1903 ASSASSINATION OF SERVIAN KING AND QUEEN

An event occurred in June which caused the civilized world to sit up, rub its eyes, and exclaim: "Are we then in the Middle Ages ?" An old time "palace revolution" with all its tragic accompaniments, took place in the little kingdom of Servia. King Alexander had married Draga Maschin, a widow of common blood, much older than himself and of more forceful character. She completely dominated his mind, causing him to adopt the most reactionary policies. On April 7 he suspended the constitution in order to annul a series of laws passed by the Skuptschina (Servian parliament) establishing the liberty of the press, introducing the ballot and instituting other reforms. Simultaneously he dissolved the Skuptschina and dismissed the Council of State, the Senate, and the Cour de Cassation (Supreme Court). After accomplishing his object, he restored the constitution, and appointed new councilors, senators, and judges. In the ensuing election for members of the Skuptschina, the Government saw to it that not one Opposition candidate was elected. It was rumored that the new parliament would settle the succession on Queen Draga's brother. This brought to a head the antidynastic plot that the radical leaders had for some time been planning with officers of the army. Late at night on June 10 the Palace at Belgrade was surrounded by troops, and entered by a number of officers. Two officers, loyal to the King, who opposed the progress of the assassins to the royal apartments, were killed. A third aide, however, was in league with the conspirators, and he presented a form of abdication to the King for his signature. Alexander at once shot him down, choosing "to die with Draga," whom he realized to be doomed whatever his own action might be. The King and Queen were murdered, and their bodies thrown from the windows. Two brothers of the Queen and the subservient Premier and Minister of War were killed the same night.

COMPLETION OF PACIFIC CABLE

1903

Now two houses, both of peasant origin, had been contending since the second decade of the nineteenth century for the Servian throne. The dead king was an Obrenovitch. The heir to the pretentions of the rival house of Karageorgevitch was Prince Peter of that name, an exile in Switzerland. Him the conspirators selected to be Alexander's successor. The old Skuptschina (the one dissolved on the 7th of April, not that elected in its place) met on June 15 and declared Prince Peter King. He accepted the election, and on the 24th entered Belgrade, where he was received with much enthusiasm, only two foreign ministers, however, being present, those of Russia and Austria. All others had been withdrawn by their governments who suspected the new king to have been instrumental in the removal of his predecessor. King Peter swore to support the constitution on the 25th, and issued on the 28th a decree of amnesty. Despite this decree a number of army officers, while professing loyalty to King Peter, called persistently for the punishment of the assassins whose act had place him on the throne. Accordingly, some of these were tried, and on September 29 were sentenced to short terms of imprisonment with loss of their commissions.

Two events in July considerably strengthened the hold of the United States upon its insular possessions. A treaty was made July 2 between the United States and Cuba, by which the former relinquished all claims to the Island of Pines, in consideration of the concessions of coaling and naval stations at the harbors of Gauntanamo and Bahia Honda. The Pacific Cable was completed on Independence Day. The President sent the first telegram over the line in the form of a message to Governor Taft of the Philippines. He sent another message by cable around the world in 12 minutes.

On July 12 William Ernest Henley, an English poet and essayist who was peculiarly representative of the spirit of

1903

DEATH OF LEO XIII

the age, died at the age of 54. Shortly before his death he was severely condemned by admirers of Robert Louis Stevenson for his representation of the personal character of that author in a not altogether favorable light.

James McNeill Whistler, probably the greatest portrait painter of his time, died on July 17, at the age of 69. The son of a West Point engineer, and himself a student for a time at the Military Academy, his career belongs not to America but to the world. Most of his life he spent in Paris and London. He belonged to no school of art, being a law unto himself. He described his paintings as "nocturnes" and "symphonies." His most famous portraits are that of Carlyle in the Corporation Gallery at Glasgow, and that of the painter's mother, an arrangement in black and gray, now in the Luxembourg Gallery, Paris.

