Whether the Chinese people—as distinct from a few foreign-educated reformers—do, as a matter of fact, honestly believe that a republican government is adapted to the needs of the country, is a very different question. It certainly has not been proved that "the whole nation is now inclined toward a republic"—in spite of the admission to that effect contained in the imperial Edict of abdication. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that the overwhelming majority of the people of China have not the slightest idea what a republic means, and how their lives and fortunes will be affected by its establishment, and therefore hold no strong opinions concerning the advantages or disadvantages of republican government.
It can not be denied, however, that the social system under which the Chinese people have lived for untold ages has in some ways made them more fit for self-government than any other people in the world. It would be well if Europeans—and especially Englishmen—would try to rid themselves of the obsolete notion that every Oriental race, as such, is only fit for a despotic form of government. Perhaps only those who have lived in the interior of China and know something of the organization of family and village, township and clan, are able to realize to how great an extent the Chinese have already learned the arts of self-government. It was not without reason that a Western authority (writing before the outbreak of the revolution) described China as "the greatest republic the world has ever seen."
The momentous Edict in which the Manchu house signed away its imperial heritage was issued on the twelfth day of February, 1912. It contains many noteworthy features, but the words which are of special interest from the constitutional point of view I translate as follows: "The whole nation is now inclined toward a republican form of government. The southern and central provinces first gave clear evidence of this inclination, and the military leaders of the northern provinces have since promised their support in the same cause. By observing the nature of the people's aspirations we learn the Will of Heaven (T'ien-ming). It is not fitting that We should withstand the desires of the nation merely for the sake of the glorification of Our own House. We recognize the signs of the age, and We have tested the trend of popular opinion; and We now, with the Emperor at Our side, invest the Nation with the Sovereign Power and decree the establishment of a constitutional government on a republican basis. In coming to this decision, We are actuated not only by a hope to bring solace to Our subjects, who long for the cessation of political tumult, but also by a desire to follow the precepts of the Sages of old who taught that political sovereignty rests ultimately with the people."
Such was the dignified and yet pathetic swan-song of the dying Manchu dynasty. Whatever our political sympathies may be, we are not obliged to withhold our tribute of compassion for the sudden and startling collapse of a dynasty that has ruled China—not always inefficiently—for the last two hundred and sixty-seven years.
The Abdication Edict can not fail to be of interest to students of the science of politics. The Throne itself is converted into a bridge to facilitate the transition from the monarchical to the republican form of government. The Emperor remains absolute to the last, and the very Republican Constitution, which involves his own disappearance from political existence, is created by the fiat of the Emperor in his last official utterance. Theoretically, the Republic is established not by a people in arms acting in opposition to the imperial will, but by the Emperor acting with august benevolence for his people's good. The cynic may smile at the transparency of the attempt to represent the abdication as entirely voluntary, but in this procedure we find something more than a mere "face-saving" device intended for the purpose of effecting a dignified retreat in the hour of disaster.
Perhaps the greatest interest of the decree centers in its appeal to the wisdom of the national sages, and its acceptance of their theory as to the ultimate seat of political sovereignty. The heart of the drafter may have quailed when he wrote the words that signified the surrender of the imperial power, but the spirit of Mencius guided his hand. It now remains for us to hope that the teachings of the wise men of old, which have been obeyed to such momentous issues by the last of the Emperors, will not be treated with contempt by his Republican successors.
The entire civilized world, as well as China, is to be heartily congratulated upon the glorious revolution which has been sweeping over that vast ancient empire, and which is now practically assured of success. "Just as conflagrations light up the whole city," says Victor Hugo, "revolutions light up the whole human race." Of no revolution recorded in the world's history can this be said with a greater degree of truth than of the present revolution in China. It spells the overthrow of monarchy, which has existed there for over forty centuries, and the downfall of a dynasty which has been the enemy of human progress for the last two hundred and seventy years. It effects the recognition and establishment of personal liberty, the sovereignty of man over himself, for four hundred and thirty-two million souls, one-third of the world's total population.
The Chinese revolution marks, in short, a great, decisive step in the onward march of human progress. It benefits not only China, but the whole world, for just as a given society should measure its prosperity not by the welfare of a group of individuals, but by the welfare of the entire community, so must humanity estimate its progress according to the well-being of the whole human race. Society can not be considered to be in a far advanced stage of civilization if one-third of the globe's inhabitants are suffering under the oppression and tyranny of a one-man rule. Democracy can not be said to exist if a great portion of the people on the earth have not even political freedom. Real democracy exists only when all men are free and equal. Hence, any movement which brings about the recognition and establishment of personal liberty for one-third of the members of the human family, as the Chinese revolution is doing, may well be pronounced to be beneficial to mankind.
But is it really true and credible that conservative, slumbering, and "mysterious" China is actually having a revolution, that beautiful and terrible thing, that angel in the garb of a monster? If it is, what is the cause of the revolution? What will be its ultimate outcome? What will follow its success? Will a republic be established and will it work successfully? These and many other questions pertaining to the Chinese situation have been asked, not only by skeptics, but also by persons interested in China and human progress.
There can be no doubt that China is in earnest about what she is doing. Even the skeptics who called the revolution a "mob movement," or another "Boxer uprising," at its early stage must now admit the truth of the matter. The admirable order and discipline which have characterized its proceedings conclusively prove that the revolution is a well-organized movement, directed by men of ability, intelligence, and humanitarian principles. Sacredness of life and its rights, for which they are fighting, have generally guided the conduct of the rebels. The mob element has been conspicuous by its absence from their ranks. It is very doubtful whether a revolution involving such an immense territory and so many millions of people as are involved in this one could be effected with less bloodshed than has thus far marked the Chinese revolution. If some allowance be made for exaggeration in the newspaper reports of the loss of lives and of the disorders that have occurred during the struggle, allowance which is always permissible and even wise for one to make, there has been very little unnecessary bloodshed committed by the revolutionists.
Although anti-Manchu spirit was a prominent factor in bringing about the uprising, it has been subordinated by the larger idea of humanity. With the exception of a few instances of unnecessary destruction of Manchu lives at the beginning of the outbreak, members of that tribe have been shown great clemency. The rebel leaders have impressed upon the minds of their followers that their first duty is to respect life and property, and have summarily punished those having any inclination to loot or kill. Despite the numerous outrages and acts of brutality by the Manchus and imperial troops, the revolutionaries have been moderate, lenient, and humane in their treatment of their prisoners and enemies. Unnecessary bloodshed has been avoided by them as much as possible. As Dr. Wu Ting-fang has said: "The most glorious page of China's history is being written with a bloodless pen." Regarding the cause of the revolution, it must be noted that the revolt was not a sudden, sporadic movement, nor the result of any single event. It is the outcome of a long series of events, the culmination of the friction and contact with the Western world in the last half-century, especially the last thirty years, and of the importation of Western ideas and methods into China by her foreign-educated students and other agents.
