The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-07
AMERICAN SAVES | LEBANON PEOPLE
 FROM STARVATION
Work of One Young Man From Montana-PlOt to Exterminate a Race
 Defeated
By CLAIR PRICE


 the Turks has sentenced them during the war, is thrilling story of food smuggling which l am now permitted | to relate for the first time.
 The central figure in this tale oi Americans abroad is a 29-year- ac- countant from Deer Lodge, Montana who came to Beirut in 1913 to organize a school of commerce in the American Presby terian college. He was a leader in the minor relief work which preced- ed the rupture of relations between Turkey and the United States on April 21, 1917. Thereafter. as an enemy al- lied alien in Beirut, he built up se- cret ring which smuggled 4,500 tons of wheat through the Turkish cordon around the doomer Lebanon. By selling promises to pay after peace, he spent 100000 when wheat was worth its weight in gold and saved the lives of 4S,000 Lebanese. He was arrested six times by Azmi Bey the Turkish As sassin- governor of Beirut. and on Nov, l9 1917, in default of S50,000 bribe, he was deported to Constantinople Here he was interned until July 7 when he was seized and conveyed to a secret prison in old Stamboul, where he was locked in a small cell with 31 other prisoners, two of whom were chained to the walls. He was freed
 
 Arthur von Hass, German Naval At tacne, who went personally to Safi Bey, chief political nfficar under Enver l Pasha. This was not until he had been summoned before a court mar tial, however, whose president asked him:
 What right have you, a foreigner, to interfere in Turkish affairs in the Lebanon?'
 h T Ia tor ing to death," he replied, there are no foreigners"
 Beside the food-smuggling ring which he operated in the Lebanon, he dis tributed s9,000,000 to relatives of Le- banese emigrants to the United States. down upon the outbreak of war, these Lebanese in America, instead of mail- ing bank drafts to their relatives at home, deposited their money with the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board, 1o6 Fifth avenue, New York City. This board advised him daily of payments due in the Lebanon, advices which, fol- lowing the entry of the United States into the war, were smuggled through to Beirut by diplomatic channels, with the consent of the Powers whose repre- sentatives delivered them in Beirut. In this way, 100000 money orders were paid throughout the war in the Labanon e1iiu iI io Sdft tO say tIlaC every cent Of the amounts went for food. It was the United States which kept the Le- damon alive during the war
 The Lebanon had long been a thorn
 in the side of Turkey. Before the anti Christians massacres of 1860. the La banon's autonomy had been gouged out of Turkey. Its Christian inhabitants were exempted from Turkish taxes and from Turkish military service. The l e m k1nvr, ,l~,
 oanon presented was also presented by Christian Armenia. Turkey, during the war, undertook to put an end to both these troublesome districts. She cut down Armenia by massacres and de- portatlons, which made so much noise in the world that the quieter, but equally effective method of starvation was chosen for the Lebanon.
 Accordingly, early in 1916, ever-5 highway into the Lebanon was picketed and all food attempting to enter the mountains was seized under military necessity" Thus an area 150 miles north and south by 100 miles east and west was isolated. It is a mountainous region which lives by it's silk wine and raisens, and which imports it's wheat rom the granary of the Hauran and its other provisions by sea. To cut IL OH by land Is to send it long way 'e~AN quiSh otdi NdllOn and to cut It orr by sea-a duty which was perform ed throughout the war by French olockading squadron--is to send it the rest of the way toward starvation. Cnaries A. Dana, formerly of Deer Lodge Montana, now manager of the American Press in Beirut. secretly en- aged eight coasting vessels, the opera tion of which the Turks had prohibited. 10 transport wheat by night from the peach in Akka Bay, near Haifr, to the beach near Damur, below Beirut One Of these, unable to reach Damur before dawn, was shot down by a French destroyer
 Having isolated the Lebanon, the Tur4s paid off an old debt by installing Azml Bey as governor of Beirut. It was 'Azmi Bey who undertook the assa ssina- ton of Sheriff Pasha in Paris in 1910 Tor the young Turks. and who killed his aide-de-camp instead. It was Azmi Bev who assassinated Mahmoud Pasha on Russian steamship in Constantinople in 1912 for the Young Turks. The former as- sassnation, by the way, was in connec- ton With the presence of the Arab decen- tralization committee in Paris, for the Arab revolt was not new with this war. The Arabs of Syria, Mesopotamia the Hedjaz and the Yemen are as differen. from the Turks as the French are from the Germans. It was Azmi Bey who when the result of the starvation cordon thrown around the Lebanon, began to be evident. went through the occasional mockery of bringing in cartload or wheat ''to relieve the suffering" in the Lebanon. It was Azmi Bey who. when the dead wagon was picking up from 50 to 70 bodies every morning between ? and o'clocl, in the streets of Beirut anc carting them out to the beach back of Beirut to be buried in the sand, caused the native press in Beirut to publish Blowing stories of the increasing health of Beirut. The last news heard of Azmi Bey in Beirut Is that he himself is dead.
 One of the first results of the starva- tion cordon around the Lebanon was profiteerng in Beirut which by the sum mer of 1916 had increased the price of a pair of shoes to s35. the price of sugar to & pound. eggs to 40 cents apiece. milk to 60 cents quart underwear to sn suit and clothing to from $50 to $20O suit.
 The Germans. in a systematic effort to drain the Lebanon of it's gold. had in duced Azmi Bey to make it a punisha- ble offense for anyone to be found with gold in his possession. At the same time. Turkish paper had deprecated to one seventh it's face value, and the Arabs of the Hauran refused to sell their wheat except for gold. This led to an exten- sive profteering, conducted secretly, in cold. There are today in Beirut, certain families of Syrians who made huge for tunes out of the starvation of the Leban- ese by cornering food. clothing and gold Everybody in Beirut knows who they are. Nothing has vet been done to nun- ish the families who thus coined the lives of the Lebanese into their own luxuries. It is to be hoped that with the settle ment of the political situation, the heads of these families will be meted out the