At many points the lives of our missionaries were in peril but United States Minister Terrell warned the Sultan that his Government would be held responsible “If even a hair upon the head of an American should be touched:” and to enforce that word—a good straightforward, understandable word, there were three American warships cruising in Turkish waters.
There is not the slightest doubt but that if the fleets of the Great Powers had passed the Dardanelles in November, 1894, and demanded that the outrages against the Armenians should cease, or their guns would fire on Stamboul, silence would have fallen like that of death upon the fierce soldiers and fiercer Kurds, in Armenia. But the word was not spoken, and before God and in the sight of Christendom the blood of the slain is upon them.
From every quarter of the afflicted country appeals came pouring in, saying that the suffering was beyond all description and starvation imminent. “Aid must be sent quickly if lives were to be saved.” The survivors of the Erzingan massacre appealed to the Patriarch at Constantinople to lay their sore need before the world, and to “send aid quickly, quickly, quickly.” But these were only a few; similar appeals, heart-moving in their terrible earnestness, kept coming in from a score of districts where continued massacres made the trembling survivors almost wish for death, that they might be spared the pain of witnessing further horrors.
Noble work was done by American missionaries everywhere in Armenia. Nearly all were engaged in aiding the distressed families, and it was that fact alone that caused the Turkish officials to demand their withdrawal, in order that the homeless and destitute Armenians might be left to die.
Conspicuous among the relief work accomplished was that done at Van under the direction of Dr. Grace W. Kimball. All who care for the amelioration of destitution and suffering, cannot fail to see in the following letter, the practical wisdom which characterized her work. October 15, 1895, Dr. Kimball wrote:
“The plan of this work is to aid without pauperizing, and to utilize a part of the great number of workers who are idle and starving because there is no work to be had. A large proportion of the people of both city and villages are conversant with the various processes in the manufacture of coarse cotton and woolen fabrics. This suggested a simple solution of the work problem. Small sums of money had, as early as June, come to us for our distressed people. And on the strength of this money and the increasingly urgent demands for help, a very simple beginning was made. A bag of wool was bought, weighed out into pound portions, and whenever a woman came begging for help or work, her case was investigated, her name registered, and she was given wool to card and spin. On return of the thread it was weighed and examined as to quality: the woman was paid at a rate that, it was estimated, would supply her with bread, and she was given another lot of wool. The giving of two or three lots of wool in this way was enough to bring down on us a crowd, and speedily we found a large business flooding in upon us—one demanding good organization and a corps of distributors. Cotton was added to our supplies, and all the processes and tricks of the two trades were quickly investigated, and every attempt was made to put the enterprise on a sound business basis. We were able to select at once those whom our hearts had ached to help to gain a living, and a good corps of helpers was soon organized. Men to keep the door—and it often took three men to do this against the clamoring crowd—men to receive and weigh the wool, cotton and thread; men for the various demands of the Central Bureau.
“For the first two months the work was accommodated in our house, in the rooms used as a dispensary, and we were in a state of siege from morning to night. The long lower hall was devoted to a row of cotton-carders, the twang of whose primitive cards and the dust of whose work, filled the house from early morning till dark, while a crowd of wretched men and women was never absent. The accumulation of thread brought the necessity for weavers, and all the processes of weaving had to be studied. The demand was met at once by weavers who were out of work and in dire poverty. The thread was given them by weight, and the woven goods received by weight; and they in turn were paid with due regard to the needs of their families. Then to the children and to some who were too weak and sick to do the heavier work, yarn was given to be knitted into socks.
“Shortly, we found ourselves in possession of a good stock of cotton cloth, woolen goods for the loose trousers worn here, and huge piles of coarse socks. And the question what to do with them came to the front. The suggestion was made that this work might help and be helped by the Sassoun Relief work, by our supplying materials for distribution there. The proposition was submitted to Messrs. Raynolds and Cole and gladly accepted by them, and this arrangement has been the means whereby our Bureau could double its efficiency, thanks to having an assured market for all its produce, without affecting the same industries here, which on the contrary it should help. Our goods are done up in bales, loaded on donkeys or ox-carts, and carried down to the lake harbor. They are received by the miserable little sailboats that ply the lake, and taken—with prayers for insurance—to the opposite side of Van Lake, a distance of some sixty miles. Thence they are transported by horses or carts to Moush, the headquarters of the Sassoun Commission. The journey takes from ten days to two or three weeks. In this way we have already sent some two thousand pairs of socks, and fourteen hundred webs of cloth. The total number of workers (up to October 15) was as follows:
| Spinners of cotton and wool | 373 | ||||
| Weavers of cotton goods | 49 | ||||
| 22 | ||||
| 5 | ||||
| Carders | 9 | ||||
| Spindle Fillers | 9 | ||||
| Sizers | 4 | ||||
| Weighers, Door-tenders, etc. | 5 | ||||
| Total | 476 |
“The average of wages per capita for the week was seven piastres, or about thirty cents. The intense poverty of the people is shown by the fact that these wages, small as they are, exceed from one-third to one-half the regular rates for the same work. On the other hand the demands grow more and more urgent—desperate, I might well say. So importunate are the crowds that I often have to call a man to pass me out of the office after my work is done. They beg and weep and catch at my clothes and will not let me go. And it is maddening to see such misery, and yet be obliged to turn a deaf ear to so much of it. We help, through our four hundred and seventy six workers, some two thousand souls, and this is not in itself, a small thing. But when it is compared with the vast number of helpless poor about us, it accentuates our appeal to our more fortunate fellow Christians for larger help.