The Balkans 



German, English, Russian, Italian, and Spanish) clamor for 

 recognition. Under such conditions racial identity is confused; 

 a man is usually known by the language he speaks, rather than 

 by religion or origin. 



Adding to the general complication, two further elements 

 have had their part in creating dissension. In the first place, 

 there are four state hierarchies or churches, each essentially a 

 political organization, and three of them (as indicated in my 

 narrative) little "concerned with either religion or morals." 

 Secondly, under Turkish rule all ancient boundaries were obliter- 

 ated, and promiscuous migrations resulted in inextricable racial 

 entanglement, especially in Macedonia. There members of 

 each nationality have strayed across the ethnic borders, and 

 Bulgarians, Serbs, Turks, Greeks, Vlachs (Roumanians), and 

 Jews make up the patchwork population. Of these, the Bul- 

 garians occupied most of the uplands and farming districts, the 

 Greeks crowded the seashore, while the Jews were mainly 

 centered in Salonica, still speaking the Spanish dialect of 

 Barcelona, whence their ancestors had been driven 



Let us imagine, if we can, that similar conditions had beset 

 our American colonists. Suppose, for instance, that instead of 

 the mild Prussianism of George III, our ancestors had been 

 subjected for four hundred years to a tyranny wholly alien and 

 twenty times as severe and unjust. Suppose further that nine 

 colonies had been at the outset racially divergent — strains 

 •being pure in limited districts only, hopelessly confused else- 

 where — and speaking many different languages. Assume also 

 that half a century had intervened between the independence 

 of Massachusetts and that of Carolina; that most of the former 

 colonies had in turn been forced to accept a narrow-minded 

 alien as king, with a court infested by secret agents of jealous 

 neighbors; that each state had adopted a system of cutthroat 

 tariffs to injure the others. Under such circumstances, it is 

 easy to see, the United States of America would not soon have 

 risen as a unified republic, whatever its array of Washingtons, 

 Franklins, Hamiltons, and Jeffersons. Union might have 

 come at last, of course; even "the United States of the Balkans" 

 is still in the lap of the gods. But the road to it is a very rocky 

 one, with much distress and calamity ahead. 



The secret treaty between Bulgaria and Serbia, dated Febru- 



C 807 3 