During the last decade, especially the last five years, there has been a most wonderful awakening among the people in the empire. One could almost see the growth of national consciousness, so rapidly has it developed. When the people fully realized their shortcomings and their country's deplorable weakness as it has been constantly brought out in her dealings with foreign Powers, they fell into a state of dissatisfaction and profound unrest. Filled with the shame of national disgrace and imbued with democratic ideas, they have been crying for a strong and liberal government, but their pleas and protests have been in most cases ignored and in a few cases responded to with half-hearted superficial reforms which are far from satisfactory to the progressives. The Manchu government has followed its traditional laissez faire policy in the face of foreign aggressions and threatening dangers of the empire's partition, with no thought of the morrow. Until now it has been completely blind to the force of the popular will and has deemed it not worth while to bother with the common people.
Long ago patriotic Chinese gave up hope in the Manchu government and realized that China's salvation lay in the taking over of the management of affairs into their own hands. For over a decade Dr. Sun Yat-sen and other Chinese of courage and ability, mostly those with a Western education, have been busily engaged in secretly preaching revolutionary doctrines among their fellow countrymen and preparing for a general outbreak. They collected numerous followers and a large sum of money. The revolutionary propaganda was being spread country-wide, among the gentry and soldiers, and even among enlightened government officials, in spite of governmental persecution and strict vigilance. Revolutionary literature was being widely circulated, notwithstanding the rigid official censorship.
Added to all this are the ever important economic causes. Famines and floods in recent years have greatly intensified the already strong feeling of discontent and unrest, and served to pile up more fuel for the general conflagration.
In short, the whole nation was like a forest of dry leaves which needed but a single fire spark to make it blaze. Hence, when the revolution broke out on the memorable 10th of October, 1911, at Wu-Chang, it spread like a forest fire. Within the short period of two weeks fourteen of the eighteen provinces of China proper joined in the movement one after another with amazing rapidity. Everywhere people welcomed the advent of the revolutionary army as the drought-stricken would rejoice at the coming rain, or the hungry at the sight of food. The great wave of democratic sentiment which had swept over Europe, America, and the islands of Japan at last reached the Chinese shore, and is now rolling along resistlessly over the immense empire toward its final goal—a world-wide democracy.
Later generations will doubtless note, as one of the main manifestations of our present age, its progress in international arbitration, in the substitution of justice for force as the means of deciding disputes between nations. On March 7, 1912, the United States Senate, after months of argument, finally agreed to ratify two arbitration treaties which President Taft had arranged with England and France. True, the Senate, before thus establishing the treaties, struck out their most far-reaching article, an agreement that every disagreement whatsoever should be referred to a Joint High Commission. Without this clause the treaties still leave a bare possibility of warfare over questions of "national honor" or "national policy"; but practically they put an end to war forever as between the United States and its two great historic rivals.
These two treaties were the last and most important of 154 such arbitration treaties arranged since the recent inauguration of the great World Peace movement. They are here described by President Taft himself in an article reprinted with his approval from the Woman's Home Companion. His work as a leader in the cause of peace is likely to be remembered as the most important of his administration. In 1913 his purpose was carried forward by William J. Bryan as the United States Secretary of State. Mr. Bryan evolved a general "Plan of Arbitration," which during the first year of its suggestion was adopted by thirty-one of the smaller nations to govern their dealings with the United States. Thus the strong promises international justice to the weak.
The development of the doctrine of international arbitration, considered from the standpoint of its ultimate benefits to the human race, is the most vital movement of modern times. In its relation to the well-being of the men and women of this and ensuing generations, it exceeds in importance the proper solution of various economic problems which are constant themes of legislative discussion or enactment. It is engaging the attention of many of the most enlightened minds of the civilized world. It derives impetus from the influence of churches, regardless of denominational differences. Societies of noble-minded women, organizations of worthy men, are giving their moral and material support to governmental agencies in their effort to eliminate, as causes of war, disputes which frequently have led to armed conflicts between nations.
The progress already made is a distinct step in the direction of a higher civilization. It gives hope in the distant future of the end of militarism, with its stupendous, crushing burdens upon the working population of the leading countries of the Old World, and foreshadows a decisive check to the tendency toward tremendous expenditures for military purposes in the western hemisphere. It presages at least partial disarmament by governments that have been, and still are, piling up enormous debts for posterity to liquidate, and insures to multitudes of men now involuntarily doing service in armies and navies employment in peaceful, productive pursuits.
Perhaps some wars have contributed to the uplift of organized society; more often the benefits were utterly eclipsed by the ruthless waste and slaughter and suffering that followed. The principle of justice to the weak as well as to the strong is prevailing to an extent heretofore unknown to history. Rules of conduct which govern men in their relations to one another are being applied in an ever-increasing degree to nations. The battle-field as a place of settlement of disputes is gradually yielding to arbitral courts of justice. The interests of the great masses are not being sacrificed, as in former times, to the selfishness, ambitions, and aggrandizement of sovereigns, or to the intrigues of statesmen unwilling to surrender their scepter of power. Religious wars happily are specters of a medieval or ancient past, and the Christian Church is laboring valiantly to fulfil its destiny of "Peace on earth."
If the United States has a mission, besides developing the principles of the brotherhood of man into a living, palpable force, it seems to me that it is to blaze the way to universal arbitration among the nations, and bring them into more complete amity than ever before existed. It is known to the world that we do not covet the territory of our neighbors, or seek the acquisition of lands on other continents. We are free of such foreign entanglements as frequently conduce to embarrassing complications, and the efforts we make in behalf of international peace can not be regarded with a suspicion of ulterior motives. The spirit of justice governs our relations with other countries, and therefore we are specially qualified to set a pace for the rest of the world.
The principle and scope of international arbitration, as exemplified in the treaties recently negotiated by the United States with Great Britain and France, should commend itself to the American people. These treaties go a step beyond any similar instruments which have received the sanction of the United States, or the two foreign Powers specified. They enlarge the field of arbitrable subjects embraced in the treaties ratified by the three governments in 1908. They lift into the realm of discussion and hearing, before some kind of a tribunal, many of the causes of war which have made history such a sickening chronicle of ravage and cruelty, bloodshed and desolation.
After years of patient endeavor by men of various nations, and despite many obstacles and discouragements, there has been established at The Hague a Permanent Court of Arbitration, to which contending governments may submit certain classes of controversies for adjudication. This court has already justified its creation and existence by the settlement of contentions which in other days led to disastrous wars, and even in this enlightened age might have precipitated serious ruptures. The United States Government, as represented by the National Administration, is ready to utilize this method of settling international disputes to a greater extent than ever before. That is, we are willing to refer to this tribunal, or a similar one, questions which heretofore have been left entirely to diplomatic negotiation.
The treaties go further by providing for the creation of a Joint High Commission, to which shall be referred, for impartial and conscientious investigation, any controversy between this Government, on one hand, and Great Britain or France, on the other hand, before such a controversy has been submitted to an arbitral body from which there is no appeal.
And, assuming that governments, like individuals, do not always display, while a dispute is in progress, that calmness of judgment and equipoise which are so consistent with righteous deportment, provision is made for the passion to subside and the blood to cool, by deferring the reference of such controversy to the Joint High Commission for one year. This affords an opportunity for diplomatic adjustment without an appeal to the commission.
