Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1915-10-20
Armenian Atrocities Beyond
Control of European Pouers

of the lamb against the wolves was Of
fered in ex%tenuation. The inevitable prom
ise of the punishment of the ring leaders
was combined with the inevitable proposal
of guarantees for the future. And so with
a warning which the Porte must nave
found as tedious in its repetition as 1T was
futile in Its intent, the incident was char
acterized as unfortunate, and described
as closed.
After this. therefore because OF this.
Adana and its compeers rave been liter
ally completely o-versiadowed. The re-
port Of the committee, presided over by
Mr.. Crane, and composed Of a body OF
citizens of the United States, Of whose
ability. good faith. and Judgment there
can be no question, contains a careful
and detailed statement which, even when
shorn of Its more hideous particulars, re-
veals what is obviously a systematic and
calculated effort to destroy a people, ana
so for ever close the Armenian question.
It is the calculated deliberateness OF the
present atrocities which distinguishes
them from almost any other. Timour the
Tartar lived in an age when torture ana
| rapine were the cap Of governments
alike in London or Samarcand, In Paris
or Aleppo. in Rome or Pekin. The butcher
Of Adana may have acted on 1nstructlons'
but they were the instructions OF a crazy
degenerate in the Yildiz Kiosk. The re-
] pOIl VI M1I NIdlIS .
the present atrocities are the work not OF
an individual degenerate, not of the brutal
instincts of a licentious mob inf1amed by
bigotry and cupidity. but of what In Chris
| tan Europe. in the Twentieth century,
stands for a government.
! Upwards of a quarter of a century ago,
! after the exposure of the Bulgarian afro
! cities, Mr.. Gladstone demanded that, the
Turk should be flung bag baggage
out of Europe. What sane men and wom-
en- are asking themselves today Is: Are the
, members of the Committee of Union and
Progress to be permitted to travesty those
words In Asia any more than in Europe?
We have no quarrel with the TURK qua
Turk. II we know his limitations, we are
| equally aware Of his good qualities. Sin
years ago when the committee was pro-
! testing Its difficulties and its hopes to q
somewhat skeptical world, we sent q spe-
/ cial correspondent to ~Constantinople, and
permitted its spokesman to state their
! case in their own words. From that day
to this we nave waited patiently and en-
tirely in vain for the slightest evidence
of the intention to perform a single prom
Use.
On the contrary. when the committee
had involved itself quite unnecessarily
and quite deliberately in the present war.
ut unfurled the green flag, and pro-
claimed a jehad. Only the most ignorant
" kllG " VI Ao oARRO .
can plead ignorance of what this portcnd-
! ed. Had the influence and power OF the
I committee been equal to it's wickedness,
the world would lave been submerged In
an ocean of murder compared to which
the horrors in Armenia would have been
a mere puddle. It is for such reasons that
an end must be made Of Pachadom.
These are ultimate questions. however.
which must be decided with the termina-
ton of the war. What humanity is ask.
ing today Is, Can anything be done to
save the Armenians? There is. we believe.
one hope for the remnant. It Is the Inn
mediate n peremptory Intervention OF
the United States and Germany. Lord
Bryce we are aware has said the only
hope lies in Germany. Personally we
lave our reasons. and very strong ones.
for doubling whether the porte would now
listen to Germany alone.
Count BerEstorff, indeed, first went SO
far as to repudiate the atrocities, though
the British reports and those Of Mr..
suls in confirmation. Later he somewhat
qualified this by the admission that what
ever repression had taken place had been
necessitated by Armenian disaffection.
Now, first, the Armenians could scarcely
be expected to be intensely loyal; second.
they had long ago been disarmed; third.
practically all the younger men had been
forcibly enlisted to fight h allies. The
disaffection of old men. women. and chill
dren, provided with a few arms smuggled
for self-defense could not have been q
danger very terrible to the army Of Ana
tolia. We are SO sure that Count Bern
storff knows better than this, that we are
| equally sure that Germany's ally has de-
veloped into a Frankenstein. In such cir
cumstances 1t will a a stronger voice
than that of Berlin to make the monster
heed. The only possible voice. and we usa
the word possible advisedly. is that Of
! Mr.. Wilson.