Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1919 — ANOTHER CHAPTER OE BRUTALITY [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER CHAPTER OE BRUTALITY

America Must Go to the Relief of Survivors of the Armenian and Syrian Races —Cardinal Gibbons Makes Strong Appealin' Behalf of These Persecuted' People.

CARDINAL GIBBONS’ INDORSEMENT

The attempt to relieve and nave the etarving peoples' in the Near East deserves the sympathetic support of all Christian people. The American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief Is to undertake to raise in January, a large sum for this purpose. I hope that all who have given freely for this and other forms of war relief will be generous still in the face of this greatest tragedy of the war. CARDIANL GIBBONS.

Nothing can be more convincing of the need for the Armenian and Syrian Relief funds than official testimony contained in the British Blue Book on “The Treatment of the Armenians.” The following is from Document No. 117, and the statement was made by Miss M., a Swiss resident of Turkey: “I have just returned from a ride on horseback through the BaghtcheOsmania plain, where thousands of exiles are lying out in the fields and on the roads without any shelter and completely at the mercy of all manner of brigands. Last night, about twelve o’clock, ‘a little camp was suddenly attacked, there, were between fifty apd sixty persons in it. I found men and women badly wounded — bodies slashed open, broken skulls and terrible knife wounds. Fortunately I was provided with clothes, so 1 could change their blood-soaked things and then bring them to the next inn where they were nursed. Many of them were so much exhausted from the enormous loss of blood that they died. The Armenians have been valiant fighters since the beglnlng of the race. They were overwhelmed by sheer numbers when the Turks first came out of the East with their le- • giofis of Janissaries, and they have since been persecuted because of "the same disproportion. From a nation of 21,000,000 the Armenians have shrunk to 4,000,000 and these will perish unless America helps them. There has been no weak submission to the massacres by their Turkish overlords. Document 130: The villages on

the southern and eastern slopes ot Jibal Mousa are included administratively in the Vilayet of Aleppo. When order for deportation were Issued the Armenians of the villages preferred resistance to death to accepting the tirades of their Turkish rulers, and retired into the fastness of their mountain which rises northwest of the villages and on its further flank falls steeply into the sea. The subjoined. narrative was translated from a statement by a refugee by the Rev. Stephen Trowbridge, Secretary to the American Red Cross at Cairo, Egypt: With 15,000 Mohammedan troops they surrounded Mousa Dagh oh the landward side. Tneir plan was to starve us out. On the seaward there was no harbor nor any' communication with a seaport; the mountain sloped steeply to the sea. We were fully occupied with care of our woimded apd reparation of damage done by a previous attack. Our women made two large flags on one of which I printed in large clear Eng lish, “Christians in Distress! Rescue!" The Turks again attacked us by several approaches, and we had some severe fighting, but never at such close quarters as during the first engagement. From one point, of vantage wo were able to roll boulders down the precipitous mountain side with disastrous effect to the enemy. Our powder and cartridges were running low, and the Turks evidently had some idea of the straits we were in, because they began shouting insolent summons to surrender. Those were anxious days and long nights! One Sunday morning, the fifty-third day of our defense, I was startled by hearing -a man shout at the top of his voice. He came through the encampment to my hut. “A battleship is coming and Jias answered our waving. Thank God!” he exclaimed. It was the French “Cuichen,” a fourfunnel ship. The captain heard our plight and sent a wireless to the flagship and befpre long the Admiral’s ship arrived. .We were taken aboard four French cruisers and one English and two days later arrived in Port Said. It is the survivors of such horrors as these who are to be beneficiaries of the fund of >30,000,000 to be raised in the United States in January.