The plan of submission to a joint high commission, composed of three citizens or subjects of one party and the same number of another, is a concession to the fear of being too tightly bound to an adverse decision made manifest in the objections of the Senate committee, because it may well be supposed that two out of three citizens or subjects of one party would not decide that an issue was arbitrable under the treaty against the contention of their own country unless it were reasonably clear that the issue was justiciable under the first clause of the treaty.
Ultimately, I hope, we shall come to submit our quarrels to an international arbitral court that will have power finally to decide upon the limits of its own jurisdiction, and in which the form of procedure by the complaining country shall be fixed, and the obligations of the country complained of, to answer in a form prescribed, shall be recognized and definite, and the judgment shall be either acquiesced in, or enforced. These treaties are a substantial step, but a step only, in that direction, and the feature of the binding character of the decision of the Joint High Commission as to the arbitral character of the question is the most distinctive advance in the right direction. Do not let us give up this feature without using every legitimate effort to retain it.
An understanding of the term justiciable may be essential to a full comprehension of the significance and scope of these treaties. Questions involving boundary lines, the rights of fishermen in waters bordering upon countries with contiguous territory, the use of water-power, the erection of structures on frontiers, outrages upon aliens, are examples of justiciable subjects, and these are made susceptible of adjudication and decision under these treaties. It is now proposed to establish a permanent method of disposing of such questions without preliminary quarrels and menaces whose result may never be foreseen.
Certain questions of governmental or traditional policy are by their very nature excluded from the consideration of the Joint High Commission, or even the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. Such specific exemptions it is not necessary to set forth in the treaties. Objection has been made that under the first section of the pending pacts it might be claimed that we would be called upon to submit to arbitration of the Monroe Doctrine, or our right to exclude foreign peoples from our shores, or the question of the validity of southern bonds issued in reconstruction days.
The Monroe Doctrine is not a justiciable question, but one of purely governmental policy which we have followed for nearly a century, and in which the countries of Europe have generally acquiesced. With respect to the exclusion of immigrants, it is a principle of international law that every country may admit only those whom it chooses. This is a subject of domestic policy in which no foreign country can interfere unless it is covered by a treaty, and then it may become properly a matter of treaty construction.
With reference to the right to involve the United States in a controversy over the obligation of certain Southern States to pay bonds issued during reconstruction, which have been repudiated, it is sufficient to say that the pending treaties affect only cases hereafter arising, and the cases of the Southern bonds all arose years ago.
After a time, if our treaties stand the test of experience and prove useful, it is probable that all the greatest Powers on earth will come under obligation to arbitrate their differences with other nations. Naturally, the smaller nations will do likewise, and then universal arbitration will be more of an actuality than an altruistic dream.
The evil of war, and what follows in its train, I need not dwell upon. We could not have a higher object than the adoption of any proper and honorable means which would lessen the chance of armed conflicts. Men endure great physical hardships in camp and on the battle-field. In our Civil War the death-roll in the Union Army alone reached the appalling aggregate of 359,000. But the suffering and perils of the men in the field, distressing as they are to contemplate, are slight in comparison with the woes and anguish of the women who are left behind. The hope that husband, brother, father, son may be spared the tragic end which all soldiers risk, when they respond to their country's call, buoys them up in their privations and heart-breaking loneliness. But theirs is the deepest pain, for the most poignant suffering is mental rather than physical. No pension compensates for the loss of husband, son, or father. The glory of death in battle does not feed the orphaned children, nor does the pomp and circumstance of war clothe them. The voice of the women of America should speak for peace.
No other disaster at sea has ever resulted in such loss of human life as did the sinking of the Titanic on the night of April 15, 1912. Moreover, no other disaster has ever included among its victims so many people of high position and repute and real value to the world. The Titanic was on her first voyage, and this voyage had served to draw together many notables. She was advertised as the largest steamer in the world and as the safest; she was called "unsinkable." The ocean thus struck its blow at no mean victim, but at the ship supposedly the queen of all ships.
Through the might of the great tragedy, man was taught two lessons. One was against boastfulness. He has not yet conquered nature; his "unsinkable" masterpiece was torn apart like cardboard and plunged to the bottom. The other and more solemn teaching was against the speed mania, which seems more and more to have possessed mankind. His autos, his railroads, even his fragile flying-machines, have been keyed up for record speed. The Titanic was racing for a record when she perished.
Her loss has created almost a revolution in ocean traffic. "Let us go more slowly!" was the cry. Safety became the chief advertisement of the big ship lines; and speed, Speed the adored, shriveled into the dishonored god of a moment's madness.
The wreck of the steamship Titanic, of the White Star Line, the newest and biggest and presumably the safest ship in the world, is the greatest marine disaster known in the history of ocean traffic. She ran into an iceberg off the Banks of Newfoundland at 11.40 Sunday night, April 14th, and at twenty minutes past two sank in two miles of ocean depth. More than fifteen hundred lives were lost and a few more than seven hundred saved.
The Titanic was a marvel of size and luxury. Her length was 882-1/2 feet—far exceeding the height of the tallest buildings in the world—her breadth of beam was 92 feet, and her depth from topmost deck to keel was 94 feet. She was of 45,000 tons register and 66,000 tons displacement. Her structure was the last word in size, speed, and luxury at sea. Her interior was like that of some huge hotel, with wide stairways and heavy balustrades, with elevators running up and down the height of nine decks out of her twelve; with swimming-pools, Turkish baths, saloons, and music-rooms, and a little golf-course on the highest deck. Her master was Capt. E. J. Smith, a veteran of more than thirty years' able and faithful service in the company's ships, whose only mishap had occurred when the giant Olympic, under his command, collided with the British cruiser Hawke in the Solent last September. He was exonerated because the great suction exerted by the Olympic in a narrow channel inevitably drew the two vessels together.
There were over 2,200 people aboard the Titanic when she left Southampton on Wednesday for her maiden voyage—325 first-cabin passengers, 285 second-cabin, 710 steerage, and a crew of 899. Among that ship's company were many men and women of prominence in the arts, the professions, and in business. Colonel John Jacob Astor and his bride, who was Miss Madeleine Force, were among them; also Major Archibald Butt, military aide to President Taft; Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad, with his family; William T. Stead, of the London Review of Reviews; Benjamin Guggenheim, of the celebrated mining family; G. D. Widener, of Philadelphia; F. D. Millet, the noted artist; Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus; J. Thayer, vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad; J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line's board of directors; Henry B. Harris, theatrical manager; Colonel Washington Roebling, the engineer; Jacques Futrelle, the novelist; and Henry Sleeper Harper, a grandson of Joseph Wesley Harper, one of the founders of the house of Harper & Brothers.
