Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1917-05-22
Or. White, President Of Anatolia
College, Marsovan, Turkey,
Speaks Interestingly.

DR.. Geo. E. White, president oi
Anatolia college, Marsovan, Turkey.
in-Asia, occupied the Congregations
church pulpit Sunday morning and
evening and delivered two most in.
teresting addresses concerning con-
ditions of the present European wal
in it's relation to Turkey. DR.. White
has spent twenty-seven years in Tur.
key as a representative of the Amer
ican board of Missions and knows
whereof he speaks. At the morning
service. DR.. White gave much of the
personal experience of himself, his
teachers and his pupils in Anatolia
college since the war broke out in
Turkey; how the college was sur
rounded by Turkish soldiers upon
trumped-up charges; how the Arme-
'nian teachers and pupils and whole
families were deported: how his per-
sonal effects, books and household
belongings were taken over by the
Turkish government, etc. 1t was an
intensely interesting and pathetic
story. very narrowing in many of its
details.
The college authorities had been
assured by Constantinople that the
Armenia students would not be mo-
Tested. but these assurances were vio-
lated. Turkish soldiers appeared at
the college with some sixty ox-carts
and the Armenians were sorted out,
loaded into the carts and taken away
-banished from their homes with
no place to go. What was the end
of them nobody knows.
The Doctors evening talk was
very interesting and instructive, and
its trend indicated that the speaker
expectsd Turkey sto lose In this war.
14kSlhef xsermary Ok Germany, ,s o.
lponents win. During the twenty
seven years Dr.. White has been in
Turkey that country has lost by con-
quest some 25,0OO,OO0 people. When
he went to his missionary field
nearlj, the entire Balkan peninsula
was under the domination of the
Turk, but today the Turkish govern
ment extends over a comparatively
few of the people of the Balkans.
The height of the Turkish wave
which began to sweep over Asia and
southeastern Europe in the thir-
teenth century gained its crest in the
seventeenth century. In 1858, when
the Turks were besieging Vienna and
when the Austrian capital was about
to fall into the hands of invaders,
a strong Polish army, led by John
soblieski, the. fighting king of Po-
land, went to the rescue of the
hard pressed Austrians and drove
the Turks out of Austria. From that
day to this the power of the Otto
man government has been steadily
decreasing and is now about to pass
away in Europe.
The doctor told of the narrowing
conditions in that country during the
present war and explained why, in
his judgment, the Armenian is now
the subject of the Turks most Bit
ter hatred. Bulgaria, Serbia, AL
bania and the other countries of the
Balkan peninsula have successfully
resisted the authority of the Turk,
and Armenia is the next country
that is to throw off the yoke Of the
oppressor. The Turkish government
realizes this fact and has apparently
decided to settle the Armenian ques-
tion by annihilating the Armenian
people.
As early as April, 1914, sealed cir
culars were received by Turkish Of
ficers and prominent citizens in the
of the government, say
ing that war was to be declared soon.
The doctor said the preparations
made in the spring Of that year
convinced him and his associates of
the coming struggle, and it was plain
to the observing ones long before
hn murder Of the prince of Austria
in Serbia that some of the countries
in Europe were soon to be engaged
in war. This fact fully establishes
the claim of the enemies of Germany
and Austria that the murder of the
prince was not the real cause of the
war. 1t was only an excuse. The
war would have come anyway and
some other pretext would have served
as the excuse. The doctor did not
say this, but that is the deduction
one would make from the facts he re-
rstod TurEov know aS aar1y aS