"Oh, What Happiness!"

In every Turkish city and major town the dawn came up one day last week with the earth-shaking thunder of a 100-gun artillery salute. Three days and nights of sleepless rejoicing, songs, dancing in the streets and every sort of Turkish whoopee began by express order of the Ghazi Mustafa Kemal, blond "Victorious Mustafa the Excellent."*

The tenth birthday of the Turkish Republic had dawned and Turks had much to rejoice over. Amid world depression they are prospering. Their budget balances. Private deposits in Turkish banks have octupled since the Young Turks ousted the last Sultan, flabby, sponge-brained Mohammed VI. This year Turkey is on the second lap of a Three-Year Plan of economic development supervised by U. S. experts. To her tenth birthday party last week came the second most notable man in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, dashing Red War Minister Klimentiy ("Klim") Voroshilov who is definitely more popular though less potent than stern Red Dictator Stalin.

Had Turkey's President, Mustafa the Excellent, wished royal guests for Turkey's birthday party he might easily have had them. All the little lands of Eastern Europe have now awakened to the new importance of Young Turkey. Within the last few months President Kemal has been host to King Alexander and Queen Marie of Jugoslavia, Premier Tsaldaris of Greece and Premier Combos of Hungary. All came for preliminary talks looking toward realization of Kemal's plan for a Balkan Federation economically uniting Turkey, Greece, Rumania, Jugoslavia and Bulgaria. But against this proposal is the French counterplan for a Danubian Federation of Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Jugoslavia and Bulgaria. Today Turkey, not yet sure of the new Balkan friends she has been making, still cleaves to Russia, until recently her only friend.

Until Russia's potent "Klim" arrived in Turkey last week no member of the Politbureau or Steering Committee of Moscow's ruling Communist Party had ever ventured outside the Soviet Union since it was founded. Obviously enjoying himself, War Minister "Klim" arrived with his ferociously bewhiskered colleague in arms, Cavalry General Budenny, and jovial Soviet Education Minister Bubnov. All three big Reds brought their wives. They sailed up the Golden Horn escorted by a squadron of the Red Fleet, disembarked amid thunderous salutes at Istanbul (once Constantinople) and went to sleep in a luxurious Wagon-Lit which carried them 300 mi. up to Ankara (once Angora), the hill-surrounded capital which President Kemal has built at a cost of more than $75,000,000. He never felt safe at Istanbul, too easily menaced by the Great Powers' war boats.

In Ankara and in every other Turkish city, town and hamlet Turks have been taught to sing during the past month a brand new "Tenth Anniversary March of the Republic" with which they greeted "Klim":

Oh, what happiness were these ten years for us:

We have created a new hearth!

Tomorrow is full of a mighty hope.

We have torn up wild weeds

And put down shining rails.

In every struggle

The Ghazi leads us!

Ahead of all nations is the place of Turkey!

Ten Years ago General Mustafa the Excellent and his Young Turks had al ready beaten the Allies at the Dardanelles, ousted the Sultan and beaten the Greeks (whom David Lloyd George set against them) before they proceeded to found the Turkish Republic at 8 p. m. on Oct. 29, 1923.

At that hour the Turkish Grand National Assembly proclaimed the Republic with Kemal as President and entitled him to unlimited reelection. The genius of his program lay in that he renounced all the former non-Turkish possessions of the Ottoman Empire--Syria. Palestine, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt. Unlike new Germany, new Turkey is led by men who have resolutely forgotten the past. From the start President Kemal, like President Roosevelt ten years later, launched his country on a policy of economic nationalism. Incidental to this basic policy, and far more spectacular, were his Westernizing reforms, his turning of Turkey's face from East to West:

1924--Abolition of the Califate (Islamic Papacy) and perpetual banishment from Turkey of all members of the once royal and spiritual House of Osman. 1925--Turkish men coerced to wear the hat instead of the fez, Turkish women encouraged to drop the veil. (To pious males hat-wearing caused spiritual agony, since the brim of the hat prevented them from touching their foreheads to the floor in prayer and Islamic ritual demands that one pray covered.)

1926--Adoption by Turkey of the Swiss civil code making polygamy a crime.

Abolition of Islam as the State religion, with toleration of all faiths, including Islam.

Christian schools in Turkey forbidden to proselytize Turks who had wavered from Islam.

1928--Abolition of the Arabic alphabet and substitution of the Latin in a nation-wide drive so intensive that Dictator Kemal himself taught alphabet classes of high Turkish officials.

1929--Adoption of a high tariff and embargo policy to correct Turkey's unfavorable trade balance. Successful retreat into economic nationalism.

1930--Ford assembly plant opened near Istanbul and President Kemal launched a nation-wide program of building roads on which U. S. cars of all price classes predominate.

1932--Turks obliged by Kemal to adopt family names.

Turkey elected the 56th member of the League of Nations, after being seconded by her old enemy Greece.

The Turkish Three-Year Plan (see below) launched by swank little Premier Ismet Pasha.

Turkey's Three-Year Plan was launched after Dictator Kemal's right- hand man, Premier Ismet, had visited Moscow and Rome (TIME, June 13, 1932), arranged for the barter of Soviet and Italian machinery in exchange for Turkey's tobacco, cotton and other natural products.

More than 1,000 mi. of new railways have been built, copper and gold mines brought into production and the Government is buying tractors and developing agriculture on a near-Soviet scale.

Not a rush job, the Turkish Three-Year Plan is intended to lay a foundation for future industrialization rather than to achieve it in 1934. Under Dictator Kemal, as under Dictator Stalin, mass propaganda is rousing backward Turks toward new horizons. Typical is the vow which every Turkish school child must repeat daily:

I am a Turk, honest and industrious. My duty is to protect those weaker than I, to respect my elders, to love my country sincerely. My ideal is to raise myself higher and to continue in the path of progress. I make a gift of my life to the life of Turkey.

*Good at mathematics, Mustafa was nicknamed Kemal ("Excellent") at the Military Academy. After he beat the Greeks in the War of 1920-22 all Turkey nicknamed him Ghazi ("Victorious").

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.