The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-11-28
Thousands Put to Death and
Their Homes Raced by
Moslem Bands.
MASSACRE THEIR PASTIME.
Official Accounts of Repeated Upris-
ings of the Oppressed Race Are
Fabrications.
Especial Correspondence of The United Pressl

i
the European manager of the United Press,
who is now in Constantinople. The latter
from full confidence in the American
Christian men who sent it and from care
full personal observation is able to forward
it to the American press as all impartial
statement of facts. The statement has the
full Endorsement of Minister Terrell:
During the month OF October consid-
cradle part of the Armenian district in the
provinces of Trebizond, Erzeroum, Bitlis,
Van, Harpoot, Diarbekir and Sivas has
been laid waste, and a number, not yet
fully known, of the Armenian inhabitants
have been killed by men intent on crush
ing into impotence the Armenians in
Turkey. As the awful tidings have come
in bv driblets the Turkish Government
has diligently teIegraphed abroad in re-
gard to each place that Armenians had at
tackled Mussulmans, thus arousing frenzy
of indignation which could not easily be
controlled, but that order had been re-
stored after some loss of life.
THE effect of these kilograms has been
to cultivate belief that there has been
some general uprising of Armenians and
that We are in the presence of calamity
ceedings on the part of the Armenians
themselves. Natural Indignation with the
Armenians for rising at the very moment
when the reform scheme was about to be
put into operation may be moderated when
It IS known that up to this date the only
authentic uprising of Armenians has taken
place at Zeitoun, in the province of Aleppo,
and far from the scene of the massacres.
Moreover, in such cases as offer oppor-
tunity for examination, several circum-
stances cited in the Turkish dispatches as
causes for the bloodshed have proved to
have been incidents and not causes of the
massacres. Men who found themselves as
sailed by the mob and happened to have
arms in their houses, in mum Der OF cases
defended their lives and their families to
the last. At Diarbekir, where the Christians
are generally armed, they made a hard
fight for life and some 1900 Mosems are
said TO have been killed. But aside from
this case, the destruction of from 10000 to
10 900 Christians has not cost the Turks
more than 200 or 800 lives.
Proper comprehension Of what has
taken place depends upon knowledge of
what went before. In the latter part of
Septembe while the powers we're renew
ing their demands for the acceptance by
Turkey of the reform scheme, word began
to come in from all of the provinces that
the Moslems were being armed, while the
disarmament OF the Christians was being
pressed with great determination. In
some cases the Government officials
openly distributed arms and ammunition
to the Moslem phalanstery. In many
cases MosIems were found buying arms in
the open market who had no money to buy
bread. In other cases the officials sold to
the Moslems the arms which they confis-
Gated from the Christians, thus making a
useful profit.
cat the same time the Kurds of
the mountainous district of Dersin,
lying between Erzingan and Harpoot,
began to assemble, saying that they
had received orders from Seekki Pasha,
the commander of the fourth
army corps, to devastate the Ar
menian villages, taking the plumber for
their pay Whether such orders were
given no one knows. They promptly be-
gan to seize the cattle and sheep of the
Armenians in all of the surrounding
regions, seeming anxious to secure the
flocks and to get them out of harms way
before the serious work began.
During the early days of October, Turks
in all the six provinces openly declared
they were going to massacre the Chris
tIans. The Armenian Patriarchate and
some of the foreign Embassies at Con-
stantinople were overwhelmed with pite-
Gus appeals, based on blood-curdling
threats, for protection from the Moslem
population. Terror reigned among all the
Armenians of the region because they
were HELPLESS and unarmed in the midst
of a seething mass of hate and fanaticism.
In Erzeroum about this time large num-
bers of Moslem villagers, it is said, began
to come into the city. eager ID buy empty
sacks. It was curious fad, this passion
for empty sacks. The price OF empty
bags tripled. At last the Armenian deal
ers began to suspect some uncanny secret
behind the demand for sacks. Itwas after
wards shown that they were used to carry
off the property plundered from the mas
acred Armenials.
The statement sketches at length the
horrors of the assault upon the Armenians,
the destruction of their villages and the
terrible slaughter to which they were SUBJ
1ecfeQ, showing LudI SAOiA wv" AAi--SS -
area from TrebIzond to Diarbeklr, and
from the Russian frontier at Erzeroum to
Sivas has been given up to massacre and
pillage, and gives a detailed statement OF
the number killed in cities and villages,
so far as known, l3,2Oo.
very low estimate of the number thus re-
duced to absolute want by the loss OF all
of their movable property is 100000 souls,
OF whom three-fourths are the wives ana
children of the ruined traders or farmers.
ALI trade is broken up. All agriculture
in the devastated district is blotted out,
for the stock has been carried off and the
implements generally burned. All the
poor semblance of manufacturing indus
tries in these districts has been wiped out.
Many who were wealthy are on the verge
OF starvation. and the strongest faint at
the prospect of the woes the pitiless winter
will add to their calamities. The state
ment, continuing, says:
America cannot send armies to ayenge
the crime against humanity. Let it rise In
a National movement of irresistible force
to send out wise, bipartisan men, equipped