ARMENIA

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 7, 1903

Turkish Orphan Boys, as they appeared when they entered a Christian Orphanage.

It is a satisfaction to note that M. Delcassé, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, has promised a deputation of officials who are interested in saving the Armenians from massacre to send a French consular agent to the post in Turkey where the greatest danger threatens. One may wonder under what pretext the Turkish Government can kill the law-abiding subjects of that land, but here is one of the latest to be recorded: A rich Armenian of Sassun was taxed by the government to such an extent that his riches in grain and cattle and money melted entirely away. On the last summons he declared that he had nothing more that he could give, but that if the government would grant him time he would secure more money. That night the Kurdish officer, under the pay of the Turkish Government, sent a servant to shoot the Armenian, and it was quickly done. More than a hundred men from that locality are now in prison because they can not pay these cruel exactions. A recent letter from Armenia describes the method: “From five to ten thousand piasters are demanded of each little village. The collector arrives with a posse of soldiers, and these soldiers assemble all the men and women of the village, strip them naked, and deluge them with water from the wells till they faint, beating them with sticks, and by these brutal methods compel the poor people to give up their last cow or sheep, to save their lives.” If the Armenians resist, they are killed. If they try to defend themselves, the slaughter becomes general, and a massacre is started. It must not be forgotten that the Armenians are not allowed to possess any kind of weapons, not even a pocket knife, and that their murderers are literally armed to the teeth with knives and pistols. So long as the people can cling to the hills they can survive by hiding, but the endeavor is to force them down to the plains, where the soldiery can get at them. Once there only a large supply of money or the acceptance of the religion of the unspeakable Turk can save them. Is it any wonder that the harassed nation cries to the French and the English and the Americans at least to keep consuls in Armenia, that the world may know of its woes?—The Outlook