Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1896 — TO KILL ALL CHRISTIANS [ARTICLE]

TO KILL ALL CHRISTIANS

Report that Turks Are Planning ■ Wholesale Massacre. A dispatch from Constantinople asserts that a wholesale massacre of Christians is planned to occur there within a fortnight, and that Armenians have been deported from there on board ships and have been drowned in batches. The London Times, in an editorial discussing the utterances of Lord Rosebery and Henry Asquith on the Armenian question, says: “Lord Roseburyand Mr. Asquith have assumed a very grave responsibility. It is easy to conjure a whirlwind of national wrath, but it would baffle the strongest will and most sagacious judgment to direct the storm when it is raised. Are the agitators prepared to faeebft European war? If not, let them pause while there is yet time.” The official Turkish estimate of the number of victims of the massacres in Constantinople is 1.100. Other estimates run pretty mu eh all the way upward from this figure. The official estimate is coupled with the allegation Jhat many of those killed were in reality .Turks, but that they were buried wtt&the Armenians, and so their number went to swell the supposed number of Armenian victims. This is undoubtedly designed as an apology and explanation of the assertion contained in the note of the powers that the savage bands which murderously attacked the Armenians and pillaged their houses were not accidental gatherings of fanatical people or undirected mobs, but that there was every indication of special organization, and of its being known to, if not directed by. the authorities. In foreign circles the statements that Turks were killed along with the Armenians is denied. 4 The actual number of the victims of the disorders was certainly 5,0(M), and will probably reach 6,000. The military authorities state that three soldiers were killed and thirty were wounded. The Porte states that 170 Mussulmans were wounded. All Mussulmans who have yet been tried by the extraordinary tribunal appointed to pass judgment on those implicated in the recent massacre have been acquitted of the charge of complicity. The evidence against many of those wns deemed by foreign residents conclusive, and the failure to hold them adds to the conviction that the Porte has no intention of complying with the demand of the powers that the culprits shall be brought to punishment. In view of this failure to punish the authors of the outrages upon the Armenians, the state of terrorism among the Armenians continues unabated, and the exodus of these people goes ou with no diminution.