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if we failgto back him.’ .'W“illiam Jennings Bryan is to-
day the conscience of the American people. , K
J The President desires to,.preserve peace, but in spite
“of his pacific intentions’ the country may be dragged
into war. William McKinley did not want the war with
Spain; he signed the declaration of warwith tears in his
eyes,’but‘he signedit. ; The pressure was toorstrong:
there was no organized movement todmainhtain .'peace:'
Standby‘ the,President, stand by William Jennings
.Bryan, stand by peace and) America. ' V ‘
- War may come ‘in spiteiof 'our’efforts;'but upon us
will lie the burden of guilt if we fail to speak out. p ,
:,Form ‘of telegram toyoiir ‘Congressman and to the
.'r,He'E' NEW" WonL15
a
.Name of Senator or Representative. .
“Expect you to do all you can to keep us out
of war. Honor not at stake.,- We want peace."
" Name and Address of Sender.
Send this telegram-or a similar message immediately.
Urge your friendsto do likewise. , ) v
The expense will be small. The above telegram con-
tains twenty words. Remember that there is no charge
for address and signature. If you cannot afford to pay
day rates, send your message as avnight letter. .
But send it, no matter how poor you are.
Drop your little charities, your bazaars, forego some V
pleasure, if necessary, but do your duty to yourself and ,
your country.
Senators from your dtate. ‘
‘THE TURKS NOT THE ENEMIES OF CHRISTIANITY
‘ A . ' .‘ I V ’ By Frederic F. Schrader. . ‘V s
[We herewith'publish‘the concludingpart oi,Mr. Frederic F. Schrader’s timely article on the Turks, the first instalment of
- ' V . ' - ' . ' ‘ V’ pwhich appeared in last week's issue.] ' '
0 let a question of religion stand in the way of the building
of a new state,pthe‘spread ‘of civilizationfand the reclama-
tion-of Mesopotamia after thousands‘ of year's,iis’ bigotry, too
arrant for the twentieth century. The,Turkish bugaboo is a
relic of the Middle Ages, kept alive to serve the political ends
of selfish statesmen. and religiouszealots. Unless Germany is
‘ 7 crushed Constantinople is destined to become the capital of the
. whole of Europe. ,.
The situation in Turkey, before everything was embittered by
Russian intrigue, is thusdescribed in “'l‘he‘l-Iistorians‘ History of
I the Vllorld": ; , , ’ ‘ V
' “The‘di&’er'ence betweenthe lot of the rayahs (Christian peas-
ants) undertl-ieir Turkish masters, and that of the serfs of
Christendom under their fe1low.Christians.and fellow country-
men, who were their lords, was practically slioum by the anxiety -
,which the,t'nhabitarzt.s“of the countries near the Turkish frontier
J .7 showed to escape from their home: and to live under the Turk-'
,‘ ieh yoke, which is frequently represented as having always been
i ,so. tyrannical.” A 7; ‘ I ' I . -
-7‘ Conceive‘ of this being the desire of any of the inhabitants of the
small nations once near the Russian. frontier (and now incorpo-
rated against their will) to live under the Russian yokel If the
is Turks‘ have rnorally deteriorated since they broke the yoke of Eng-
‘ land, as Mr. Balfour "declares, the ‘Russiansmust have undergone.
' a miraculous metamorphosis for the better, within the same period,
to winBishop-Rhinelanderfs approval and moral support! , ‘
. Until the Turks, siding with the Central Powers,‘repudiated the
infarnousfcapitulations which England, gFrancc and Russia had‘
rivetedpupondthem, iinderwhich they had not even judicial juris-
diction over‘ thevcrimes committedby a subject of the western
powers in Turkey, there was no outcrybecause of Armenian massa-
cres. Asilate as January‘ 13, 1913, a writer in the London Freedom,
in an article headed “The XVar in the Balkans,” said:. ' ‘
'‘‘At the beginning of this war an attempt was made to nevive
' ‘ stories of Turkish atrocities, but it was really felt that they were
.all lies, and'after the Allies"first victory (Servia, Montenegro,
Greece and Bulgaria), no more was heard of them, Accounts
of atrocities committed against Turks, on the contrary, begin to
.come in from everywhere,-’from Montenegro, where Strangely
few wounded Turks were brought in, to Albania, where the
Servians are,said to have slaughtered the Albanian.Moham-
medans wholesale, and to Salonika, where the’ firstact of the
Greek ‘liberators' was a little pogrom." V .