As the Titanic was leaving her pier at Southampton there came a sound like the booming of artillery. The passengers thronging to the rail saw the steamship New York slowly drawing near. The movement of the Titanic's gigantic body had sucked the water away from the quay so violently that the seven stout hawsers mooring the New York to her pier snapped like rotten twine, and she bore down on the giant ship stern first and helpless. The Titanic reversed her engines, and tugs plucked the New York away barely in time to avoid a bad smash. If any old sailors regarded this accident as an evil omen, there is little reason to think the thing affected the spirits of the passengers on the great floating hotel. As the ship passed the time of day by wireless with her distant neighbors out of sight beyond the horizon of the ocean lanes, she reported good weather, machinery working smoothly, all going well.
For some reason the great fleet of icebergs which drifts south of Cape Race every summer moved down unusually early this year. The Carmania, three days in advance of the Titanic, ran into the ice-field on Thursday. The ship at reduced speed dodged about, avoiding enormous bergs along her course, while far away on every hand glinted the shining high white sides of many more of the menacing ice mountains. Passengers photographed the brilliant monsters. The steamship Niagara, many leagues astern, reported a slight collision, with no great harm done. That was enough. Captain Dow retraced his course to the northeast and, after an hour's steaming, laid a new course for Fire Island buoy. The presence of the great bergs and accompanying masses of field-ice so very early in the season was most unusual.
Into this desolate waste of sea came the Titanic on Sunday evening. She encountered fog, for the region is almost continuously swathed in the mists raised by the contact of the Arctic current with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Scattered far and wide in every direction were many icebergs, shrouded in gray, invisible to the eyes of the sharpest lookouts, lying in wait for their prey.
Not only were the bergs invisible to the keenest eyes, but the sudden drop in the temperature of the ocean which ordinarily is the warning of the nearness of a berg was now of no avail; for there were so many of the bergs and so widely scattered that the temperature of the sea was uniformly cold. Moreover, the submarine bell, which gives warning to navigators of the neighborhood of shoal water, does not signify the approach of icebergs. The newest ocean giant was in deadly peril, though probably few of her passengers guessed it, so reassuring are the huge bulk, the skilful construction, the watertight compartments, the able captain and crew, to the mind of the landsman. Dinner was long past, and many of the passengers doubtless turned to thoughts of supper after hours of talk or music or cards; for there were not many promenading the cold, foggy decks of the onrushing steamship.
The Titanic was about eight hundred miles to the southeastward of Halifax, three hundred and fifty miles southeast of treacherous Cape Race, when her great body dashed, glancing, against an enormous berg. The discipline and good order for which British captains and British sailors have long been noted prevailed in this crisis; for it is proven by the fact that the rescued were nearly all women and children.
From that rich, rushing, gay, floating world, with its saloons and baths and music-rooms and elevators, now suddenly shattered into darkness, only one utterance came. Phillips, the wireless operator, seized his key and telegraphed in every direction the call "S O S!" Gossiping among telegraphers hundreds of miles apart, messages of business import, all the scores of things that fill the ocean air with tremulous whisperings of etheric waves, began to give over their chattering. Again and again Phillips repeated the letters which spell disaster until the air for a thousand miles around was electrically silent. Then he sent his message:
"Have struck an iceberg; badly damaged; rush aid; steamship Titanic; 41.46 N., 50.14 W."
There was no other ship in sight. Far as the eye could reach no spot of light broke the gray darkness; yet other ships could hear and read the cry for help, and, wheeling in their courses, they drove full speed ahead for the wreck. The Baltic, two hundred miles to the eastward, bound for Europe, turned back to the rescue; the Olympic, still farther away, hastened to the aid of her sister ship; the Cincinnati, Prince Adelbert, Amerika, the Prinz Friederich Wilhelm, and many others, abandoned all else to fly to help those in danger. Nearest of all was the Carpathia, bound from New York for Mediterranean ports, only sixty miles away. And as they all, with forced draft and every possible device for adding to speed, dashed through the misty night on their errand of mercy, Phillips, of the Titanic, kept wafting from his key the story of disaster. The thing he repeated oftenest was: "Badly damaged. Rush aid." Now and then he gave the ship's position in latitude and longitude as nearly as it could be estimated by her officers as she was carried southward by the current that runs swiftly in this northern sea, so that the rescuers could keep their prows accurately pointed toward the wreck. Soon he began to announce, "We are down by the head and sinking rapidly." About one o'clock in the morning the last words from Phillips rippled through the heavy air, "We are almost gone."
The crew were summoned to their stations; the lifeboats and liferafts were swiftly provisioned and furnished with water as well as could be done. Yet this provision could hardly have been very extensive, since it has long been an accepted axiom of the sea that the modern giant ships are indestructible, or at least unsinkable.
"Women and children first," the order long enforced among all decent men who use the sea, was the word passed from man to man as the boats were filled, the boatfalls rattled, and the frail little cockleshells were lowered into the calm sea. What farewells there were on those dark and reeking decks between husbands and wives and all other men and women of the same family one can hardly dare think about. Steadily the work of filling the boats and lowering away went on until the last frail craft had been dropped upon the ocean from the sides of the liner and the whole little fleet rose and fell on the sea beside the great black hulk. And when the last crowded boat had come down and there was no possibility of removing one more human being from the wreck, there were still more than fifteen hundred men on her decks. So far had belief in the invulnerability of the modern ship curtailed sane and proper provision for taking care of her people in time of calamity.
One can imagine with what frantic but impotent hope, as the sinking decks and menacing plash of waters within told of the imminent last plunge, those thousands of eyes strained at the misty wall of grayish black that enclosed them on every hand. Not one gleam of light in any quarter. The last horrible gurglings within the waterlogged shell of steel that a little while before had been the proudest ship of all the seas told unmistakably that the end was at hand. Down by the head went the giant Titanic at twenty minutes past two o'clock on Monday morning, April 15th. And she took fifteen hundred people with her.
Four hours passed before the shivering people in the small boats heard the siren whistle that announced the approach of a steamship from the south. There was a heavy fog and they could not see one hundred fathoms off over the clashing and grinding ice that floated in fields on every side. Soon after seven o'clock in the morning the ship came in sight and presently hove to among the fleet of boats and liferafts—the steamship Carpathia, out of New York on April 11th for Mediterranean ports. She began at once to take aboard the survivors, and in a few hours had every boat hoisted aboard. The Olympic and Baltic, learning by wireless that the rescues had all been effected, proceeded on their way.
The Virginian and the Parisian, which arrived at the scene of the disaster a few hours later, could find no sign of any living person afloat, though they cruised for a long time among the wreckage before standing away on their courses. The Carpathia at first was headed for Halifax, but upon learning by wireless that that harbor was ice-bound, Mr. J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the Board of Directors of the White Star Line, suggested that the ship head for New York. This was done. The Carpathia, with nine hundred passengers of her own and the seven hundred survivors, reached New York in safety.
The sad international tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic touched men's souls more deeply than any other disaster in many years. To English-speaking races in particular the horror of the occasion pressed close home; for here was the best of British ships bearing many of the most prominent of America's people. To these seasoned voyagers, crossing the Atlantic had become a mere pleasant trifle, seeming no more dangerous than an afternoon's shopping in town. Then suddenly there was thrust upon all of them that ancient, awful knowledge that "in the midst of life we are in death."
