Please accept my very hearty thanks for your letter of December 5. Your friends' account of The Outlook's attitude does not altogether surprise me, for we have not hesitated to express our condemnation of the course of the Imperial German Government. We have had similar experiences in other cases. Even to be unsparing in condemnation, however, is not necessarily to be bitter or venomous, and certainly condemnation of the government of a nation is quite a different thing from hate of a nation's people. No one can feel about music, for example, as I do, and hate the German people. What does hurt the lover of liberty in this country, I think, more than anything else is that neither in Germany nor even here among the people of German descent have there arisen leaders to protest and struggle against the spirit of tyranny as there have been in other countries and as there arose in this country among people of English descent against English tyranny one hundred and forty years ago. This is the attitude of The Outlook. Personally, I hope that out of this war there will re-emerge the spirit of liberty which was one of the ancient possessions of the German people, which was manifested at the time of the German Reformation, and which broke out in 1848; but which for the past two generations has been waging a losing battle against a very subtle and very effective process of education.

You will pardon, I am sure, this explanation; but as you told me that you had not been a reader of The Outlook I wanted to explain to you briefly but as frankly as I could The Outlook's position. It is not a new position in any respect. We have seen this struggle coming on for many years. The present situation in Germany, and, in fact. in Europe, is the outcome of a development which this journal described twenty-five years ago.

Now, may I say to you in turn with what delight we welcomed your manuscript when it first came before our eyes? Of all that has been written from the German point of view, your article, which we have presented to our

readers in three installments, seems to me to be exceptional, almost unique, in its spirit of tolerance and understanding.

You may be amused to know that anong the letters of protest that have come to us for the publication of your article there is in one the suggestion that it was paid for by the English! I am inclined to think that the writer of that letter was trying to make a joke. Very sincerely yours. ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT.

December 10, 1916.

Dear Mr. Abbott: Thank you for your long and interesting letter of December 7. I should like to say one last word to you, if I may. You think my article exceptional, almost unique, in its spirit of tolerance and understanding. Do you know the reason? It is because I deeply love both Germany and America, and have the earnest will to understand. If I read anything a pro-Ally has written, or speak with one, I immediately put myself in his place and try to look at the situation through his eyes and so I learn to understand him.

When I was in Germany, I was distressed at the complete lack of understanding of the American view-point, and here in America I am simply appalled at the same lack of understanding which I find in many thinking Americans. I cannot help respecting you for stating the opinion of The Outlook to me so clearly and without any "bitterness and "venom." Bitterness and venom never convince or make converts or have any uplifting influence in life. Now, before ending, I should like to state my position as briefly as possible.

It seems to me that the very conception of the state as a moral force has given to German life a higher impetus and has stimulated the development of personality. The Germans are conscious of this, and to them it is not a spirit of tyranny but a spirit of free service. History has shown that wherever a real spirit of tyranny existed it was accompanied by moral and intellectual decay and degradation, while in Germany I see exactly the opposite. Therefore you cannot be surprised that there has come no widespread protest from the German people against a system of government which, on the whole, fulfills their just desires. Very sincerely yours.

MARIE GALLISON.

T

HIS was the longest professional interview of my journalistic experience; my friend from Turkey talked steadily on the one subject from ten o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night, with one hour's intermission; and then we resumed the theme for two hours the next morning, when the incomplete discussion was adjourned, to be resumed later. Now to compress into one brief article the high points of the interview.

This autumn my friend is out of Turkey, where he has spent more than a quarter of a century. To tell how he got out-an interesting story in itself-would be to tell whence he came, which would never do, since Turkey has a genius for bitter reprisals. I owe too much to this man to be the means of hurt to him or his. My first clear understanding of the Turkish question came one memorable night in Constantinople when I was a listener in a group comprising my friend, an official of the United States Government, the Constantinople correspondent of Reuter's, and a representative of Great Britain, all of them veteran specialists on the Near Eastern question. Of these four, the man who knew the theme best was my American friend. He seemed to think first in Arabic and then translate into English. He has a trick of illustrating his meaning by the familiar Arabic gestures. He it was who spoke the last word of the talk on the mysterious Druses and who gave the historical setting to the "Arabian Nights" tale of the Salonika Jews and how they have become, ostensibly, Moslems, until now they are in control of the Young Turk party.

