Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-03-01
THE MAJESTY OF ARMENIA
Sorrows Crown of Sorrow Rests on the
Ancient Land
BY ISRAEL ZANGWILL
ct SAW all our women and my mi

at SAW all our women and my mother
i torn to pieces by the monsters who dis
puted for possession Of them" says the old
Princess in Candido, land I was left for
dead amid heap of corpses. For three
hundred leagues around similar scenes
were going on without any omission in the
five prayers a day prescribed by Mahomet."
1t is impossible in reading the evidence
as to the treatment of the Armenians in
the Ottoman Empire not to be reminded
of this and other episodes by which Vol
taire strove to disconcert the optimism of
his Pangoss Episodes, which, however
seemed to transcend the license of even
satirical invention and to have no warrant
in the actual facts of medieval history
Alas! we now know that Voltaire's imag-
ination fell below, did not exceed the dia-
bolsm of human nature at these moments
when, maddened by war lust aggravated
let us charitably admit, by war panic) it
returns to that prehistoric animal nature
through which the soul has slowly strug-
gled
From more than one area of the war
zone, from Belgium, from Galicia, from
Turkish Armenia, the same story reaches
us; the same dread saga of the wanderings
of whole populations under the spur of
massacre, grape, hunger. Little children
fall like flies by the wayside and new chill
dren are born on the march. Mothers go
mad. Girls throw themselves into the
rivers. Men are killed and buried like
dogs
But Belgium has almost all the world
for her friends and the faith in restora-
tion goes before her exiles like a pillar of
cloud by day and n pillar of fire by night,
Even the Jews of the Pale torn and tossed
between the alternate victors, begin to find
organized help and behold some faint CLEAN
of Zion upon the political horizon. on
Ararat alone no ark can rest. For Armenia
alone there is the cry without answer
"Watchman, what of the night?"
Only for minority can there be political
redemption. Let us at least bring physical
salvation TO their agonizing remnant.
Sister nations have been accustomed to
think the Armenians and the Jews. Both
hail from sister lands of the cradle OF civli-
zation.' Both come trailing clouds of glory
from the purple days of Persia and Baby
lon Both have borne the shock of the
ancient and medieval empires and of the
militant migrations of their races, and both
hold to their original faith-for, IL the
one was the first preacher of Jehovah, the
other was the first nation to profess Jesus
| And sisters, too, In sorrow, although exiled
scattered, prosecuted, massacred.
Sisters, forsooth yet not equal in suffer
| ing. Hitherto through the long centuries
| the crown of martyrdom has been pre
eminently lsraels And, as day by daN
during this war of wars there came to me
| by dark letter or whisper, the tale of hel
woes in the central war zone ] said to my
self, Surely the cup is full surely no peo
pie on earth has had such measure O.
gall and vinegar to drain.
But I was mistaken. One people ha,
suffered more. That people, whose ancien
realm held the legendary Eden, has nov
for abiding place the, pit of hell. bow
before this higher majesty of sorrow.
take the crown Of thorns from Israel's hea,
and place It upon Armenia's.