Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1912 — TURK IS LIKABLE YET FIENDISHLY CRUEL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TURK IS LIKABLE YET FIENDISHLY CRUEL

NO people in the world are more likeable than the Turks. They are kindly, honest and gener-ous-hearted. They are gentle in their ordinary life. Many Americans hearing these facts for the first time find It hard to reconcilethis View of the Turk with the sto- . ries they have -heard of his cruel and bloodthirsty nature. “How can the Turks be kind and gentle,” they ask, “when they comit such barbaric deeds.” It is just at this point that the Turk is so hard to understand. He Is kind and gentle and of winning personality —yet he Is capable of the utmost cruelty. When his religious fanaticism Is aroused, or when he Is putting down a rebellion he slays in cold* blood women, and children at the breast; bums down homes and shoots the inhabitants as they come forth; violates women before their own husbands and carries the best into Captivity. A town thus ravaged leaves little resemblance to a human dwelling place.There are Bulgarians and Armenians living who have gone through scenes of untoid Naturally they do not love the Turk. Yet the English and Americans who live among the Turks do like them —do come to feel a real affection for them. You may meet a pasha who will captivate you today by his kindness and winnlg personality, and the next day he may have a prisoner tortured to death with perfeet unfeeling. Whence these contradictions in his nature? The assumption that he Is ft hypocrite— that bis kindness is merely put on, is not an explanation, for it is not true. The explanation lies in this, that the Turk Is still in the middle ages. He is only half-way up from savagery. Like all orientals, he holds life and suffering as of little importance. This indifference to physical pain is characteristic of the east. The oriental does not differ In nature from the occidental. We who inherit and receive from our environment an exquisitive sensitiveness to the sufferings of others, leading us to establish hospitals, care for the suffering and do away with all forms of cruelty, must not be harsh in our judgment of our eastern brothers. » It if only a few centuries ago that we, too, held life and suffering hi Jit-' tie value We hnng men for stealing, we quartered them for differing with us in political opinions, we burnt them at the stake in order to save their souls. An offense to a prince meant more than ostracism.from his society —it meant a removal from this world. A grim age—an age of bloodshed and Jiorrors, of cruelty and torture, gone never to return. We have risen above it —from the dark age of Europe to the. enlightenment of the twentieth century. ' When Christianity Was Cruel. Yet.even within two or three centuries we could have found so England the %ototype of the modern Turk—the cultured English gentleman, the kindly, dignified merchant, who could witness with calmness torture, execution, burning at the stake. That it Is .not Christianity algne which has produced this twentieth century gentleness, the religious tortures of the middle ages bear witness. Yet-* this much has been gained—that Ihyslcal gentleness and kindness in the 'twentieth Century, and we do not have to. fear the racks, the sword, or the stake. A difference of opinion does not necessarily mean death, or even. imprisonment. Our fryf-« lords may exact revenue from us in the price of oil, beef, wool and other commodities of life, but they have no direct power over our persons. The highest gentleman in the land may not wilfully strike the meanest servant The orient U still in the dark age.

Human suffering means little to them. They have not yet cultivated a sensitiveness to it. Numerous forms of torture still exist there, delightful in their simplicity. In : Samarkand it lias been, the custom to throw criminals from a high tower in the center of the city. Another form of execution was that of dragging them over roughly paved streets behind - swift horses. Still more interesting a death awaited political offenders. There is a deep pit In the city full of loathsome vermin and a victim thrown to them is gradually eaten up. In Teheran a few.years ago there were some men who succeeded in effecting & corner in wheat—orientals who had admirably caught the flnan- ' cing spirit of the twentieth century. As the price of wheat went up it naturally caused suffering among the poor. Not being able to view the subject in a scientific way, they laid the blame of their sufferihg upon these three financiers, and seizing hold of their persons, craclfied them upside down in the public square. This is said to be a very painful death, as all the blood descends Into the head, bringing enormous pressure upon the brain. Thus do the Persians rebel against the enlightenment of twentieth century financiering. Abdul Hamid’s Atrocities. i The same barbarous treatment was accorded to the Armenians by Abdul Hamid. Whole villages were cut to pieces—men, Lvonden and children. The wounded were piled on brushwood soaked in kerosene and burned alive. Women were cut open before their husbands’ eyes. While the Turks were responsible for these massacres, they did not actively participate in them. The bloody work was done by the Kurds, a tribe much more savage and uncivilized than the Turks. Borne of the Turks even sheltered their Armenian neighbors. The responsibility rests upon the shoulders of Abdul Hamid and his advisers. This cruel tyrant had many ways of torturing young Turks suspected of liberalism. Bolling eggs were placed under their armpits, a torture which soon drives Its victim insane. The skin would be flayed from the back of another, mustard poultices next the raw flesh and the skin sewed up again. Some were burned to death with kerosene. Many a fine young man of progressive Ideas found his bed upon the bottom of the Bosporus. These are only a few of the* deeds of horror that could be told. And in the face of them, how can It be believed that the Turk is kind and gentle? Yet It; is true. The solution of the problem rests—imh the psychologists. As it is said, scratch a Russian and you will find a Tartar, so it is true that beneath the gentle manners and kind heart of every Turk He volcanic possibilities of religious fanaticism and of cold-blooded cruelty. He has not yet got control of the brute in him, though he is progressteg. f. Beneath the culture and civilized exterior of every one of us He submerged depths of ferocity and blood-thirstiness-waiting for outlet The southern gentleman with the most charming manners and the kindest h<--rt—when his daughter Is violated by a negro, may set with his own hands the flames to the pile of wood which is to burn alive the offender. Our passions are like dogs in Ic&sbThoee who come to us by the front gate receive our kind hospitality—those who come by forbidden paths, ft they codie within reach;of bur ferocity, may feel its lilte. So it is with the Turk. In ordinary life be is kind and effable, dignlftedly courteous. He 4a kind to his children, kind to animals, kind to strangers. Be Seldom loses his temper, but when he does lose it, beware. He does not encourage street fighting, but if he bears resentment be may kill.