Other and more personal debts I owe.to this Yankee in Turkey. When I would have gone into Arabia with only a brace of automatic pistols for defense, he made plain by the story of one of his own narrow escapes why a rifle carried in plain sight on the saddle bow is almost indispensable. From him I learned the trick, which did me good service clear down into the deserts of Mesopotamia, of having target practice when making camp, for the benefit of inquisitive

I The man here interviewed is not "The Man from Constantinople" whose story Dr. Ellis wrote for The Outlook of December 8, 1915.-THE EDITORS.

natives. What to look for when I went to Petra, and-only the initiated will understand this-what to look for, and where, when I rode a camel, I learned from his book of experience. With him amid the ruins of Phoenicia I discovered that the Crusaders were grave-robbers, and by him I was instructed in the merits of sweet lemons as thirst-quenchers in desert travel. He translated for me the Arabic slogans of the party of liberty and traced their roots clear back to the free soil of America.

So, because he really knows, and because he is possibly the last man out of Turkey, I interviewed for The Outlook this American who is the better patriot for being a wise internationalist. Our talk swept round the whole circle of Turkish affairs, from the inexplicable defeat of the British in Mesopotamia to their strange failure to enter Constantinople when it was open to them, during the Gallipoli campaign; from the revolt of the Arabs to the anti-Young Turk Movement in Anatolia; from the feud between Djemal Pasha, Governor of Syria, and the Germans, to the manner in which Enver Pasha has 'dug himself in " with the Germans. Insults to America and Americans, death for even Moslem leaders, starvation for the people of the Holy Land, plague for soldiers and civilians alike, death in most dreadful forms for the Armenians, exact news concerning the progress of the Bagdad Railway, and startling forecasts as to the war's outcome, all were crowded into this comprehensive interview.

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We talked first, and often, of Constantinople:

"Enver Pasha and Talaat Bey and Bedry Bey and Khalil Bey are the men now in control there. That secret governing group of Young Turks is still hidden far out of sight, but Khalil Bey is supposed to be of them. Enver Pasha has dug himself in with the Germans. More and more, as the Turks are showing their resentment toward his conduct of things, he is seeking safety by increasing German support.

with German notices. (Did I tell you that, while the English language is prohibited in Turkey, the American language is permitted?) There are two great wireless stations in the city, one of which, though operated by Germans, is supposedly under the control of the Turkish Government. The other is German absolutely, with no pretense of Ottoman interference. There is a strong German garrison in Constantinople, which is Enver's measure of self-protection.

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Poverty? It is beyond words. People are literally dying of starvation in Constantinople, as in most other cities of the Empire. Soldiers' widows and orphans fare worst, perhaps; for while a pittance is given to the family of the living soldier, this ceases when he is killed. I have seen the people grow black in their faces from long-continued hunger. The poor have gone to a mission hospital and actually begged for the dish-water, hoping that they might get a few scraps. I have seen them working over the garbage for the bits of orange peel. After that the family saved all scraps and placed them in clean paper and left them where the poor could find them, instead of throwing them into the garbage-can. Night after night people would steal into our yard and beg for even a crust. Night after night we saw them in a dying condition, but had nothing with which to help them. We knew of entire families dying of typhus one after another. Some missionaries, in order to avoid the unpleasant notice of unfriendly officials, took women and children into the hospitals as patients and after feeding them up for a week or two had to send them away again. The Government buried the dead from disease and starvation at the rate of forty to fifty daily!

"For sixteen months the people have been gathering every possible plant and root that could be eaten. My native neighbor planted a few potatoes almost under our windows, but the starving people came by night and dug up the seed potatoes and ate them!

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forty per cent, and is still going down. can imagine the effect upon an already impoverished country.

"The 1915 crop was in good part lost, owing to the deportation of the Armenians at planting time. What was left, together with the 1916 crop, was commandeered by the army. It, too, is below normal, one reason being, in addition to the loss of men, the requisitioning of all the animals of the farmers. Instead of being a great storehouse of food for Germany, Turkey itself is going hungry. When I passed through Germany, the commonest question asked me by the officials who examined my passport was whether Turkey had plenty of food. I told them that the price of flour had increased eightfold, and that the poor people had sold even their cooking utensils in order to buy food.

"There is no commerce whatever, of course. Of sugar there is none; coal is almost entirely lacking. Oil is four dollars a gallon, and hard to get. Medicines are not

to be had; one of the reasons for the spread of the plague in Turkey is the lack of medicines and the high mortality among the native physicians."

Did you see much plague?"

