Shots at Crane

A great U. S. friend of small and backward peoples is Charles Richard Crane. Quite a trifle of his money went to help Professor Thomas Garrigue Masaryk found the new state of Czechoslovakia.*

All the squalid little Near Eastern states know that Mr. Crane was their friend as American Commissioner on Mandates in Turkey (1919); and he was a most popular U. S. Minister to China (1920-21). Throughout the U. S. almost any dainty faucet, bathroom jigger or giant sewer valve is apt to bear the impress CRANE. Therefore it was matter of interest and concern to millions when, last week, the automobile of Charles Richard Crane was savagely fired upon by Arabian bandits, 60 miles south of Basra, Irak.

Once upon a time Sindbad the Sailor set out on his Arabian Nights adventures from Basra. With Mr. Crane in Basra were his son John and the Rev. Henry A. Bilkerd, a Reformed Church missionary from Kalamazoo, Mich. They planned to set off at dawn for the Sultanate of Kuwait, 85 miles distant, despite the fact that nomadic and warlike subjects of the Great Sultan Ibn Saud of Nejd and the Hejaz were thought to be marauding not far off. Apparently Mr. Crane judged that his party would be safe, and with the best reason: in 1926 Sultan Ibn Saud had pledged eternal friendship to the Friend of Small Peoples, had royally entertained him at Jiddah.

Away onto the hot plain sped the Crane motor. Ten miles. At the village of Zubeir some shepherds shouted excitedly that there were bandits about. Twenty miles, thirty, forty. Every now and then Missionary Bilkerd would stand up in the machine and peer about, but he could see no bandits. Fifty miles, sixty, suddenly from behind rocks sprang the bandits, opened fire. . . .

Late that night the Crane car reached Basra again, bullet-riddled, bearing a dead man. Straight to the U. S. Consulate went the Friend of Small Peoples, and there he gravely told what had occurred:

"Mr. Bilkerd constantly surveyed the surrounding desert. As nothing untoward was visible, he suggested that it would be a pity to spoil our plans. So we proceeded at good speed.

"When we were about fifty miles south of Zubeir, shots rang out fired at a distance of about 200 yards, but nobody was in view owing to the undergrowth. Our Arab driver immediately turned the car around and with great presence of mind, swerved and went full speed.

"While bullets whizzed between and above us Mr. Bilkerd said, I am shot.'

"We helped him as best we could. Later he said, 'I am paralyzed,' and he died half an hour before we reached Zubeir."*

Since Sultan Ibn Saud is no friend of Great Britain, planes of the Royal Air Force roared out with alacrity from the British war base in Trans-Jordania to bomb the Arabs who had killed U. S. Missionary Bilkerd. As aviators go, those of the R. A. F. are a kindly and efficient lot, although one of them bombed and killed a detachment of British native troops near Peshawar, British India, last week, quite by accident. Those who flew out to avenge Dr. Bilkerd, however, returned with all their bombs intact, having seen no bandits.

Jews, Moslems and Christians attended the slain missionary's funeral, at Basra, last week, stared sympathetically at his young wife and four children.

*President Masaryk's son Jan is husband to Mr. Crane's daughter Frances.

*One Albert Hirschfeld, young New York artist, commented as follows when he returned last week from Irak and Europe on the French Liner Paris:

"If Mr. Crane's chauffeur had stopped when ordered by the brigands they would not have been fired on.

"Usually the bandits do not attack the persons they rob. They fire in the air and if the tourist car stops, all is well. The bandits take all the baggage and most of the clothing of their victims. Then they release the travelers and their automobile.

"One of the automobile services from Damascus to Bagdad always gets through because the company pays tribute regularly to the robber chief."