Litchfield enquirer., 1867-01-17
CANDIDA.
EXTRACTS FROM THE SPEECH OF WENDELL
 PHILIPS.

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 meeting was held at Boston on the 7th inst, on behalf of the Cretan insurgents, at which a powerful speech was delivered by Wendell Philips, from which we make the following extracts:-
 Crete stands to-day under the heel of 6 despotisin which is but another name for a faith which claims the right to exterminate everything that does not believe its own creed. It is not pure despotism like that which existed in feudal Europe, and in an- cient times, but 1t Is something which calls itself a State, founded on the principle that one portion of the human race has no right to live. Am shining against Amer ican ethics, against Christian ethics, when l say that a power which denies the right of the antagonistic Cretes even to life, has no right in the eye of God and Justice to assert its authority of government over races and realms that have for :, ,O0O years denied it's creed? If that is not justice, then one part of the human race, under the mask of government, has right to ex- terminate the other. And yet this is the form of government against which Crete has maintained her perpetual protest; and though seeming peace, under the guise of vast taxes and cruel assaults on life, honor, comfort, prosperity, permits to the Chris tan population the toleration of an exis- tence, the moment the slightest arm lifted against the Government justifes the Turk In falling back upon the Koran, his war of eAtermlnation is not exceptional it is the 1 cardinal constitution of his realm. Re member, then, we friends of Greece are not asking for the sympathy of the Chris tain and civilized world for one section of nation contending for political rights against another, but we are asking for a race unaLterably Christian, never divided, never fairly conquered, the liberty to rise, until there IS no hope in rising, against despotism concealed behind creed which not only tolerates but orders the extermi- nation of man, woman and child For l one, am ready to say in the face of all civilization, that 1 see no right in any Christian nation to acknowledge such alli- ance and friendship for power resting on such claim as will prevent any of its citi- zens from stretching forth their hands with any amount or quality of aid to the vic tlms who rise up against such oppression Applause. can see @ reason in interna- tion law why, if France should rise against her government, or Germany against hers, bad as we think them, there might be limit beyond which the expediency and rules of law of Christendom itself would not permit us to step. But the Turk is only encamped in Europe. He has never yet, viewed in the light of the principles of justice and law, advanced the first claim to recognition as an equal in the sisterhood of nations. That power which undertakes to starve women and children, to deny to the victim race the right to appeal to its | own tribunals, which says to the Christian, "Your faith shuts you out from testifying to injury before the law" which at the first indication of resistance, exterminates population, l contend has no rightful exis- tence as 8 government. Applause Re- collect, in the second year of the old con- fiict, which commenced in 1921, the pros- porous, fruitful, happy Island of Scio, with some 15O, 900 inhabitants, herself quiet and neutral, was visited by some two or three thousand patriots and some resistance was made to Turkish law; upon which the l Government let loose upon the island an army of some 15,O00 or 20, 900 men, and in beings of that population of 150,OOO were left upon the land. Only 10000 women and children, sold into slavery, survived of the whole population; the rest were butch cred on their own hearths. Is that what civilization interprets as war? Are there any rights of belligerency to be acknowl- edged to such a power? x
 l The world owes a recognition to Greece
 Greece, since the first page of history, no matter what her changes, has never ceased to be Greece. That is one claim. Second ly, she has another claim upon us, that in every little privilege which events have &C., corded her, she has shown wonderful re- cuperative power against all previous op- pression. 1 recognize we'll that rule which l think covers all cases of the oppressor and his victim; that though 1t may be true, as Homer said:
 l ''Whatever day
 Makes man slave, takes half his worth away
 it is still more true, that whatever day makes man a tyrant takes aN his worth away. [Applause.] Oppression does more harm to the oppressor than to it's victim. 1 That Is the reason why with all his faults of necessity and circumstance, the Greek, rising from these centuries of oppression, is still infinitely higher than the Turk who has been able to domineer over him. In every scale that weighs the character of their culture and civilization, there is no pretense even of comparison. True, the ming. But cunning is always the only de- fense of the weak against the strong The strong man, like the strong brute, defends himself by force, and the weaker man, like the weaker animal, defends himself by the keenness of his cunning. The very op- Lpression that robs men of the power to re- sist, develops in the victim race this part of it's intellect. But in spite of that the Greek has shown, in the prosperity that he has reaped, in the increase of population, in the great increase of wealth, in his accu- mutation of culture, in his schools and uni versailles, that only free him from the su- perincumbent weight, he will yet give us the eastern half of the Mediterranean back to civilization. In my view, the Greek is the New-Englander of the East. Men call him idle; but he has only been indolent when 1 there was no security for the fruits of his in- dustry He is like ourselves in his character istics. He wishes to do with his brains, and not to be obliged to resort to the manual drudgery of his hands. The Yankee race scouts the primeval curse [laughterl; seeks to get its living without the sweat of it's brow. It harnesses steam, and sends the lightning on errands. It invents. It undertakes to make man superior to the clements by the vigor of his intellect. The Greek does. the same. Give him freedom; and he runs the same race. But that New England race would have fought for the right to invent