Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 158, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1910 — PLIGHT OF ALBANIANS. [ARTICLE]

PLIGHT OF ALBANIANS.

Are Moat Set-loo* Problem es Macedonia. The Albanians are exercised over the alphabet. Ghegs and Toscks, ever grateful for a pretext to be at each other’s throats, have found fresh material in the rival Latin and Arabic alphabets, each of which has claims to be employed in the government schools. No sooner, In fact, has Turkey given way to the question of permitting Instruction in the Albanian language than there is a keen struggle over the written character. The Albanians are, in fact, by far the most serious problem of Macedonia. Race difficulties are no noveßy to the Turkish government. It may not be confronted wth the harmonizing of 50 races, including over 2,000 castes, speaking 150 languages and professing nine rival religions. That task la reserved for ourselves In India. Yet Turkey also has her difficulties, and there are races within races, as is the case with the Albanians, which infinitely complicate the problem of government. These Albanians, possibly the oldest stock in the Balkans, are regarded by ethnologists as descended from the ancient Illyri-

ans. They number In all rather leaaf than 2,000,000, of whom 1/500,000 are; Turkish subjects, the remainder belttflj domiciled In Greece, Sicily and Cal*' bria. Of those who people Albania! itself, a little more than the half are Mohammedans, the rest being either of the Orthodox church or Roman Catholics. The division of this nation is not,* however, wholly one of creed. It M necessary to recognize no fewer than six divisions, of which three Are on a geographical basis; the Ohegs, mainly in .the north, with Austrian sympathies; the Toscks, in the south, who lean toward Italy, and the Albanians, of the center, who alternately favor north or south, according to which is stronger at the moment. Each of these parties, again must be divided into two, the one Mohammedan, and the other Christian, and both eternally embroiled in feuds, in which Abdul Hamid encouraged them, that, divided, he might rule them more easily. It is rare for them to make common cause, though they have more than once united under the banner of Turkey from a stronger hatred of Russia. Yet one-half of them are equally unfriendly to the. Turk, and even of the Mohammedans many embraced Islam only to better their position under a regime that did not favor Christianity. Like most mountaineers they are born fighters, though they excel chiefly in guerilla warfare, and would go down before disciplined troops in the field. They march with a good deal of Self-assurance, and more than one D’Artagnan swaggered with the volunteers who marched on the capital last April. Their bravery In the field-lb not equaled by the cunning In the council chamber, and they have always been the victims of political intrigue. Crispi, the Kiuprllis and All Pasha, were the only statesmen of note that they have given to history, but of they can claim such generals as Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus, Diocletian, Scanderbeg and Mehemet All. Like the Kurds, appreciate a vendetta more than a treaty. Not long ago there were signs of rapprochment between Albanian Christians and Mohammedans under the constitution, but once again they are at. daggeredrawn, this time over an alphabet. The excuse serves as well as any other. —'Pall Mall Gazette.