"It is everywhere, both cholera and typhus. Plague camps for the soldiers were within a few feet of us at several halting-places on the journey. One hears in Turkey that half the army has perished from disease. We took all possible precautions, and were very fortunate, finding on us only one Pediculus vestimenti❞—only the word he used to describe the busy little traveling salesman of the typhus plague was not Latin.

"Who are hardest hit? It is not easy to say. The Jews in and about Jerusalem who did not get away on the American war-ships are in a pitiable plight, because they look to the foreign mails for their support, and these have been closed. In all Syria it is estimated that from eighty to one hundred thousand persons have died either from acute starvation or from malnutrition. The situation grows worse daily. There will have to be relief from America if the people of the Holy Land are to be saved."

I hasten over the Armenian news; it was more of the same awful tale of deportation, outrage, and death. This summer the atrocities broke out afresh, especially among the Armenians who had secured work under the Germans at road-making and tunnel-digging.

These, too, had to move on to the fate of their deported compatriots. My friend said that it is the opinion of himself and other Americans in Turkey that certainly less than twenty per cent of the deported Armenians, and probably not more than ten, have survived to reach their destinations. And over a million were deported! When the native Christians in one place wanted to carry food to an arriving horde of Armenian survivors, they were prevented by the Turks. The matter was carried up to the governor, who brutally answered, "These people were not sent here to live."

An American missionary who resides near one of the colonies of Armenians, and who has been made desperate by the scenes he daily witnesses, said to my friend, “Government or no Government, prison or no prison, if I can get hold of food or money, I'm going to feed these people."

"The man who has never experienced the stench of dead bodies in his nostrils, and who has never seen the emaciated corpses of the starved lying on the roadway, and who has never witnessed with his own eyes or heard from the lips of beholders, in all the plainness of Oriental speech, the foul-minded atrocities of the Turk, cannot understand why Americans in Turkey are ready to indorse any measures that will stop these horrors. Nor can we comprehend the indifference of America.

"Perhaps if you had seen a dying woman dig with her own hands a shallow grave and strive to cover herself in it, so that the dogs -who are full fed these days-might not get her body before death came, you would count this matter an urgent one.'

At this point my friend let light in upon an interesting diplomatic situation. "Of course you know that Turkey refuses to allow the United States Consuls to send sealed pouches of mail to the Embassy at Constantinople, as is the immemorial usage. Consular mail is censored, just like everything else. The immediate reason is that the Turks do not want the stories of local conditions and atrocities to get out of the country through these official channels."

Here I delete certain vigorous observations concerning America's duty to uphold her National prestige abroad and to protect her nationals. The man ten thousand miles from American soil may be expected to see vividly and state strongly this principle. We have for many years allowed Turkey to take

liberties with American dignity and rights which, if generally known, would have aroused our people to the highest pitch of indignation. The deaths of Rogers and Maurer, American missionaries slain at Adana in 1909, go unavenged. Some of us have not forgotten that at the siege of Van, more than a year ago, the American flag was riddled with Turkish bullets and Americans were fired upon by Turkish troops. The destruction of American property, by order of the Ottoman officials, has been on a scale that makes one wonder whether the fact of war justifies the United States in acquiescence in these latest outrages.

Honor is a delicate thing and has curious ramifications.. Hear my friend explode : "The seal of the United States Government is supposed to be inviolable. When the consuls of the Allied nations left Turkey, their consulates were turned over to the United States Government. Protection of them became a duty of honor. So these consulates were officially sealed and guarded by the authority of the United States of America. They were a trust that could not be violated without shame greater than that involved in an affront to our Government directly. Nevertheless the Turks broke the seal of the American Government upon the French Consulate at Beirût and ravaged the archives that were under the solemn protection of the United States. Out of those files they secured the names of various persons in Syria, especially leaders in the Maronite Church, and straightway executed them as having been in correspondence with an enemy country. The American flag was not big enough to shelter those men, among them the most enlightened and influential citizens of the Lebanon."

There is a kink in the Turk's brain that turns him to reprisals and espionage. In the days of Abdul Hamid his spy system was like a shadow of death over the land. Now the news is that a horde of informers and secret police infest the country, especially at the centers of population. All mail entering the Empire is opened, and every clue that leads to any critic or enemy of Turkey is vindictively followed out, both against natives and foreigners. Nobody knows when hist hour to become the object of suspicion will strike. This terrorism, amid a people wasted by war and want, is a form of "frightfulness that is one of the most hideous of the ills that now stalk through the land.