Both American passengers and English crew lived up to the best traditions of their race. There was no panic, no fighting for places in the boats on the doomed ship. On the contrary, people refused to believe in the imminence of danger. The idea that the ship was unsinkable had been so borne in on them that even when summoned upon deck and ordered to put on life-belts, many of them refused. In the first boats gotten away from the ship, there were not many people. Some refused to climb down through the deep blackness into the tiny craft. They thought the tumult all an empty scare that would soon pass.
When the steady, ominous settling of the huge ship's bulk broke through this shallow confidence, there was a solemn change. Grand and tender scenes there were on those sinking decks; of husbands and wives parting with the utterance of a hope, turned suddenly to terror, that they would soon meet again; of other wives who refused to leave their husbands and deliberately stayed to share their fate. Few of the more noted passengers were among those saved. Bruce Ismay, director of the steamship line, was one. The captain went down with his ship, as did most of his officers, though some of the latter saved themselves by clinging to the wreckage which rose after the vessel's plunge. While she was sinking her band still played "Nearer, my God, to thee," and other earnest hymns. Death did not find the old Saxon stock cringing from him with hysteria and frenzy. Sudden as was his coming, wholly unexpected as was his hideous visage, he was met with the calm courage which is the best tradition of the race.
And what have been the consequences of this overwhelming tragedy? An investigation was immediately begun in America by the United States Government. Another, slower, dignified and ponderous, was afterward undertaken by the British Government. Both of them in the end attributed the disaster to practically the same cause, the speed mania which has overtaken the nations, the heedlessness of man's over-confidence which takes risks so many times successfully that it grows to forget that risks exist.
The Titanic's captain wanted to make a record on her maiden voyage. His directors wanted him to make a record. That would mean increased advertisement and increased traffic for their line. So in the face of danger, knowing there were icebergs all around him, the captain rushed his ship blindly ahead. The chance of his actually hitting an iceberg was scarce one in a hundred. So he took the chance. The probability that if he did strike an iceberg it could do irreparable damage to his stout ship, was scarce one in a hundred. So he took that chance also. He gambled with Death, as a thousand speed-driven captains had gambled before. This time it was Death's turn to win.
A gamble even more reprehensible was that of the steamship companies, who had grown so sure their ships would not sink that they no longer provided sufficient means of escape from them. Why load a vessel down with useless life-boats, which only hung the year in and year out, blocking up space? Every foot of that space was valuable. It might make room for an extra passenger, or provide an extra amusement to draw traffic. What voyager ever counted life-boats, or worked out the awful calculation, so obvious now, that there was only rescue space provided for one-third of the number of souls aboard? Was not the ship "unsinkable" after all?
The Titanic is gone. Our sorrow for her is becoming but a memory. Our ships carry lifeboats sufficient now; they are compelled to by law. And our sea captains run on safer lines; that, too, the law has made compulsory. But it will be long before man's overweening self-confidence rises from the shock which has been given to his belief in his mechanical ability. Nature is not conquered yet. Ocean has still a strength beyond ours. Ships are not unsinkable; and Death will still take his toll of bold men's lives in the future as he has done in the past. We know that cowardice costs more than courage, but it is not so tragically costly as blind foolhardiness.
GENEVIEVE GRANDCOURT Prof. R. LEGENDRE
Several years ago a wealthy Swedish manufacturer of dynamite left, by his will, a fund for the providing of a large prize to be conferred each year upon the person who has accomplished most for the peaceful progress of mankind. This annual sum of forty thousand dollars, which is called from its donor the "Nobel prize," was, in October, 1912, conferred upon a surgeon, Dr. Alexis Carrel, for his remarkable work in the study of the life of the tissues and organs which exist in the human body.
Even before this public recognition of his work, Dr. Carrel had in the summer of 1912 created a furor among the savants of Paris by the announcement of what he had accomplished. Carrel, though a native-born Frenchman, is an American by education and citizenship, and the French were at first inclined to challenge the value of his work. We therefore present here a "popular" scientific account of what he had achieved, reprinted by permission from the Scientific American. Then comes the grudging approval of Professor Legendre, the noted "Preparator of Zoology," head of that section in the National Museum of Paris.
Briefly stated, the impressive step which science has here taken, is the preservation of life in the heart and other organs so that these may be taken out of the body and yet kept alive for months. With smaller animals Carrel has even accomplished the actual transferrence of organs from one individual to another. As for the simpler bodily tissues, it now seems possible to preserve these indefinitely outside the body, not only alive but in excellent health and ready to reassume their functions in another body.
A very evident disadvantage under which medical science has labored has been the impossibility of watching the chemical process set in motion by substances introduced into the body. For this reason various experimenters, from time to time, have attempted to "grow tissues" artificially, in such manner that their development, functions, and decay—under both healthy and diseased conditions—might be studied under the microscope. The only way in which this could be done would be to take a piece of living tissue from the body, and cause its cells to multiply; tissue being made up of an aggregation of cells.
Science has failed to produce a single living cell, that is, a cell which will undergo the process of nuclear division (growth) which is the prime condition of its being; and it seemed equally impossible to cause a cell already living to undergo the same process if deprived of the circulation of the blood. Therefore, when in 1910 it was announced that Dr. Alexis Carrel with his assistant, Dr. M. T. Burrows, had succeeded, scientific credulity was taxed. A well-known French savant expressed the opinion before the Society of Biology in Paris, that as others experimenting along these lines, had witnessed only degeneration and survival of cells, this phenomenon was all Carrel's discovery amounted to. In view of past experience, indeed, the chances were in favor of a mistake. In 1897, Leo Loeb said that he had produced this artificial growth both within and without the body. Obviously, such development within the organism where the process of utilizing the body-fluids, etc., follows the same course as in nature, takes on the character of grafting rather than of cultivating in a culture medium. As to causing the external growth, it was ten years later before it seems first to have succeeded. In 1907 Harrison, from Johns Hopkins University, furnished details of his research in such form as to be convincing. But his work had reference to the growth of tissues only of coldblooded animals, he having cultivated artificially, nerve fibers from the central nervous system of the frog.
Carrel's work consisted in extending Harrison's method to apply to warm-blooded animals, including, of course, mammals; he having primarily in view at this time a more precise knowledge of the laws governing the restoration of tissues, for example, after serious surgical wounds. He and his assistant worked steadily to this end, and succeeded. The tissues of the higher animals, including man, can now be developed in a culture, and such development can be made to correspond to a rigidly precise technique. The feat is accomplished by putting minute pieces of living tissue into a plasmatic (blood) medium which will coagulate. So complicated is this apparently simple matter in its application that only the most exquisite surgical skill is proof against incalculable modifications in results.
Having obtained evidence that tissue can be cultivated in accordance with a formula that may be relied upon to give definite results, the effort was made to grow artificially the various malignant (cancerous) tissues, in turn, of chicken, rat, dog, and human being. Cancerous tissue invariably developed cancer, and so rapidly and extensively that the growth could be observed with the naked eye.