On July 20 there passed away the most influential personality of his time, Pope Leo XIII. Gioacchino Pecci was made a cardinal in 1853 for his distinguished services as Bishop of Perugia during the troublous period of revolution which began in 1848. At the annexation of Umbria to the dominions of Victor Emmanuel in 1860 he protested earnestly against what he considered the spoliation of the Church and the tampering of the civil authority with the law of marriage. He became papal camerlengo in 1877, and on the death of Pius IX in 1878 was chosen Pope, taking the name of Leo. In the twenty-five years of his rule in the chair of St. Peter, he exercised a benign influence, tending to international peace and concord. In philosophy he was a follower of Aquinas, believing that in the works of this schoolman are to be found the best means of solving the problems propounded by modern philosophy. In a famous encyclical, "Rerum Novarum," promulgated in 1891, he met the claims of socialism in a broad and liberal spirit. Its defense of private property in land called forth a brilliant reply from

PARIS UNDERGROUND RAILWAY DISASTER

1903

Henry George, the American economist, in the form of a book entitled, "The Condition of Labor."

On August 4 the College of Cardinals at Rome elected as Leo's successor Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto, Patriarch of Venice. He assumed the title of Pius X at his coronation on August 9.

Engineers had generally agreed upon underground railroads as the coming form of rapid transit in great cities. Consequently a disaster in a city railroad tunnel in Paris, in which 100 lives were lost through the cars taking fire, assumed more than ordinary importance. In the operation of the subway which was building in New York it was decided to have fireproof cars.

It was now about time to hear rumblings of revolutionary thunder from that seat of storms, the Balkans. On August 15 Bulgaria discharged a bolt at Turkey that would have roused any other than "the sick man of Europe" to instant and vigorous reprisal. This was a memorandum to the Powers phrased in refreshingly plain terms. It stated with convincing detail the outrages which the Bulgarian population in Macedonia suffered from Turkish rule. It resented the imputation of the Turkish Government that Bulgaria was fomenting the revolution, pointing to the fact that the latest disturbances had taken place in the Monastir district of Macedonia, 200 miles from the Bulgarian frontier, and hence far out of range of any possible Bulgarian filibusters.

Though the Sultan paid little attention to the Bulgarian thunder, he did sit up and take notice when the Russian bear began to growl. In the early part of August a Turkish soldier had murdered the Russian consul at Monastir. The Porte made a formal apology, and promises of reparation. These were unsatisfactory to the Russian Government, which replied with a series of demands for radical administrative reforms. And it gave force to its reply by despatching a

1903

ZIONIST CONGRESS AT BASLE

war fleet to Turkish waters. This arrived on the 19th of August, but was withdrawn on the next day, at the urgent request of Turkey. It is an old game, thoroughly understood by both parties, for a European fleet to enter the Bosphorus to give the Sultan an excuse in the eyes of his subjects for yielding a point to the Powers. Whatever the arrangement made with the Russian fleet, it is certain, however, that the Macedonian patriots did not benefit. The Turks continued their massacres, and the patriots kept up their guerrilla tactics, hoping to provoke at last the intervention of the Powers.

The massacre of Kishineff had given a new impulse to the Zionist movement among the Jews-the establishment of a Hebrew nation in a country of its own. At a Congress of Zionist leaders at Basle, Switzerland, late in August, it was announced that the British Government offered land in British East Africa along the newly opened Uganda Railroad, to the proposed colony. Acceptance was strongly urged by Israel Zangwill, the English author, and other prominent Zionists, but the proposition was rejected by the majority of the Congress as deviating from their one aim-the acquisition and settlement of the fatherland of the race, Palestine.

October 8 was the date set by the treaty between Russia and China for the former to evacuate Manchuria. She did not comply with her agreement on the ground that her interests in the country were too great for her to withdraw her troops without certain guaranties which had not yet been granted by China. That she had gone on increasing these interests after her promise to evacuate, however, deprived even this flimsy excuse of any credence. Not only were the soldiers in possession not withdrawn from Manchuria, but on the 29th of the month Russian troops entered Mukden, the capital.

Theodor Mommsen, regarded by many as the greatest