The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1917-10-12
Men Loaded On the Rats and
Dumped In the River
WOMEN WERE CLUBBED
Children and Infants Left To
Starve; Later Cared For
BY MosIems
ASSOCIATED Press DiSpatch.l
rom MONDAYS Daily,

extirpate the Armenian Christians
from Turkey was made in Germany
and suggested to the Turks by Ger
man officials" and where the Ar
menians made a stand against theil
Moslem oppressors it was German Of
ficers and German cannon that broke
them up, according to the Rev. Alpine
us Newell Andrus, senior missionary
for the Congregational station al
Mardin, Mesopotamia, who told OF
his experiences here today. The far
sighted Germans, he said, were look
ing forward to the time when they
expected to gain complete dominion in
Turkey and they wanted to eliminate
the Armenian question by getting rid
of the Armenian race.
Zone of the ways the Turks went
about it was to load Armenian men on
goatskin RATS on the understanding
that they were to be deported- and
then they were taken out and dumped
into the Tigris river and drowned, u
he said. This was the fate of at
least $500 men from the vicinity of
Diarbekir and its suburgs in northern
Mesopotamia.
Dumped Like Garbage.
Armed soldiers were on the RATS,
which each carried about seventy
five to a hundred victims. Kurd boat
men rowed them out into deep water.
Then the soldiers would drive the
Armenians to one side of the RATS
until they tilted and dumped them in
to the river. If they tried to climb
back on the RATS the soldiers and
boatmen beat them and shot them
until all persisted.
The Germans and the Turkish gov
eminent, DR.. Andrus said, looked upon
the destruction of the Armenians in
Turkey as cold-blooded political
move, and gave the actual execution
of it into the hands of the Kurds and
Turkish soldiers who went about it
with the ferocity of Moslem religious
fanaticism.
"At first the Turkish government
objected to the German suggestion of
the removal of the Armenians on the
grounds that they were valuable as
artisans and business men and neces-
airy to the economic life of the coun-
try" continued DR.. Andrus, "but the
Germans promised to supply men to
take their places. Having persuaded
the Turks, the Germans then left it
to them to put the plan into effect.
Were Baked Some Places
But the Turkish soldiers in some
places could not overcome the ArmenianS.
AT Urfa, the. city of suffering, the Ar
menians resolved to resist deportation
and defend their innocent families and
their church. They barricaded them
selves in their stone houses in their quar-
ter For ten days they withstood ali the
efforts of the Turkish soldiery to dis
lodge them In the end they would dsei have
brought and trained cannon upon their
stronghold and forced them to flee.
Surely such people should not be
them to be cared for $500 in Urfa and
nearby. Will not the American people
help care for them? Conditions in Meso-
potamia have not been brought much to
the public attention for the reason that
there has not been anyone to report the
state of things there and because no re-
port could get past the rigid Turkish
censorship.
Armenians Were Deported
More than 10000 Armenians were de-
ported from Diarbekir and its suburbs. II
was some of these who were dumped in
to the Tigris and drowned. The leading
and rich men were among these. The
others were detailed TO dig trenches and
t odo other work with only an insuffi-
cient allowance of bread daily. Later they
were shot in groups, when no longer able
to endure the hardships imposed.
There followed an epidemic of cholera
and then scourge of typhus. Before the
some 10000 inhabitants. The last heard
there were only 1000 citizens left there
''Women were dubbed, stabbed or shot
down on the Mesopotamian plains and
left for dead in piles on the ground OF
thrown into old cisterns. Some coming
to consciousness, crawled out from the
piles and up from the cisterns and drag
ged themselves up the mountain to our
hOspital at Mardin to have their wounds
dressed.
Took Pity On Babies.
pity upon more than a thousand babies
of deported women who, in passing
through, left those they had no milk tc
feed nor strength to carry as they went
on to their lingering deaths on the plains
below. When the local government of.
ficials learned that Moslems had the
little ones they issued an order that who
ever harbored any Armenian would bt
visited with the treatment dealt to the
Armenians.
1.-THE Moslems therefore, secretly turned
the little ones over to Christian familie:
who clandestinely cared for them until
their resources were exhausted. And nov
the latest information from Mardin ]:
that unless funds are Immediately forth
coming the thousand orphans must b'
turned out upon the streets to starve
Help must be regular and continuous
The committee for Armenian and Syrian
relief has decided that S. a month PEI
II cents a day. Who will add one mor'
child to his family and reckon the L
cents along with what he is spendins
daily on his other children and at th
end Of each month send the So to thu
committee?''
Andrus Narrowly Escaped.
Dr. Andrus himself narrowly escanet
execution at the hands of the Turks be-
cause of his work at Mardin in succor
ing the suffering. He was ordered to h
court nartialed. which under the condi
lions, he said. meant "mock trial an,
the cutting off of the defendants head
The Armenian embassy, however, hear
of the order and interfered so that it wa
rescinded and a decree of exile issue'
instead.
DR.. Andrus. who was born in New
York City and graduated from William
college in 1864 and Union Theological
seminary, spent fifty years in missionar,
work at Mardin.
State Synod at ST. Cloud.
The state meeting of the synot
will be held at the Presbyterian
church at st. Cloud, beginning Tues
day evening and will be in session
three days. The following person
~ IL