Turkish Cruelty Exaggerated.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 2, 1912:
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    In blaming the European Powers for not having "had the courage to compel Turkey to treat her European subjects decently," you give expression to an opinion of widespread belief, but which, I think, does not exactly fit the situation.
    The ill-treatment of Christians in Turkey was by no means based on the "cruelty of the terrible Turk." but was, as far as the reports were not exaggerated or invented, the outcome of a well-laid-out and diligently fostered policy on the part of Bulgaria and other Slavonic States to keep the flame of discontent ever burning among the Christian part of Turkey's population, thus compelling Turkey to resort to forcible means and furnishing at all times an ever-ready casus belli.
    This is where the evil rooted. It was the case of a sick man whose disease was kept up by artificial injections of the decaying germs to make a recovery impossible.
                LOTHAR VON BERKS.
                Livingston, S. I., Oct. 31, 1912.