It now became evident that, under the right circumstances, the artificial growth of tissues could be utilized in the study of many problems; such as malignant growth of tissue; certain problems in immunity, as, for example, the production of antitoxins of certain organisms; the regulation of the growth of the organism, or of different parts of the organism; rejuvenation and senility; and the character of the internal secretions of the glands, such as the thyroid which plays a role most important in physical and mental development. The difficulty lay in the fact that the artificial growth was so very short-lived. It was found that by passing the growth into a new medium, and repeating the process, the tissues would begin to grow again; but their life even under these circumstances was limited at the most to twenty days. This was manifestly too short a time in which to study the fundamental questions to which the researchers had addressed themselves. Thereupon, study was taken up to determine the question as to what made these tissues die. It was found that, apparently as incidental to growth, there was the process of decay, due to an inability of the tissues to eliminate waste products.
On January 17, 1912, experiments were commenced to determine whether these effects could be overcome. The observations were on the heart and blood-vessels, artificially grown, of the chicken fetus. These growths were put into a salt solution for a few minutes at different periods of their growth, and then placed in a new plasmatic medium. It was found that by following this method, the tissues could be made to live indefinitely. When an animal is in the early stages of its development, the growth of its tissues is necessarily greater as it matures, there being steady diminution after a certain age until the growth altogether ceases, and the size of the animal is determined. But it was found by subjecting these artificial growths to washings in salt solution that the mass was fifteen times greater at the end of than at the commencement of the third month, showing that they do not grow old at all! In the artificial growth the problem of senility and death is solved.
It was the announcement of this "permanent life of tissues" that caused such a furor in Paris last summer, and several eminent scientists to demand ocular demonstration, because "the discovery, if true, constituted the greatest scientific advance of a generation."
The following summary of this interesting and vitally important and epoch-making work of Carrel is translated from an article published in Paris recently by Professor Pozzi, who witnessed the experiments:
"Carrel found that the pulsations of a fragment of heart, which had diminished in number and intensity or ceased, could be revived to the normal state by a washing and a passage. In a secondary culture, two fragments of heart, separated by a free space, beat as strongly and regularly. The larger fragment contracted 92 times a minute and the smaller 120 times. For three days, the number and intensity of the pulsations varied slightly. On the fourth day, the pulsations diminished considerably in intensity. The large fragment beat 40 times a minute and the little fragment 90 times. The culture was washed and placed in a new medium. An hour and a half after, the pulsations had become very strong. The large fragment contracted 120 times a minute and the small fragment 160 times. At the same time the fragments grew rapidly. At the end of eight hours they were united and formed a mass of which all the parts beat synchronically."
Experiments to date seem to establish that the connective tissue, at any rate, is "immortal."
From this research, it is possible to arrive at certain logical conclusions, which, however, it remains for the future to confirm. One, and the most important, is that the normal circulation of the blood does not succeed in freeing all the waste products of the tissues, and that this is the cause of senility and death. Were science to find some way to wash the tissues in the living organism as they have been washed in these cultures, man's life might be indefinitely prolonged.
The Nobel prize in medicine for 1912 has just been awarded to Dr.
Alexis Carrel, a Frenchman, of Lyon, now employed at the Rockefeller
Institute of New York, for his entire work relating to the suture of
vessels and the transplantation of organs.
The remarkable results obtained in these fields by various experimenters, of whom Carrel is most widely known, and also the wonderful applications made of them by certain surgeons have already been widely published.
The journals have frequently spoken lately of "cultures" of tissues detached from the organism to which they belonged; and some of them, exaggerating the results already obtained, have stated that it is now possible to make living tissues grow and increase when so detached.
Having given these subjects much study I wish to state here what has already been done and what we may hope to accomplish. As a matter of fact we do not yet know how to construct living cells; the forms obtained with mineral substances by Errera, Stephane Leduc, and others, have only a remote resemblance to those of life; neither do we know how to prevent death; but yet it is interesting to know that it is possible to prolong for some time the life of organs, tissues, and cells after they have been removed from the organism.
The idea of preserving the life of greater or lesser parts of an organism occurred at about the same time to a number of persons, and though the ends in view have been quite different, the investigations have led to essentially similar results. The surgeons who for a long time have transplanted various organs and grafted different tissues, bits of skin among others, have sought to prolong the period during which the grafts may be preserved alive from the time they are taken from the parent individual until they are implanted either upon the same subject or upon another. The physiologists have attempted to isolate certain organs and preserve them alive for some time in order to simplify their experiments by suppressing the complex action of the nervous system and of glands which often render difficult a proper interpretation of the experiments. The cytologists have tried to preserve cells alive outside the organism in more simple and well-defined conditions. These various efforts have already given, as we shall see, very excellent results both as regards the theoretical knowledge of vital phenomena and for the practise of surgery.
It has been possible to preserve for more or less time many organs in a living condition when detached from the organism. The organ first tried and which has been most frequently and completely investigated is the heart. This is because of its resistance to any arrest of the circulation and also because its survival is easily shown by its contractility. In man the heart has been seen to beat spontaneously and completely 25 minutes after a legal decapitation (Renard and Loye, 1887), and by massage of the organ its beating may be restored after it has been arrested for 40 minutes (Rehn, 1909). By irrigation of the heart and especially of its coronary vessels the period of revival may be much prolonged.
The first experiments with artificial circulation in the isolated heart were made in Ludwig's laboratory, but they were limited to the frog and the inferior vertebrates. Since then experiments on the survival of the heart have multiplied and become classic. Artificial circulation has kept the heart of man contracting normally for 20 hours (Kuliabko, 1902), that of the monkey for 54 hours (Hering, 1903), that of the rabbit for 5 days (Kuliabko, 1902), etc. It has also enabled us to study the influence upon the heart of physical factors, such as temperature, isotonia; chemical factors, such as various salts and the different ions; and even complex pharmaceutical products. Kuliabko (1902) was even able to note contractions in the heart of a rabbit that had been kept in cold storage for 18 hours, and in the heart of a cat similarly kept after 24 hours. The other muscular organs have naturally been investigated in a manner analogous to that which has been used for the heart; and for the same reason, because it can be readily seen whether or not they are alive. The striated muscles survive for quite a long time after removal, especially if they are preserved at the temperature of the body and care is taken to prevent their drying. By this method many investigations have been made of muscular contractions in isolated muscles. Landois has noted that the muscles of a man may be made to contract two hours and a half after removal, those of the frog and the tortoise 10 days after. Recently Burrows (1911) has noted a slight increase in the myotomes of the embryo chick after they have been kept for 2 to 6 days in coagulated plasma.