H IHETHER the Turks‘ were actually”)committingiunexampledi
offenses against humanity in dealing with the 'Ar enians as '
’ traitors are usually dealt with, even in Christian countries, must-be -
-left to one’s own conscience.- That the Armenians, tried to betray
Turkey andopen the door ‘for an invasion of Russia is not a matter
of dispute. ‘ Philips Price, the Caucasus correspondent of the Man-
chester Guardian, some time in November, 1916, shed a hood of light
on the subject. ‘Turkey did not enter the-war until November 2,
, 1914. This is interesting in reading Price’s statement that as early as
August of lthat,year the Armenians were preparing their treason-
able plans.‘ He‘ writes: ‘ ‘ . . ' '
I ‘ Mills on the
“Early in August the Armenians scam to have decided that a
Russo-Turkish war was inevitable. According to reliable infor-
mation the Dashnaktsakan leaders at Tiflis (in the Russian Cau-
casus) at once offered to organize volunteer battalions of 25,000
men to assist the Russian army to conquer the six vilayets of
Asia Minor. This offer was rnade.bcfote the outbreak of the
war with Turkey, and in the interval between that and the be-
ginning of the European war the voluntecns were busy training
and forming at various centers in the Transcaucasus.
“By the end of October, when Turkey came into the war.
preparations had been so far advanced that Andranik, the
famous revolutionary leader from Turkey,-with a battalion ‘of
Armenian volunteers appeared on the front and took part with
the Russians in the advance through northwest Persia, c:1P?l1l"
mg Serai early in November. Meanwhile five more battalions
had been formed and were ready to leave,Erivan in Novem-
ber. but had not as yet received rifles and equipment. During
October and November I was with two of these battalions-and
took the opportunity to find out their composition. I found that
Hi)’ Def cent. of them were Armenians who had left Turl<eY.‘
Bulgaria or Roumania between the outbreak of thc'Eur0P63“
war and the Russo-Turkish war and had come to the CauCaS115
to offer their services, twenty-five per cent. were Turkish
Armenians who had lived for many years in America and the
“ft (‘"’lJ’ ‘w""‘.V'f771e fer cent.) were Russian Armenians. -
‘There can be very little doubt that this volunteer movement.
I which started as far back as August 1914 under the auspices of
the Caucasian Armenians and 'lL‘O.$' fil!cd'largcly (1 Armenia!!!
who were Turlzish subjects, was’ the cause of the Xyoung Turks’
d.e"33“d "D011 the Armenians of'Erzerum Van and Bitlis for a
Slmliaf volunteer movement against Rus’sia. .- . ." It st3“d.5
to reason that when the relationsbetween the‘ Turkish author!-
lles and Turkish Armenians were thus compromised 17)’ the
Armemans of the Caucasus, the situation went from bad to
worse. > ' ‘
The Turkish Armenians, who thus'not only claimed exemPtl0“
“Om he]Pi“8 to defend the country in which thcyilivcd. bl“ were
0P9"lY allied with the Russians, were subjected to -very mllch the
same treatment, it seems, that the English have been graphically’ P“'
tured to have visited upon their own Quakers in London 3"‘!
"conscientious objectors," atrocities recently aired’ in PhiladC1Ph.h
under Bishop Rhinelander's own eyes but apparently without having
moved him in the least. Now if ’the Turks are indiscriminate
“V3895, intent on destroying every Christian within reach--and we
are told that the Armenians were massacred only because the)’ 3” '
Ch’isti3"5"lt is singularly strange to read a little further 0“ ‘“
Mr. Price’s article above quoted the following statement:
“The” appalling fate (the Armenians) in this T8850“ I‘ '2" I
remarkable contrast to :1 t ] .- ; cum! in
the Tr b.: d , ' N1 ‘of tie Greeks, .1.'xo.rgl77 1.
“ML anseorgf zt';’1tt1Jc! the great bulk of the Chnstum I’”.’." “I .
mos! s ' ' ' ‘ he e-xsxi.
made to Trebisond in A[77'1!ln'iLk’iI,.'$'gl(.‘: ”.ii::eih‘e0’hJl7sgli:I: inmmnzty
' of 'h".G""’k-V, While all around were si ns and relics of the most
appalling treatment of the Armenians ‘lilo! on: Greek um km“,
9!! through the massacre, and tlzeih property was abrolrrleb‘
i:'”"' A" the fury of the Turks was let loose on the A1'"‘'“'
thIfrS'TrSh" " “'03 quite clear that the Greeks had no l0‘".f.‘7'
irks, and although their relations with the authorities.
were perfemy correct they were fully aware that the? ‘Van
edge of a volcano."
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