The Owosso times., 1919-04-11


ing city of Saginaw.
Saginaw valley Christians have
been given 10 days to sell their pos
sessions. but no one will buy, because
all the Turks know that their houses,
furniture, cattle,-everything be
theirs anyway. Those who do make
pretense OF buying the property of
the families facing deportation offer
a rediculously small sum-just a pit
tance to insure the goods falling in
their hands. Houses left vacant are
allotted by the government authorities
to Moslems. brought in from other ter
ritories.
Carriers are engaged at exhorbitant
rates to carry Christian families and
their goods, but after the first two or
three days on the road eject the pas
sengers throw out the goods and re-
turn for additional prey. Bands of
brigands continually rob the travellers.
and associate with the guards, now
and Staying the few full grown men
or youths who are included in the
gathered up, as they pass through
cities, and placed for public inspection
in government buildings, and the
Moslem public Is invited to come and
take their choice.
women weep and beg as their chill
dren are torn from their breasts, but
they are struck down and driven on
their way, or forced to go to the
homes of Turks who fancy them.
Thinning Out the Conveys.
'In this way the conveys are thin
ned out till the river at the base of
the mountain chain is at last reached,
and then driven into the river. de.
spite the fact that nearly all cannot
swim and those few who can are so
weak that they quickly give out. In
this way thousands are drowned dur
ing the progress of hundreds of con-
voys from all parts of Michigan. In
many cases women and children are
thrown bodily into the river and
drown.
"In some instances and where pos
sible we Michiganders take up arms,
but only to save ourselves and our
women and children from fates worse
than death-but in most cases our
men have all been massacred in ad-
vance, or rendered powerless by being
deprived Of arms and removed from
the actual scenes of deportation, pill
age, murder and rape. Michigan is
stepped in the blood of its people;
towns and cities are turned into sham
bles and slave markets, and the hor-
rible acts of the oppressors accumu-
late in number, till at last the war
comes to an end Then we people OF
Michigan are in pitiful state-those
that are left. We are starving, hun
dreds Of thousands Of us are far from
our homes, in an hostile and barren
country, practically incapable of sup
porting life. Our whole machinery of
government and agriculture and edu-
cation has been destroyed. Will the
world assist us? Will foreign powers
for whom, because the Turks knew
we sympathized with them, we have
suffered,-will they hasten to our re-
lief, to save our entire nation from
death-the fate intended for us by the
Turk?
"Our pleas are answered. Two of
the powers, heavily burdened by the
war burden as they are, come forward
with relief. They have done their
share but they could not do all. II
we are to be rehabilitated and estab-
lished again in our country--if we
people Of Michigan are to be set upon
the high road to nationhood,-we must
have the help of another power. That
power cannot help us with direct
government appropriation, because we
are not a nation. But 1t appeals to
its people. On the response of each
individual of that nation to our appeal
and their governments appeal, de-
pends our salvation. What will that
response be?"
81 have tried to give vivid picture
and a substantially adeuuate picture.