Non-muscular organs may also survive a removal from the parent organism, but the proofs of their survival are more difficult to establish because of the absence of movements. Carrel (1906) grafted fragments of vessels that had been in cold storage for several days upon the course of a vessel of a living animal of the same species; in 1907 he grafted upon the abdominal aorta of a cat a segment of the jugular vein of a dog removed 7 days previously, also a segment of the carotid of a dog removed 20 days before; the circulation was reestablished normally; these experiments have, however, been criticized by Fleig, who thinks that the grafted fragments were dead and served merely as supports and directors for the regeneration of the vessels upon which they were set. In 1909 Carrel removed the left kidney from a bitch, kept it out of the body for 50 minutes, and then replaced it; the extirpation of the other kidney did not cause the death of the animal, which remained for more than a year normal and in good health, thus proving the success of the graft. In 1910 Carrel succeeded with similar experiments on the spleen.
Taken altogether, these experiments show that the greater part, if not all, of the bodily organs are able to survive for more or less time after removal from the organism when favorable conditions are furnished. There is no doubt but what the observed times of survival may be considerably prolonged when we have a better knowledge of the serums that are most favorable and the physical and chemical conditions that are most advantageous.
If we can preserve the organs, we may expect to also keep alive the tissues and cells of which they are composed. Biologists have studied these problems, too, and have also obtained in this department some very interesting results.
The cells which live naturally isolated in the organism, such as the corpuscles of the blood and spermatozoa, were the first studied. Since 1910 experiments on the survival of tissues have multiplied and at the same time more knowledge has been obtained concerning the conditions most favorable to survival and the microscopical appearances of the tissues so preserved. In 1910 Harrison, having placed fragments of an embryo frog in a drop of coagulated lymph taken from an adult, saw them continue their development for several weeks, the muscles and the epithelium differentiating, the nervous rudiments sending out into the lymph filaments similar to nerve fibers. Since 1910 with the aid of Dr. Minot, I have succeeded in preserving alive the nerve cells of the spinal ganglia of adult dogs and rabbits by placing them in defibrinated blood of the same animal, through which there bubbled a current of oxygen. At zero and perhaps better at 15°-20°, the structure of the cells and their colorable substance is preserved without notable change for at least four days; moreover, when the temperature is raised again to 39°, certain of the cells give a proof of their survival by forming new prolongations, often of a monstrous character. At 39° some of the ganglion cells which have been preserved rapidly lose their colorability and then their structure breaks up, but a certain number of the others form numerous outgrowths extremely varied in appearance. We have, besides, studied the influence of isotony, of agitation, and of oxygenation, and these experiments have enabled me to ascertain the best physical conditions required for the survival of nervous tissue. In 1910, Burrows, employing the technique of Harrison, obtained results similar to his with fragments of embryonic chickens. Since 1910 Carrel and Burrows applied the same method to what they call the "culture" of the tissues of the adult dog and rabbit; they have thus preserved and even multiplied cells of cartilage, of the thyroid, the kidney, the bone marrow, the spleen, of cancer, etc. Perhaps Carrel and his collaborators may be criticized for calling "culture" that which is merely a survival, but there still remains in their work a great element of real interest.
Such are, too briefly summarized, the experiments which have been made up to the present time. We can readily imagine the practical consequences which we may very shortly hope to derive from them, and the wonderful applications of them which will follow in the domain of surgery. Without going so far as the dream of Dr. Moreau depicted by Wells, since grafts do not succeed between animals of different species, we may hope that soon, in many cases, the replacing of organs will be no longer impossible, but even easy, thanks to methods of conservation and survival which will enable us to have always at hand material for exchange.
The dream of to-day may be reality to-morrow.
There are also other consequences which will follow from these researches. I hope that they will permit us to study the physical and chemical factors of life under much simpler conditions than heretofore, and it is toward this end that I am directing my researches. They will enable us to approach much nearer the solution of the old insoluble problem of life and death. What indeed is the death of an organism all of whose parts may yet survive for some time?
These, then, are the researches made in this domain, fecund from every point of view, and the great increase in the number of experts who are taking them up, while it is a proof of their interest, gives hope for their rapid progress.
J. ELLIS BARKER FREDERICK PALMER Prof. STEPHEN P. DUGGAN
Turkey's opéra-bouffe war with Italy in 1911 plunged her into a far more terrible and sanguinary struggle. Seeing her weakness, the little Balkan States seized the opportunity to unite and attack her. Each of the Balkan allies had once been crushed by Turkey and had fought for freedom. Each was jealous and suspicious of all the others. Each people hoped that in the break-up of Turkey their own land would be enlarged. Each saw members of their own race oppressed in the Macedonian region still held by Turkey. In face of their great opportunity, however, all the four States—Bulgaria, Greece, Servia, and Montenegro—hushed their own quarrels and joined in attacking their common enemy.
Of the causes of the war, Mr. J. Ellis Barker, the noted English authority on Turkey, here gives a brief account. The tale of the first glorious campaign, with its big battles of Kirk-Kilesseh and Lule-Burgas, is then told by Mr. Frederick Palmer, the foremost of American war correspondents upon the scene. The confused negotiations for peace are then detailed by Prof. Stephen P. Duggan, our American authority upon the Balkan States.
A short time ago I read an interesting account of Sir Max Waechter's recent journey to the capitals of Turkey and all the other Balkan States. He had visited these towns wit the object of laying before the Sovereigns of the Balkan States and their Ministers proposals for abolishing war by the creation of a European Federation of States. All the Balkan Sovereigns and Ministers whom he had seen had expressed themselves sympathetically and favorably and had agreed to accept the status quo. A month later all the Balkan States were at war; Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Italy were arming, and people were anxiously discussing the possibility of a world war. The sudden transition from peace to war appears inexplicable to those unacquainted with the realities of foreign policy.
In July, 1908, the Turkish Revolution broke out. It was a great and immediate success. Never in the world's history had there been so successful a revolution or one so bloodless. As by magic, Turkey was changed from a medieval State into a modern democracy. The Turkish masses were rejoicing. Old feuds were forgotten. Mohammedans and Christians fraternized. The words Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Parliamentarism, and Democracy were on all lips. Over night a new Turkey had arisen. Soon the leaders of Young Turkey began to assert the right and claims of the new-born State. We were told that European intervention in the affairs of Turkey would no longer be tolerated, and that those parts of the Turkish Empire which, though nominally subject to the Sultan, were no longer under Turkish control, would have to be handed back. Great Britain was to restore Egypt and Austria-Hungary Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many Englishmen indorsed these claims, and told us that a new era had opened in the East. At that time only a few people ventured to doubt whether the Turkish Revolution would be a lasting success. I think I was the only British publicist who immediately and unhesitatingly foretold that Parliamentary Government in Turkey was bound to be a failure, and that it would inevitably lead to the formation of a Balkan Confederation which would attack Turkey. I said then:
"European Turkey has about 6,000,000 inhabitants, of whom only about one-third are Turks.
"The Young Turks have the choice of two evils. They must either follow a Liberal or a Conservative policy. If they follow a Liberal policy, if they introduce Parliamentary representation, self-government, and majority rule in Turkey in general, and in Macedonia in particular, the Christians will be the majority, and it seems likely that they will then oust the Turkish minority and convert the ruling race into a ruled race. A Liberal policy will, therefore, bring about the rapid disintegration of the Turkish Empire.
