THE SICK MAN'S DICTATOR

While political amateurs bore the world with analyses of Rivera, Mussolini and Pangalos, Mustapha Komal Pasha, magic enchanter who affixed the brim to the fez and drew the vell from the fact of Turkish womankind, goes unheralded and unsung, as if social traditions were not a thousand times more difficult to upset than political dicta.

Nevertheless, he has resurrected "the sick man of Europe", doomed to an early death by the World War, revived him on tonic of blood and iron at Smyrna and established him convincingly at Angora. Once more that redoubtable invalid plays the classic Ottoman game of fast-and-loose with Russia and Britain. He signs the Lausanne pact, and as readily a treaty of amity with Russia. He drives the unbeliever into Greece. He toys with the wily Briton at Chanak, Mosul, and in Irak. He has the very temerity to throw a wrench into the World Court, a deed pardonable only in provincials from Idaho and Wisconsin.

There is no Republic but Turkey, and Mustapha is its President,--a part which he acts with consummate skill. A recent issue of the Westminster Gazette carries tales of the potential impetuosity of this morose leader. Intimate stories of him recall the "private annals of Peter the Great." Their verisimilitude is easily credible in view of the likeness of the two chieftains in other respects; both occupied themselves in changing the facades of the social structure they ruled from Oriental to Occidental. Mustapha's literary proclivities lean toward the perusal of German military memoirs. Yet he knows that he reads nothing that transcends his own life. His stern rotogravure face must sometimes be wreathed in smiles, as he laughs at the world behind its back.