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12
AMBASSADOR MORGENTHAU IS “ACTIVE”
XVICE the United States has narrowly escaped
being drawn into the European war. Once when a
warning shot was tired across the bow of a launch of the
Tennessee from a Turkish fort to impede its entry into
mined waters, an act described by Capt. Decker as “not
hostile,” though this qualifying statement was suppressed
in Washington for several days for mysterious reasons;
and again when our Ambassador to Turkey, Mr. Henry
Morgenthau, informed the Porte that he would demand
his passports unless the British colony in Constantinople
was allowed to leave the city. This latter occurrence has
created hardly any attention in the United States. The
facts are revealed by the London Chronicle in a letter
from Athens, and they are so important that they merit
a wider interest than they have received.
lVe read in the London dispatch conveying this in-
formation that the English colony was not allowed to
leave the city, that “the action of the Turks caused a
panic among the British refugees, but the American
Ambassador assured them he would endeavor to get
them away next day.” VVe read further: “Ambassador
Morgentlzan formally advised the Turkish Government
that unless the British colony was allowed to depart he
would demand his passports. The Turks, the letter says,
had no desire to jight America as well as the Allies, so
they gave in."
Mr. Morgenthau’s “activity" is highly praised in Eng-
land, we are told, as why on earth should not our in-
terference in this case come in for high praise? Is it not
generous and heroic of the United States to threaten to
go to war in the cause of humanity? No doubt the Eng-
lish “Colony” of Constantinople would have had to
forego its accustomed morning “tub” and its live-o’clock-
teas-; no doubt it would have been subjected to all kinds
of bally annoyances in a Turkish Concentration Camp.
It was a high-minded act of our government to save
helpless women and children from the horrors of such a
fate. lVe endorse and applaud Mr. Morgenthau, if his
prompt action is to be a precedent for an impartial
policy on the part of the administration.
At the outbreak of the war one of the first acts of the
English Government was to drive all German, Austrian
and Hungarian male residents from their homes and
impound them in concentration camps. A mob was
unleashed and set upon helpless "men, women and chil-
dren in the streets of London. This mob destroyed their
shops, their homes, and killed and maimed many of them
in a riot described by the London Mail, as outdoing Rus-
sian pogroms.
There are upward of 20,000 men in these concentration
camps, under conditions which cry to heaven. Their
;wives and children are beggars in the streets. Our gov-
ernment, although entrusted with the protection of
German, Austrian and Hungarian subjects, as well as
THE FATHERLAND
those of Great Britain, has accomplished little or nothing
in alleviating the suffering of these unfortunates.
Bearing this in mind, under what authority did Mr.
Morgenthau proceed when he erected the unhindered
departure of the English residents of Constantinople into
a conditional issue on which he made dependent his de-
mand for his passports as the preliminary step to a state
of war between the United States and Turkey?
If the State Department is willing to precipitate this
country into war because Englishmen are threatened with
concentration camps in a country which they themselves
provoked into war, why does it not instruct Ambassador
Page to display some of Mr. Morgenthau’s “activity” in
behalf of the suffering Germans in England?
Can you supply the answer, dear reader?
FOR WIDOWS AND ORPHANS.
N no manner have the New York sympathizers with
Germany and Austria-Hungary demonstrated their
enthusiasm so well as in the patronage accorded the great
relief bazaar for the benefit of German and Austro-Hun-
garian widows and orphans, now being held at the vast
armory of the 71st Regiment. Although it has been open
nearly two weeks, there has not been a single day that
the capacity of the hall has been approximately equal to
the crowds clamoring for admission. Thousands havc
been turned away daily. The bazaar will remain open
until December 22, and possibly longer. The liberal Splflt
of the German and Austrian-Hungarian people is shown
in the costly contributions made, one German donating 8
valuable house and lot. The receipts the first day aggr6'
gated nearly $18,000.
IN MEMORIAM
To Admiral von Spec and the Men of His Squad’
70"; Who Died Of? the Falkland lsland-‘I; ’
December 8, 1914
By Frederick H. Martens
UTRANGED, outnumbered-not outfought-
In foreign seas you found your grave:
True to the creed that honor taught,
Firm in the faith that makes men brave.
It is no shame to strive and yield,
The battle lost, to bow to Fate;
Yet nobler, on the stricken field,
To die unconquered and elate.
To leave no trophy to the foe;
hVhile battle-flags defiant wave
To sink, and fathoms deep below
Still guard your guns to mark your grave!
