Connecticut western news., 1919-02-27
DRIVE STARTS THURSDAY
 FOR ARMENIAN RELIEF
Campfire Girls Co Have Charge of Soliciting
 Funds

lHB AEHlSHidllSs CoHslsIlnR UT hSw@
 R. M. Timberlake, W. S. Smart and Allyn Fuller, have asked the Camp fire Girls to solicit funds in the drive which will start on Thursday. 1t is highly fitting that the Campfire Girls
 should do this, as the greater nurn-
 Der of Armenians who are so soreIy
 in need of help are women and girEs-
 The quota for this town is $451
 and the girls will make on Thursday
 and Friday a house-to-house canvass
 in an effort to obtain this sum. On
 Saturday the girls will work in relays of six, commencing at S:30 o'clock
 about the streets tagging all who give any amount to the fund. This
 will be done throughout the day, until o'clock, except between thR
 hours of 12 and 2.
 The following extracts from an
 article by Ambassador Morgenthau
 show to what extent the Armenianw
 have been persecuted.
 "The Armenians are the mos8
 civilized and industrious race in thA
 eastern section of the Turkish Em-
 pire. They are the direct descend
 ents of the people who inhabited thS
 country 5000 years ago. Every where they are known for their de-
 cent and orderly lives. They are s~
 superior to the Turks that much Of the business and industry had passed
 into their hands. For l,500 years they have lived there, ChristianA~ surrounded by backward peoples oE hostile race and religion. Their long existence has been one intending martyrdcm.' Their language and TO- lgion are the language and religion of Europe and out of the west, they have always hoped that some day would come deliverance from their murderous masters. Tn 1S95-9s alone, 200 900 Armenians were atre- ciously put to death. Their property was stolen, their men. murdered their women ravaged, their young girls kidnapped and forced ints Turkish harems. The most beautiful and healthy Armenian l. girls wsrp forced to marry MohammedanH- Since all precautions must be takeM against a new generation of Arme- nians they thought it necessary te kill outright all men capable oE propagating the species
 These men, first forced to dig their own graves, were bound iIts groups of four, marched 'to n so- cluded spot. Sounds of rife skos would fill the air and the Turkisl escort return to camp sulleDly. Tks injunction of the deposed Sultan was to "kill, kill'. The Central Governments plan was more orig inal, to deport 2,000,00o 'Armeninns to the Syrian desert and the MesopoA tamian Valley, a dreary, Iesolars waste, without cities or towns or life of any kind, populated only by s few wild tribes. They knew that thR majority would never reach this deDA and that those who di1 would die of thirst and starvation o@ be murdered.
 = The real purpose of the deportaA tion was robbery and destruction, a new method of massacre. It was the death warrant of the whole ra1A- Before starting the young men wers from their families ana shot. No protectors were left for ths women, children and old men. De- tachments of gendarmes weu1 ahead, notifying the Kurdish tribes that their victims were approaching Even prisons were opened ana the convicts set free to do Gheir wiH upon the Armenians. The Kurds would sweep down from the mounr- tains, sten such children as pleased their fahcy, carry the pretty gir& off to the hills, stealing food. moneN clothing, leaving men and women 1n complete melity, meantime freely where they saw fit. Aftew a few hours of travel, mud caked tfn limbs of the Armenians, and plas- tered their faces and c. aaed by fatigue and brdtality they rcsambled some new, strange animal specSes A small army of girls were sold as slaves. On the seventieth day, ius6 l50 women and children reached sheir destination. The most attras- i've of the rest were still living ,aptives of the Kurds: all the resk were dead.
 A complete narration of thR orgies of which these people were the victims, can never be printed in ER American publication. Whatevew crimes the most perverted h. ;tincts can devise and the most dH- based imagination can conceive hN- anne the daily misfortunes of thesn devoted people. The whole history ,f the human race cantains TO sucA horrible episode as this. In t@ daughter of Albigenses, GO 90 pee ,le were killed. In the massacre C St. Bartholomew, 30,000. In tha Spanish Inquisition, 5000. 16O.nDD Jews were deported from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella. But, 60er- 100 Armenians were destroyed.