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Page 15
Do you know, my dear young friends, that you and I ought to be very glad
and grateful that we are _Americans_?
Does it ever occur to you that while millions of people in other lands are
to-day suffering unspeakably from cruelty and oppression, it is your happy
lot to live under a government which makes such wrongs impossible?
You have seen what Cuba is willing to suffer, if she can only get away
from the oppression of Spain. You have seen that she considers no
sacrifices too great, that she will surrender fortune, happiness, and life
itself, will endure lingering tortures and death in solitary dungeons; and
all this, just that she may secure the very freedom which you and I enjoy
so carelessly!
And now, from the Southeastern end of Europe, there has come another
supplicating voice, from another island.
The little island of Crete, in the grasp of a hand infinitely more cruel
than Spain's, has declared she would rather perish than remain longer at
the mercy of the Turk.
What could such a little atom of a country do alone? One can only wonder
that she ever dared to _dream_ of freedom! But a desire for freedom makes
frail, weak bodies marvellously strong sometimes. She resolved that she
would not longer endure the Turkish yoke; and she called to her old
kinsmen in Greece to come and take her into their Christian kingdom. She
said: "We are the same in race and in religion, let us become one in
country, too."
This is not the first despairing cry that has come from the Sultan's
dominions. Again and again have they rung through Europe in the last
century.
The rule of the Ottoman Empire (or Turkey) is the most corrupt, cruel, and
degrading in the world. We have seen that Spain is grasping, avaricious,
and a hard mother to her distant Colonies, which she treats like slaves
rather than children. But for all that Spain is brave and chivalric. She
has a _sense_ of honor and of justice, even if she violates it, and--she
is _Christian_.
But Turkey--Mohammedan Turkey, has not one of these qualities. She has no
conscience, no shame, no remorse for terrible deeds done; indeed, the
murder of Christians is the surest and swiftest passport to her heaven!
Thousands and thousands of Christians perish by the sword every year in
the Ottoman Empire, and awful cruelties are committed every day upon the
living.
Now you ask why the Christian nations of Europe permit these things to
be; and you naturally suppose it goes on because they cannot help it. Not
at all.
Any one of the great nations of Europe could sweep the decaying old
Mohammedan Empire out of existence in one campaign; and the six combined
Powers, England, Russia, Austria, Germany, France, and Italy, could do it
in six hours! Then why do they not?
Simply because Turkey occupies the most important and valuable
_strategical position_ on the earth. And each of these great nations is in
mortal fear that some of the others will get possession of it.
I have already told you about the immense importance of these "strategic
points" in the great game of European politics or diplomacy, and how
eagerly the nations are all the time watching for opportunities to secure
them.
If you will look at your map, you will see that Turkey lies at the gateway
which separates the Eastern world from the Western. The vast and beautiful
region ruled by the Sultan, and known as the "Ottoman Empire," lies partly
in Asia, partly in Europe, and partly in Africa.
Stretching over a vast expanse behind the Sultan is _India_--that India,
which has been for centuries the coveted treasure-house of the world. With
his back turned upon this marvellous India, the Sultan's face is turned
toward Europe, where six great Empires are looking with eager and longing
eyes at the golden prize behind him in the East; and each glaring
suspiciously and defiantly at the other at the slightest move toward the
coveted land, to which the Ottoman Empire bars the way.
So you can see that disturbing the Turk while he is butchering Christians
might be dangerous business for these Great Powers.
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