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Greece And The Eastern Question

Greece And The Eastern Question image
Parent Issue
Day
2
Month
June
Year
1897
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The eyes of all the world are now turned toward the Greeks, saya Benjamin I. Wheeler in the June Atlantic. Amoug the great people of Europe they are feeble folk, the mere remnant of an ancient greatness. In dispute of the pracitical judgment of tliose who are wise after the wisdom of tliis world, and in deriance of the strong, they have entered their protest against a wrong to their race and to humanity, and have registered their self-assertion, even at the hazard of war and in the face of tremendous odds. This little Greek uation, like a tender shoot sprung up iiom the root of a grand old tree long since hewn down, had encouraged the hopea fora new life; but practical arbörieulture is pitiless of sentiment. In the court of worldly wisdom, sentiment and patriotism fi-nd no other sympathy tlian that tire Theban elders meted out to Aantigonnd her impluse of duty: "For now the light of hope had shown above the last root of (Edipus's liouse, -but now again the bloody pruningknife of the nethergods slashes it down, - yea, folly of word, and frenzy of mind." The practical politician and the practical diplomat are of the same household of faith. The one abliors the división of parties on the basis of principie; the other abhors the adjustment of national boundaries to sentiuients of mee or language or religión. Austria, built out of a congeries of race and language fragmenta, ia his ideal of a nation. The partition of Poland is a specimen of his handiwork. The absorption of Orete into Greece, on the score of community of blood, language, and religión, is a good representative of things which he does not like to have happen. In this particular case, too, the precedent would be an unusually bad one. If Crete goes to Greece because it is Greek, why not Cyprus, why not Chios and Samos, why not Epirus, why not the coast of Macedonia? And where would be the end? The balance of power is a business arrangement, and sentiment must always yield to business principies

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Courier