The Cordele dispatch. (Cordele, Ga.) 19??-1971, 1916-10-18
PATRIOTIC PRIDE
STRONGLY URGED
By JOHN MOORE WALKER.

tan inhabitants of Armenia, Syria,
and Palestine have been subjected by
their Turkish masters. 1t will not be
amiss, however, for more of tie de-
tails CT that suffering, well night I'M
imaginable, to be given a wided pub
licity.
| The Armenian massacres began with
| the able-bodied male population. These
men would be summoned to assemble
81 some convenient place outside the
village, and when none had been over
looked and had been conveniently
rounded up, the entire lot of them
would be butchered Sometimes, the
men would be sent off under guard os-
tensibly to a nearby town-in few
hours the guard would return without
the prisoners who would never thence
| forward be heard Of
The next stage would be horrible in
| the extreme. Now the whole popula
| ton of village, the men having been
disposed of, would be ordered to pre-
pare to leave at certain hour for an
| unknown destination. There were no
exceptions for the aged, the i'll, the
| women in pregnancy. No household
goods, no animals, no extra clothing
could be taken along. Food supply
and bedding was limited to what per-
son could carry. And they had to go
on foot under the burning sun through
parched valleys and over snow cover
ed mountain passes When htey would
pas through Christian villages where
| the deportation order had not yet been
| received, the travellers would not be
allowed to receive food or miniStra-
lions of any sort The sick and the
aged and the wee children would fall
| by the roadside and not rise again.
| Women in the throes of child birth
| would be urged along by bayonet and
| whip until the moment of delivery and
| would then be left to bleed and to die.
The likely girls would be seized for
| harems or raped day by day by the
guards until death would come as a
merciful release. Those who could
would commit suicide, crazed mothers
would throw their little chilrden into
the river to avoid further suffering,
hundreds of thousands of women and
innocent children died of hunger, of
thirst, of exposure, of shame.
An English woman who witnessed
portion of this pilgramage OF death
writes: "Ohi if they would only mas
sacre them and be done with it, as in
The Hamidian days! | stood there at
the Adana railway station, and from
the carriages the women would hold
hold up their children, and croy for
water. They had got beyond the de-.
sire for bread Only water! there
was pump I went down on my
knees to beg the Turkish guards to
let me give them a drink. But the
tain moved on, and the last l heard
was the cry of these lost souls. That
was not once. 1t was almost every
day the same thing"
Extracts from the report of the
American board, "Women giving birth
to children upon the road were for
hidden to delay by the way, and often
died from hemorrhage as they strug-
gled on Armenian professors
in American colleges, with university
| degrees from European and American
universities, were tortured by pulling
out their hair and beard and their fin
ger nails, by hanging them by their
arms for hours, and by beating. They
were afterwards killed"
"The shortest method of disposing
Of the women and children concentrat-
ed in various camps" in the words of
another report" was to burn them
Fire was set to large wooden sheds in
| Alidian, MegrOkam, Khashkegh, and
other Armenian villages, and these alb
sOlutely ehlplesS women and children
were roasted to death. Many went mad
and threw their children away; some
| knelt down and prayed amid the
| flames in which their bodies were
burning; others shrieked and cried for
help which came from nowhere. And
| the eXecutioners who seem to. have
| been unmoved by their unparalleled
savagery grasped the infants by one
| leg and hurled them into the fire"
Now, reader, some of there wretched
ones have escaped through the fiery
trial, hard as it is to believe, only,
however to die of starvation-that is
| if help is not rendered them. quota
ton from a letter of one who is en-
gagged in their relief describes their
plight: "The people fight for the clot-
ted blood of killed animals, they gnaw
the bones which they find on. dung
hills, they look for grains of oats in
| horse-dung, to eat them, they eat the
flesh of fallen animals and men. Many
who cannot bear it any longer, throw
themselves and their children into
the Euphrates Such horrible things
we see daily and can do nothing but
| implore Godo for help and mercy. And
we consider it our duty to infor myou
of this terrible need. Dear sisters and
brothers, we beseech you, for Christs
sake, to come in some way to the aid
of this poor, miserable people, to save
it from horrible starvation. IT pos
sible. send someone who himself can
see all this. When at all possible send
osme rich and lasting help"
"Many die of hunger" writes an,
other, 'every day. The grave dlggers
are always busy. The groans and
lamentations in the market place, in
the streets, and out in the quiet des
ert give our hearts no rest. The chill
dren on the dung-hills! All! What am
I trying to describe! The pen fails
me, beg for them for help, for mer
cy."
The man or the woman who has
read thus far is not worthy OF the
name human being, if his heart has re
mained untouched. The SUFFERING
these people have passed through II
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