandate we would have found ourselves in a situation similar to that from which France is seeking to withdraw temporarily and partially. We would have subjected ourselves to the same obligations and perils. We would have undertaken to preserve Armenia inviolate against Turkish and Bolshevik invasion. And when actual warfare should begin we would find ourselves acting alone by reason of the fact that our friends would feel that their burdens were heavy enough already without their shouldering the burdens of others. If, however, the European nations are to hold Asia Minor, they must agree to make war as allies, for it seems vain to hope that they will ever be able to placate the Turk sufficiently to insure permanent pace. It is barely possible that the coming conference at Spa may be able to offer terms that will tranquillize the Moslems, but the chances are against an understanding. The only argument that ever has convinced the Turk has been the argument of force. It is to be presumed that he will cling to that arbitrament so long as Christians oppose him and he has the arms with which to fight. And llu Moslem world is on his side. . . co-operati- on. s POLLUTING PUBLICITY William J. Bryan cannot get it out of his head but that a government bulletin, taking the form of a newspaper, will cure some oL the political ills that pester us. At first Mr. Bryan called it newspaper, but when it was pointed out that the government would thus establish an organ which would publish the news so colored as to serve only the administration in power, he said that he did not mean the ordinary newspaper, but rather a bulletin which would present only governmental facts. Mr. Bryan, therefore, is making a suggestion which is atavistic. |