OCR Text |
Show TURKEY. Events are moving rapidly in Turkey, the land of the sultan and revolution. At this writing the sultan is still in control, nominally. His influence has waned to such an extent that he is now no more than the noniijial ruler. The loss of the sultan's power is no voluntary concession to the? demands of the people for greater liberties, new rights or securities. When the sultan restored the suspended constitution of IbTfi on July 24 of last year, it was a result, of alarm felt over the recurring mutinies in the army of Macedonia and the growing strength of the Young Turks. The strength of the Young Turks lay in their liberalism. They believed in building up and not tearing down the empire; they were, in addition, stout defenders of the Mohammedan Mo-hammedan faith, and withal tolerant of the religious relig-ious beliefs of other people living in the empire. Under the constitution the parliament elections were held last November, and parliament assembled and proceeded to organize. The sultan in the meantime was as docile as a child, and the praises of the Young Turk party were sung far and" wide. However, there grew up in the empire a party which the genuine Young Turks called '"bogus liberals," lib-erals," which party was in the power of the sultan, or among whose members the sultan bribed a sufficient suffi-cient number to guarantee the continuance of himself him-self in power. This "bogus" party developed into a party of opposition and obstruction of the wishes of the Young Turks, and of course trouble immediately imme-diately came. The grand vizier, otherwise the prime minister, of the new order, it developed, was a member of the sultan's forces of obstruction, and the parliament and constitutionalism became a mockery. Then followed appeals to the. religious prejudices of the faithful Mohammedans, and this, together with the use of money, no doubt caused the uprising of the soldiers of Constantinople a x-ouple of weeks ago, which is the revolution now j going on in Islam. The anti-Christian outrages and massacres at Adana and elsewhere in the Ottoman Ot-toman empire Avere perpetrated by the sultan's cohorts, co-horts, and were intended to cast discredit on the party of constitutionalism throughout the world. The situation is thoroughly complicated with the jealousies and selfish interests of other nations which have heretofore prevented the settlement of tli difficulties which beset thc'Turkish empire. The seed of individual liberty has been sown in the hearts of the people, and nothing "an prevent that seed from germinating, and no'hing can prevent the ultimate extinction of autocratic power and absolutism ab-solutism and misrule. The utter disregard for the sentiments of enlightened peoples by the sultan and the cruelties and oppressions, the system of espionage espion-age which has baffled progress in enlightenment in the Turkish nation, the medieval devilishncss of the sultan all these arc fast disappearing, and an era of progress such as overtook the Japanese a few years ago is about to set in. In the readjustment readjust-ment there may be n rearrangement of the political map of Europe, but it is altogether unlikely tint the I nitcd States will become involved in the trouble. Abdul Ifamid, the sultan, recognized as one of the shrewdest political rulers of ihe world, as well as the most unscrupulous, may for a tim? repress the aspirations of his people, but" that repression re-pression can only be temporary, for the downfall of the old Turkey is already an accomplished fact, and it only remains to organize and build up the new Turkey, with individual freedom and enlightenment enlight-enment the basis for future progress and greatness. |