l commissioners of one sort
and another. When I was in Constantinople the European colony in that
city was watching with interest and amusement the maneuvers of the Turks
to bring the American officials around to accepting this view of the
matter. They "rushed" the rear admiral who was acting as American High
Commissioner and his wife as the members of a college fraternity "rush"
a desirable freshman. And, come to think of it, most of the American
officials who were sent out to investigate and report on conditions in
Turkey are freshmen when it comes to the complexities of Near Eastern
affairs. This does not apply, of course, to such men as Consul-General
Ravndal at Constantinople, Consul-General Horton at Smyrna, Dr. Howard
Bliss, President of the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, and certain
others, who have lived in the Levant for many years and are intimately
familiar with the intricacies of its politics and the characters of its
peoples. But it does apply to those officials who, after hasty and
personally conducted tours through Asiatic Turkey, or a few months'
residence in the Turkish capital, are accepted as "experts" by the Peace
Conference and by the Government at Washington. When I listen to their
dogmatic opinions on subjects of which most of them were in abysmal
ignorance prior to the Armistice, I am always reminded of a remark once
made to me by Sir Edwin Pears, the celebrated historian and authority on
Turkish affairs. "I don't pretend to understand the Turkish character,"
Sir Edwin remarked dryly, "but, you see, I have lived here only forty
years."

It is an interesting and altruistic scheme, this proposed regeneration
at American expense of a corrupt and decadent empire, but in their
enthusiasm its supporters seem to have overlooked several obvious
objections. In the first place, though both England and France are
perfectly willing to have the United States accept a mandate for
European Turkey, Armenia and even Anatolia, I doubt if England would
welcome with enthusiasm a proposal that she should evacuate Palestine
and Mesopotamia, the conquest of which has cost her so much in blood and
gold, or whether France would consent to renounce her claims to Syria,
of which she has always considered herself the legatee. As for Italy and
Greece, I imagine that it would prove as difficult to oust the one from
Adalia and the other from Smyrna as it has been to oust the Poet from
Fiume. Secondly, such a mandate wou