The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-23
THE PLEA OF ARMENIA
ophanage Famine and Poverty the Toll of the Turkish Mas
 sacres-A Natives Story of His Country's Trials.
By Y. NJ. KAItEKIN.

CThe writer of this plea for American representations in the Armenian Crisis is a son of one of the leading men of the province of Maamuret-ul-aziz in Gen. tral Armenia. His father was impover- ished by the pillage and massacres of 1895 and afterward government officials forced him to total bankruptcy by var ious devices common in Turkish govern ment circles. MT. Karelxin's father was away from home at the time of the last massacres and barely escaped. The son, a boy a little over 13 fell in dodg ing hatchet thrown at his head. His mother, who was near him, tainted at the sight. She lay in a pool of blood and the Turks, think her dead, left her there. The boy, after seeing his uncle killed, although wounded himself, ran until exhausted and lay among dead and wounded bodies till morning, while the Moslems mauled them over, giving the last blows that left only corpses be- hind.)
 To prevent-have I caught your gos- pei? To prevent-famine, orphanhood, dis tress. It is with such words that I be- speak the interest of Americans to pre- vent the slaughters of my countrymen in Asiatio Turkey.
 My plea is not a random one. After the 1895 and 1896 massacres central Ar menia became veritable field of orphan asylums. Different missionary organiza- tions, the French Roman Catholic, Ger man Lutheran, the American missions es- tabllshed scores of them at least two in each principal town, numbering in all in the neighborhod of 15O throughout the interior provinces.
 Furthermore, for IS months there has been famine in Asiauc Turkey. The 1S95 and 1896 massacres, brutal though they were, did not decrease the supply of breadstuffs, because the farmers had done their summer work and the massaeres came in October. Now, the disturbances are coming at critical time. This Is the month for the farmers to slant. Should the seed time go past and an- other summers crop fail, hunger would claim the country. Long, long before the outbreak of the present troubles 1t has been harassed in ways that leave it weak. The Christian is the farmer of Asiatio Turkey. The famine has not been of Gods sending.
 The old regime of the Sultan is wholly responsible for poor conditions. Bribery and oppression at the hands of subord- mate officials could be traced to his en- couragement. Chiefs of different kurd- ish tribes and influential Mohammedans have forcibly taken away the tillable land from Christians on one pretext or another, mainly threatening that they would betray them as revolutionary men
 kl,.. and have turned these titled lands into wild cattle pastures. On the other hand taxation has been growing heavier and heavier every year. The Sultans official goes to the poor widow who has only one son of IS, sole protector, who t1lls- the land with yoke of oxen, the only treasures that he owns, and sup ports his mother The official conducts away forcibly that yoke of oxen and sells 1t at auction and leaves him helpless.
 Orphanage famine and poverty-the toll of the massacre Is not complete even with these. We must add sickness. In 1895, in those cities that were along the rivers the bodies of the dead were thrown into the water after lying about the streets for a week or more. This years massacre, starting In the southern part of the country where the climate is very warm, and gradually spreading to the northern, has summer before it and will certainly mean cholera, for Mesopotamia is near to the sources of the plague in Arabia.
 We must see the Armenian cassacres in relation to the situation at Constantino- ple There are perhaps, 2,500,0O0 Armen- fans with probably 20000,000 Mohamme- dans in the country which they inhabit. They were loaded with taxes and famine was starting in the country when, last summer, constitutional government was