Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1919 — AMERICA MUST HELP ARMENIANS [ARTICLE]

AMERICA MUST HELP ARMENIANS

Turkish Brutality Almost Inconceivable, Has Nearly Destroyed the Race— Ir/ants Thrown Into Fire Where Mothers Were Being ihasted Alive by the Barbarians

MESSAGE F?OM PRESICEM

Clecelarid Dodge, Treasurer Armenian and Syrian Relief, 99 JdTrn St., New Vbrk.—TTie^aTppropriation asked of Congress for handling food relief is not intended in any way to take the place of the subscription being asked for relief and rehabitation in the Near East. » hope th at this su tsc ri ption will not In any way be interrupted or reduced. The" 'need ’is immediate and 6ery great. W'ODROW WILSON.

Details of the slaughter of Armenians during the world war is not a record ot irresponsible reports but of sufficiently buttressed with provable facts to fipd credence '. in minds of officials of the I'-ritist foreign office. The following extracts are from the British Blue Book on The Treatment of Armenians,” and need no introduction. Read these and determine if the appeal for peoples of unhappy lands in the Belgium of Asia” have right to part of our prosperity. Indiana's quota in the national drive for-the Armenian and fundis equivalent to saving 21,000 lives; lives- that hate fortunately escaped the determination of the Turk to hunt down the race to extinction: "On the 2bth day of June the Turks surrounded the town of Billie and cut its communication -wtth the neighboring Armenian villages; then most ot the able-bodied 'men were taken from their families by domicialiary Visits. During the following few days all the men under arrest were shot outside the town, and buried in deep trenches dug by the victims themselves. The young Women and children were distributed among the rabble, and the remainder, the useless” lot were driven to the south and drowned in the Tigris. Any attempt at resistance,, brave, were easily quelled by the regular troop*. The recalcitrants, after firing their last cartridges, either took poison by whole, families or destroyed themselvies in their homes in order not to tall into the hande of the Turks. ,! h is in such Tashfch that the Turks disposed of about 15,000 Armenians;** . . :... -- In the town of Moush itself the Armenians, under, leadership of Gotoyan and others, entrenched themselves in the churches and stonebuilt houses and fought for four days,

in selfdefense. The Turkish artillery, manned by German officers, made short work of all the Armenian positions. Every one of the Armenians, leaders as well as men, were killed and when the silence of death /feigned over the ruins of churches and the rest, the Moslem rabble made a descent upon-The women and children and drove them out of the town into large camps which had already been prepared for the peasant women and children. The shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated in the various. camps was to burn them. Fire was set to large wooden sheds in Alidjan, Megrakom. Khaskegh, and other Armenian villages and these absolutely helplesswomen and children roasted to death. Many went mad and threw their children away. Some knelt down and prayed amid the flames in which their bodies were burning. Others shrieked and cried for help which came from nowhere. And the execu who seemed to have been unmoved by this unparalleled savagery, grasped infants by one leg and hurled them into the fire, caling out to the burning mothers: “Here are your lions!”

This is the testimony of Sister D. A, German Red Cross nurse in Turkey, as set down in Document 04 of the British Blue Book on “Treatment of * Armeriianns:’’ The Armenian children in the German orphanage at H. were sent away with the rest .“My orders,’ said the Vali (official) “are to deport all Armenians. I cannot make an of these.” He announced, however, that a German,, orphanage was to be established for any children that remained and shortly after, he called on Sister D. A. and asked her to visit it. She found about 700 Armenian children in a good building. For every twelve or fifteen children there was one Armenian nurse, and they wye well clothed and fed. "Sep what care the government is faking of the Armenians.” the Vali said and she returned home surprised and pleased. ’ But when she visited the orphanage several days later there ’Were only thirteen of the 700'teff—thjp rest had disappeared. They had been taken to' a Jake six hours' journey by road from the town and drowned. /. Three hundred 6rphan children were subsequently collected and suffered the same fate as their prede cessors. “ .