New Britain herald., 1918-02-12
MARKED FOR SLAUGHTER.
LII order to Get Rid of the Armenian
question the Turks Tried to
kill Of ArmenianS.
kHI Off ArmenianS.
Statement by Armenian Rclief)

ABDUL Hamid Il, Sultan of Turkey
from 1876 to 1908, once said
The only way to get rid of the
/ Armenian question is to get rid of the
| Armenians.''
| He proceeded to do the latter in a
way that made Nero and Diocletian
| mere tyros in tyranny. Yet his rec
ord has in the last three years been
| put in the shade by the Young Turk
| party, which overthrow Abdul and
promised in the usual Oriental fashion
I to make the Ottoman Empire para |
| gon among nations But leopards do
! not change their spots by MASQUERADE |
| ing in sheepskins, if one may vary the |
| metaphor. The reform party" of
| Young Turks, whose natural law1ess |
| cruelty has been merely organized by
| German. efficiency, has murdered
100000 Arm enians, Syrians and |
Greeks in the three years of the great
War-a record unparalleled since there !
was an Armenian question" which |
there has been ever since 1917, when |
the ancient kingdom Of Armenia lost
its independent position among the
nations of the ca rth
In 1917 there was, roughly speaking, |
a nation of 100000 Armenians-
happy, contented, peaceful and indus !
trially prosperous. In 1913 there are |
but a little over 100000 left and |
they are outcasts, despoiled, destitute |
and desperate. In the intervening 500 !
years the average annual massacre has |
taken a, toll of so, 900. or so for every |
one of the 100000 days in the six CEN
turtles. The population of a city equal |
IN size to that of Binghamton has been |
wiped out of existence. For the past
three years the population of a, city
Of the size of Buffalo has been deci-
mated in an effort to get rid of the
Armenian question:
The old and new regimes in Turkey l.
have attempted to realize the dream
Of pan-Isla mism, a Mohametan empire
with but one creed and difference |
between one class of subjects and an
other. The Armenians stood in the
way of its realization. They were
Christian, and they were democratic
in political principles two capital
crimes in the eyes of the pan-1s1amic
dreamers. Therefore, they were
marked for slaughter What Chris
tianity there is in Asia, Minor has sur
viVed for twenty centuries and has
been kept alive by the Armenians, who
were the first nation to adopt it as a
national religion. It's existence among
this people is not only evidence of it's
eternal vitality, but a tribute to the
sturdy character of a race that has
for these many centuries not only
fought a good fight" but kept the
faith as well.
Whatever vestiges Of freedom and
liberty still persist in the Ottoman
Empire due chiefly to the never
extnguished ideals of this oppressed
but unconquered people. They also
saw visions and dreamed dreams.
Their memories of past greatness and
their hope Of the ultimate restoration
ever present and ndssolubly linked
together Their tenacious hold upon
the principles Of religion and demo-
craCN are alike a claim upon the sym |
pathies Of the Anglo-Am erican En-
tente-a challenge to it to see that
such fidelity is recognized and pledge
of its worthiness to be rewarded.
That this sympat thy has at last been
aroused, that the challenge is being
met and that the reward is not to be
withheld seem to be assured by recent
utterances of the ADglo-AmeTican en-
tente. A year ago this January the
allies answered President Wilson'S de-
mand for a restatement of their war
aims in this language:
THE alterations of the peoples that
now lie beneath the murderous ty-
rannY of the Turks, and
THE expulsion from Europe of the
Ottoman Empire, which has proved
so radically alien to Western civli-
zation."
Premier Lloyd George declared in
his latest speech
'While we do not challenge the
maintenance of the Turkish Empire
in the homelands of the Turkish race,
with it's ca pital OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
pa ssage between the Mediterranean
+ra1i zeH A |
lied and Observation-Disclosures a, Armenia,
MesOpotamia, Syria and Palestine are,
in our Judgment entitled to recOgni- I
ton of their separate national cOndi-
tons. What the exact form of that
recognition should be need not here
be discussed beyond stating that it
will be impossible to restore to their
former sovereignty the territories to
which | have REFERRED
Pres Wilson declared in his latest
MESA ge to Congress:
THE Turkish portions of the pres
ent Ottoman Empire should be as
sured a secure sovereignty, but the
other nationalities which are now UNI
der Turkish rule should be assured
an undOubted security Of life and an
absolutely unmolested opportunity Of
development, and the Dardane1les
should be permanently opened as a
free passage to the ships and COM
merce of all nations under internal
tional guarantees.
"A general ssociation of nations
must be formed under specific COW
enants for the purpose of affording
mutual guarantees of political inde-
pendence and territorial integrity to
great and small states alike
While these references are not very
explicit as to the form which the
future recognition" Of Armenian