The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-09-07

was brought to Beirut in the dark of the moon by small sailing craft, out from the Hauran and the Bukaa' it was brought by German motor lorries by night. The drivers of these were bribed in Damascus and passed the starvation pickets unquestioned. They then discharged thelr loads by the roadside at a spot agreed upon we'll inside the cordon, and from there it was distributed by Dana's men before dawr
 Azmi Bey knew in a general way of the traffic in food and money which Dana was conducting secretly. Tn 1916 Assad Khairalah Dana's superin- tendent at the American Press, was exlled to Anatolia bS Azmi Bey's men, but this did not deter Dana. In the summer of 1917 Dana himself was ar rested at Azmi Bey's order on a charge Of receiving s25.0o0, 900 (the real amount was 25,000 francs. transmitted Tor certain hospital in Beirut) from w. w Peete, formerly head of the blble House in Constantinople. who was then in Switzerland. He was ex- amined and released. A month latsr ne was arrested for conspiring with the British and French in conducting enemy propaganda in the Lebanon and released with a warning. A few days later he was again arrested for snug
 
 again released with warning He vas arrested twice in the next three weeks on charges of trafficking in Iorelgn exchange. On November 19 1917, he was arrested a sixth time and the American Press was searched from top to bottom. His office at the Amer ican Press had been a blind however and all the papers relative to his work Tn relief and food smuggling had bean concealed in the residence of Dr Franklin Hosl1ins, an American mis- slonary, who was in the United States at the time. This time he spent a week in the Beirut jail while his pa. pers were being gone over No evil dence was found of his relief work. put at the end of the week Azmi Bey gave him three days to get out of, Beirut.
 He put Paul Erdman of the American Press in charge of his relief work, and le1t With his wife, his niece and a A. year old daughter for Constantinople to be court -martialed, ostensibly free. but under surveillance. He travelled by German motor lorries to Aleppo and then in horse trucks over the Bagbad railway toward ConstantinopIe Early Tn December. the train was halted for two days and three nights in plain where the temperature was between 20
 
 one passengers froze to death during that time. He and his family went to the hospital at Konia for a month with pneumonia as the result of that fear full ordeal
 Upon his arrival in Constantinople he was allowed his liberty but was shad- owed continually. He was finally ap- preached by emisaries of Azmi Bey. who said that further charges had been discovered against him, which could not be prevented from taking their course unless $50,000 were available to stop the mouths of those who knew of the charges. Dana refused to be black mailed and on July was arrested and placed in secret prison in old Stam- boul with two dead men and 29 living men, He was kept here for week. and then transferred to a cell in the war department, in which he was con- lined with kurd, an Egyptian spy and the insane son of Hassan Pasha. former minister of marine under Abdul Hamid. While he was here, undergoing intermittent cross examinations before a courtmartial, continual representa- tons were made to the Swedish min ister at ConstantinopIe, A. Aucker- vaeard. who was in charge of American interests, demanding his action to se- cure the release of Dana. Aucker- vaeard was so tied to the German cause, however, that he refused to act, and it was not until Won Haas, naval attache at the German embassy, ac- cidentally saw Dana before one of his court-martials that any effective move was made toward Dana's release Won Haas mother, an English oman lived in Beirut and had often been enter tained in the Dana home and it was Won Haas. acting entirely on his own intia- tive. who secured the Americans re- lease.
 When the armistice was signed, Dana and his family returned to Beirut via Bulgaria and Salonica He found that Azmi Bey had gone for good at last All through the war Beirut had been