"Foreseeing the danger of allowing the alien elements to be further strengthened, many patriotic Turks have demanded that a vigorous Conservative policy should be pursued which will abolish the national differences among the alien races and between the alien races and the Turks. They demand that a Turkish national policy should be initiated, that the aliens should be nationalized in Turkish national schools, that Turkish shall be the language of Turkey, that the Greek, Bulgarian, and other schools shall be closed. Will Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia quietly look on while the work of a generation is being undone? Will the Greeks, Serbs, and Bulgarians residing in Turkey allow themselves to be denationalized more or less forcibly? Besides, can they be denationalized against their will except by destroying the Parliamentary and democratic Government, the Constitution of yesterday, and by reintroducing the ancient absolutism in an aggravated form? Two hundred years ago the Turks could easily have nationalized the alien races by means of the church and the school, but it seems that it is now too late to make an attempt at turning the subject races into Turks.
"In endeavoring to settle the conflicts among the alien nationalities and between the aliens and the Turks, the path of the new Turkish Government will scarcely be smooth. The Balkan States are watching events with attention. Although they congratulated the new Turkish Government, they have no interest in Turkey's regeneration, and they are bound to oppose the Ottomanization of their compatriots in Turkey. Therefore, they may be expected to draw the sword and to face Turkey unitedly if they see their plans of expansion threatened by the nationalization of the alien elements in Turkey."
Unfortunately, my forecast has come true in every particular. The failure of New Turkey was natural. It was unavoidable. Ancient States are ponderous and slow-moving bodies. Their course can be deflected and their character be altered only by gradual evolution, by slow and almost imperceptible changes spread over a long space of time. Democracy, like a tree, is a thing of slow growth, and it requires a congenial soil. It can not be created over night in Turkey, Persia, or China. The attempt to convert an ancient Eastern despotism, firmly established on a theocratic basis, a country in which the Koran and the Multeka are the law of the land, into a Western democracy based on the secular speculations of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Bentham, Mill, and Spencer was ridiculous. The revolution effected only an outward change. It introduced some Western innovations, but altered neither the character of the Government nor that of the people. Turkish Parliamentarism became a sham and a make-believe. The cruel absolutism of Abdul Hamid was speedily followed by the scarcely less cruel absolutism of a secret committee.
The new rulers of the country were mostly very young men, who were conspicuous for their enthusiasm and their daring but not for their judgment and experience. They had picked upon the boulevards and in the Quartier Latin of Paris and in Geneva the sonorous phrases of Western democracy and demagogy, and with these they impressed, not only their fellow citizens, but also the onlookers in Europe. Having obtained power, they embarked upon a campaign of nationalization. However, instead of trying to nationalize the non-Turkish millions slowly and gradually by kind and just treatment coupled with a moderate amount of nationalizing pressure, they began ruthlessly to make war upon the language, and to suppress the churches, schools, and other institutions of the non-Turkish citizens, whom they disarmed and deprived of their ancient rights. The complaints and remonstrances of the persecuted were answered with redoubled persecution, with violence, and with massacre, and soon serious revolts broke out in all parts of the Empire. The Young Turks followed faithfully in Abdul Hamid's footsteps. However, Abdul Hamid was clever enough always to play off one nationality or race against the other. In his Balkan policy, for instance, he encouraged Greek Christians to slay Christian Bulgarians and Servians, and allowed Bulgarian bands to make war upon Servians and Greeks, supporting, on principle, one nationality against the other. But the Young Turks persecuted indiscriminately and simultaneously all non-Turkish races, Albanians, Bulgarians, Servians, and Greeks, and thus they brought about the union of the Balkan States against themselves.
The outbreak of the war could scarcely have been prevented by the European Powers. It was bound to come. It was as inevitable as was the breakdown of the Young Turkish régime. Since the earliest times the Turks have been a race of nomadic warriors. Their policy has always been to conquer nations, to settle among the conquered, and to rule them, keeping them in strict and humiliating subjection. They have always treated the subject peoples harshly and contemptuously. Unlike other conquerors, they have never tried to create among the conquered a great and homogeneous State which would have promised permanence, but, nomad-like, have merely created military settlement among aliens. Therefore, the alien subjects of the Turks have remained aliens in Turkey. They have not become citizens of the Empire. As the Turks did not try to convert the conquered to Islam—the Koran forbids proselytism by force—and to nationalize them, the subjected and ill-treated alien masses never amalgamated with the ruling Turks, but always strove to regain their liberty by rebellion. Owing to the mistakes made in its creation, the Turkish Empire has been for a long time an Empire in the process of disintegration. Its later history consists of a long series of revolts, of which the present outbreak is the latest, but scarcely the last, instance.
The failure of the new Turkish régime has increased to the utmost the century-old antagonism between the ruling Turks and their Christian subjects. The accounts of the sufferings of their brothers across the borderline, inflicted upon them by Constitutional Turkey, which had promised such great things, had raised the indignation of the Balkan peoples to fever heat and had made an explosion of popular fury inevitable. The war fever increased when it was discovered that Servians, Bulgarians, and Greeks were at last of one mind, and that Turkey's strength had been undermined by revolts in all parts of the Empire and by the Turkish-Italian war. The Turks, on the other hand, were not unnaturally indignant with the perfidy of the Christian Powers, which, instead of supporting Turkey in her attempts at reform, had snatched valuable territories from her immediately after her revolution. Not unnaturally, they attributed the failure of the new régime and the revolts of their subjects to the machinations of the Christian States, and the Balkan troubles to the hostile policy of the Balkan States. The tension on both sides became intolerable. If the Balkan States had not mobilized, a revolution would have broken out in Sofia and Belgrade, for the people demanded war. If the Turkish Government had given way to the Balkan States, a revolution would have broken out in Constantinople. The instinct of self-preservation forced the Balkan Governments and Turkey into war. The passions of race-hatred had become uncontrollable.
[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission from an article in Everybody's
Magazine.]
Against any one of his little Christian neighbors the Turk had superior numbers, and had only to concentrate on a single section of his many-sided frontier line. It had never entered his mind that the little neighbors would form an alliance. He had trusted to their jealousies to keep them apart. United, they could strike him on the front and both sides simultaneously. He was due for an attack coming down the main street and from alleys to the right and left.
In this situation he must temporarily accept the defensive. Meanwhile, he foresaw the battalions of "chocolate soldiers" beating themselves to pieces against the breastworks of his garrisons, and Greek turning on Serb and Serb on Bulgar after a taste of real war. Against divided counsels would be one mind, which, with reenforcements of the faithful from Asia Minor, would send the remnants of the opéra bouffe invasion flying back over their passes.
But the allies fully realized the danger of quarreling among themselves, which would have been much harder to avert if their armies had been acting together as a unit under a single command. Happily, each army was to make a separate campaign under its own generals; each had its own separate task; each was to strike at the force in front of its own borders. Prompt, staggering blows before the Turkish reserves could arrive were essential.
The Montenegrins in the northwest, who had the side-show (while Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece had the three rings under the main tent), did their part when they invested the garrison of Scutari.