Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1917-09-20
EDDY Tells OF
RAVAGEs Of WAR
Address of Minister Returned
from Europe Causes Com
ment at COnvOcatiOn.

Middlebury, Sept. 13.-The public serv.
Ices OF the Congregational convocation
now being held In this village, Rave at
tracted large audiences, and the high
water mark Of these platform meetings
was reached last night when two adj
dresses were delivered by two men exc
perts in their line, and also who speak
from first hand knowledge.
The first address was made by Ralph
Harlow. a missionary of the American
board, recently returned from Turkey,
who gave a m recital Of the woes
OF the Armenians, exiled and massacred
by the Turks. He told of being an eye-
witness of the deportation in SO long trains
of cattle cars Of women and girls and old
men, the young men having already been
massacred. He had seen the sale to the
Turks OF pretty girls at 80 cents apiece to
be carried away into Moslem harems.
He told of train loads Of girls from four
to 10 years old, torn from their families.
herded into cattle cars and sent through
the country to be distributed along the
road to Moslem homes. He described a
scene where 2,0N women were used as
artillery targets, and of mothers throwing
their babies out Of car windows that they
might escape a worse fate. He drew q
picture Of the wife of Ambassador Nor
ganthaau appealing to the Turkish off,
cal for a stop to be put to such cruelties
only to be told, Madam, / planned that
massacre. 1t amuses me-"
Mr.. Harlow laid the whole blame for
the atrocities of Turkish massacres upon
the German power, and showed how Ger
man officers commanded Turkish troops,
issued the orders and saw that they were
carried out. and he wildly described the
literature printed in Germany and the
pictures and cartoons scattered broadcast
over the whole land which had for it's pur-
pose infiaming the people against the
Armenians and melting them to deeds Of
blood.
In spite Of all the dark picture the
speaker believed that at the close of the
war the missionaries would be permitted
to return to that country and take up the
work from which they had been driven.
The audience assembled had not recov-
cred from the dark picture drawn by
this speaker, when they were plunged
into deeper gloom by the address Of the
Rev. D. Brewer Eddy of Boston, associate
secretary of the American board, whose
topic was THE World Need" Mr.. Eddy
Is an orator Of frank. naked utterance
OF facts. The speaker has just returned
from the British camps in England and
France and he tore the mask off what he
called the conspiracy Of silence and spoke
Of what he had seen and heard abroad.
Mr.. Eddy said We were too far away
from the seat of war to realize what il
going on. but the world need Is shown in
the five million graves in Europe. the six
million prisoners Of war many of whom
are insane. the 1000 boys below Is years
OF age in one single prison. and the 60O,.
GOO French prisoners afflicted with tuber.
culosis. These things prove. he said, that
the burden of Europe's agony is such az
the world has never known.
The speaker then went on to draw a
darker picture Of the moral problem Of
the men in the trenches. He stated that
evidence unquesttoned proved that there
were 10000 cases Of venereal diseases
amoong the British troops in the hospitals
OF rance and England. He then turned
to America and indicted American soldier
Tor the same ~ofense. giving startling ng'
ures concerning conditions at Ell Paso
Texas. and at Camp Devens at Aver. HI
thought the church should face these facts
and remedy them. The address moved thu
audience as nothing else In the convention
and 1t has been the subject Of common
pro and con ever since.
The meetings to-day have continued
along the lines of the past, the lecturers
developing their various themes before
large audience. The convocation closes
tomorrow noon with the celebration Of
the Lords supper.