The Topeka state journal., 1916-05-03
Last Massacre of Armenians at
Van, Says DIR. USHER.
More Terrible Than Any Other
of Six He Saw.
RIVERS CHOKED WITH DEAD
Speaker Is a Medical Mission
airy in Asiatic Turkey.
He Is Here to Organize Local
Relief Committees.

The defense of Van, Turkey, by Ar
menians against their Turkish perse-
dren, and other experiences of a med
ical missionary in Turkey are incl
dents related by DR.. Clarence D.
Usher, missionary for the American
Board of Missions in Van, who arrived
in Topeka Tuesday to organize auxil-
iary committees for Armenian and
Syrian relief.
DR.. Usher was for eighteen years a
medical missionary at Van His eX-
periences in that time included a sin
gle handed combat against epidemics
that swept through the city, the wit
Messing of TnaSSacreS of ArmenianS,
outrages on their women and children
and a nine-day journey on a horse
borne litter to undergo an operation
performed without an anaesthetic-
Following the last general massa-
ere, all the rivers were choked with
the dead, and the banks of Lake Van
were lined with drifted bodies said
Dr. Usher. 1T was the worst l ever
saw and l have seen six massacres
there in six years
From the first, the Christians ex-
perienced the greatest difficulty in
protecting their women and later they
were altogether unable to do so. Thou
sands of women threw themselves in
to rivers and lakes to escape Turkish
soldiers.
True Story Never Told
The true story of the Kurd out
RACES has never been told. I have seen
troopers who were crack shots shoot
away the breasts of mothers who were
nursing their babies to prove to their
comrades that they could do this with
out killing either the mother or the
child l have seen kurds dismount
and with their wicked looking knives
make upward plunges disembowling
young girls in the presence of their
parents.
"On one occasion the governor of
Arjish called all the men of Cigantz
by trades, with their apprentices
sending gendarmes for those that
were tardy. They were divided into
groups of fifty, marched out and assoc
shot down and tumbled into trenches
This was the most merciful of massa-
creS."
DE- usher gave up medical prac-
| tIce paying several times more than
his salary missionary to take up
the work in Turkey. Sixteen years
were spent in Van, two in other parts
Of the country. At Van. which is a
city of so, 600 DR.. Usher is head of a
hospital of fifty beds. maintained by
the American Board of Missions
Stricken With Typhus. sE...,-
During the siege of Van by the Rus
sian army short time ago. DIR. Usher
was stricken with typhus While fight
ing the disease in the city, where he
Dr. usher obtained no medical atten-
ton until General Nicholaief of the
Russian army heard of his condition
and sent an army physician to look
after him. For nine days he was car
ried on a litter On the journey which
terminated across the Russian bor-
der. he contracted pneumonia and for
a time it appeared that he could not
recover.
! At the same time that Dr. Usher
I from n fa
also had contracted the disease She
/ died, however, on the fourteenth day
| of the doctors illness and while he
was unconscious.
DIR. Usher is visiting at the home
of o. H. White, 1927 Lane street. He
will be in Kansas City Friday but will
return TO Topeka Saturday. when he
will address the Commercial club dur
/ ing the lunch hour. Sunday morning
/ he will be in st. Joseph while in the
evening he will address a union meet
/ ing at the Central Congrega gationa1
| church.