The San Francisco call., 1896-01-25
Crimes Unparalleled for Ages
Committed in the Turk
ish Empire.
FRYEs MOST FIERY SPEECH
If Necessary the United States Should
Send WarShipS to Protect
Americans.

WASHINGTON, D. c., Jan. 24.-The
concurrent resolution reported last
Wednesday from the Committee on
Foreign Relations on the subject of the
Armenian outrages was taken up in the
Senate to-day and was passed after highly
interesting discussion.
Cullom (R.) of Illinois, a member OF
that committee, addressed the Senate. He
said that he was amazed astonished and
appalled, at the brief accounts which he
had had of the awful carnival OF havoc,
destruction and bloodshed which had pre-
vailed for time in a country with which
the United States maintained amicable
relations. The concurrent and accumu-
lated testimony of hundreds and thousands
of intelligent people, Christian and Jew,
Catholic and Protestant, European and
American, made it absolutely certain that
q massacre of innocents, unparalleled for
ages, had been perpetrated in the Armenian
provinces of Turkey; fire and sword had
swept away over many square miles OF
territory the last vestige of Armenian
human life.
Over 200 villages the demon of dam
nation and ianaticism had spread ruin,
desolation and death. The English Gov
ernment had a direct obligation resting on
1t TO protect the Armenians, and yet moth
ing had been done by it nor by any of the
other powers looking TO the enforcement OF
their treaty obligations beyond mere dip
lomatie correspondence between them and
the Sultan. It had therefore seemed to the
Committee on Foreign Relations that it
could do nothing less than appeal to the
powers to carry out their pledges as it did
in the concurrent resolution. AS to the
right of the United States to protect its
citizens everywhere, no odds were asked
from any nation on earth.
Cullom quoted from speech of Daniel
Webster these words: There is some
thing among men more capable of shaking
despotic power than the lightning, the
whirlwind, the earthquakes, and that Is
the excited and aroused indignation of the
whole civilized world. "And he added that
he knew of nothing which had happened
in the world for centuries that more called
for interference than these slaughters OF
Armenian Christians.
Blanchard Cd of Louisiana thought
that the resolution did not go far enough,
and intimated that the Committee on
Foreign Relations had been slow in its re-
port. The committee was defended by
Frye (R.) of Maine, who made very fiery
speech against the Sultan and against the
European Governments, which had not in
terfeEed to protect the Armenians. He said
if he had his way the American Congress
would mem morlalize Russia to take posses
sion OF the Armenian provinces and would
inform her that the United States would
stand behind her in doing So And he de-
clared that if it were necessary to protect
American citizens and their property in
Turkey he would order United States ships
of war, in spite of ports and in spite of
agreements as TO the closing of the Dar-
danelles, to place themselves before Con-
stantinople and to give that protection to
which American citizens are entitled.
The concurrent resolution was passed
without division and now goes to the
House. 1t expresses the earnest hope that
European concert may speedily be given
its just effect in such decisive measures as
shall stay the hand of fanaticism ana law
less violence and shall secure the rights of
the unoffending Christians of the Turkish
empire.