This expedition containing as it did two leading men, again divided, taking between them, as their separate reports show, charges of the relief of two hundred villages of the Harpoot vilayet, and later on Diarbekir, and that by their active provision and distribution of farming implements and cattle and the raising of the hopes and courage of the people, they succeeded in securing the harvest and saving the grain crops of those magnificent valleys.
While this was in progress, a dispatch came to me at Constantinople, from Dr. Shepard, of Aintab, whose tireless hands had done the work of a score of men, saying that fevers, both typhoid and typhus, of a most virulent nature, had broken out in Arabkir, two or three days north of Harpoot; could I send doctors and help? Passing the word on to Dr. Hubbell, at Harpoot, the prompt and courageous action was taken by him which his report will name, but never fully show. It is something to say that from a rising pestilence with a score of deaths daily, in five weeks, himself and his assistants left the city in a normally healthful condition, in which it remained at last accounts, the mortality ceasing at once under their care and treatment.
During this time the medical relief for the cities of Zeitoun and Marash was in charge of Dr. Harris, who reached there March 18. The report of the consuls had placed the daily number of deaths from the four contagious diseases at one hundred. This would be quite probable when it is considered that ten thousand were smitten with the prevailing diseases, and that added to this were the crowded conditions of the patients, by the thousands of homeless refugees who had flocked from their forsaken villages; the lack of all comforts, of air, cleanliness, and a state of prolonged starvation. Dr. Harris’ first report to me was that he was obliged to set the soup kettles boiling, and feed his patients before medicine could be retained. My reply was a draft for two hundred liras, with the added dispatch: “Keep the pot boiling; let us know your wants.” The further reports show from this time an astonishingly small number of deaths. The utmost care was taken by all our expeditions to prevent the spread of the contagion and there is no record of its ever having been carried out of the cities, where it was found, either at Zeitoun, Marash, or Arabkir. Lacking this precaution, it might well have spread throughout all Asia Minor, as was greatly feared by the anxious people. On the twenty-fourth of May Dr. Harris reported the disease as overcome. His stay being no longer needed, he returned to his great charge in Tripoli with the record of a medical work and success behind him never surpassed if ever equaled. The lives he had saved were enough to gain heaven’s choicest diadem. Never has America cause to be so justly proud and grateful as when its sons and daughters in foreign lands perform deeds of worth like that.
The appalling conditions at Zeitoun and Marash on the arrival of Dr. Harris, naturally led him to call for more physicians, and the most strenuous efforts were made to procure them, but the conditions of the field were not tempting to medical men. Dr. Post had already sent the last recruit from Beyrout, still he manfully continued his efforts. Smyrna was canvassed through the efforts of our prompt and efficient Consul, Colonel Madden, on whom I felt free to make heavy drafts, remembering tenderly as we both did, when we stood together in the Red Cross relief of the Ohio floods of 1884. Failing there, I turned my efforts upon Constantinople. Naturally, we must seek nationalities outside of Armenians. We succeeded in finding four Greek physicians, who were contracted with, and sailed May 11, through perplexing delays of shipping, taking with them large and useful medical supplies and delicacies for the sick, as well as several large disinfecting machines which were loaned to us by the Turkish Government, Dr. Zavitziano, a Greek physician, who kindly assisted us in many ways, conducting the negotiations. Through unavoidable delays they were able to reach Alexandretta only on May 25. By this time the fevers had been so far overcome that it was not deemed absolutely necessary for them to proceed to Marash; and after conferring with Dr. Harris, they returned to Constantinople, still remaining under kindly contract without remuneration to go at once if called upon by us even to the facing of cholera, if it gained a foothold in Asia Minor. We should not hesitate to call for the services of these gentlemen even at this distance if they became necessary. This was known as the fifth expedition, which, although performing less service, was by far the most difficult to obtain, and the most firmly and legally organized of any.
The closing of the medical fields threw our entire force into the general relief of the vilayet of Harpoot, which the relieving missionaries had well named their “bottomless pit,” and where we had already placed almost the entire funds of the Boston and Worcester committees.
One will need to read largely between the lines of the modest skeleton reports of our agents in order to comprehend only approximately the work performed by them and set in motion for others to perform. The apathy to which the state of utter nothingness, together with their grief and fear, had reduced the inhabitants was by no means the smallest difficulty to be overcome; and here was realized the great danger felt by all—that of continued almsgiving, lest they settle down into a condition of pauperism, and thus, finally starve from the inability of the world at large to feed them. The presence of a strange body of friendly working people coming thousands of miles to help them, awakened a hope and stimulated the desire to help themselves.
It was a new experience that these strangers dared to come to them. Although the aforetime home lay a heap of stone and sand, and nothing belonging to it remained, still the land was there and when seed to plant the ground and the farming utensils and cattle were brought to work it with, the faint spirit revived, the weak, hopeless hands unclasped, and the farmer stood on his feet again; and when the cities could no longer provide the spades, hoes, plows, picks, and shovels, and the crude iron and steel to make them was taken to them, the blacksmith found again his fire and forge and traveled weary miles with his bellows on his back. The carpenter again swung his hammer and drew his saw. The broken and scattered spinning wheels and looms from under the storms and debris of winter, again took form and motion, and the fresh bundles of wool, cotton, flax, and hemp, in the waiting widow’s hand brought hopeful visions of the revival of industries which should not only clothe but feed.
At length, in early June, the great grain fields of Diarbekir, Farkin and Harpoot valleys, planted the year before, grew golden and bowed their heavy spear-crowned heads in waiting for the sickle. But no sickles were there, no scythes, not even knives, and it was a new and sorry sight for our full-handed American farming men, to see those poor, hard, Asiatic hands, trying by main strength to break the tough straw or pull it by the roots. This state of things could not continue, and their sorrow and pity gave place to joy when they were able to drain the cities of Harpoot and Diarbekir of harvest tools, and turned the work of all the village blacksmiths on to the manufacture of sickles and scythes, and of the flint workers upon the rude threshing machines.
They have told me since their return that the pleasantest memories left to them were of those great valleys of golden grain, bending and falling before the harvesters, men and women, each with the new sharp sickle or scythe—the crude threshing planks, the cattle trampling out the grain, and the gleaners in the rear as in the days of Abraham and Moab. God grant that somewhere among them was a kind-hearted king of the harvest who gave orders to let some sheaves fall.
Even while this saving process was going on, another condition no less imperative arose. These fields must be replanted for the coming year, or starvation had been simply delayed. Only the strength of their old time teams of oxen could break up the hard sod and prepare for the fall sowing. Not an animal—ox, cow, horse, goat or sheep—had been left. All had been driven to the Kourdish mountains. When Mr. Wood’s telegram came, calling for a thousand oxen for the hundreds of villages, some of which were very large, I thought of our not rapidly swelling bank account, and all that was needed everywhere else, and replied accordingly. But when, in return, came the telegram from the Rev. Dr. Gates, president of Harpoot College, the live, active, practical man of affairs, whose judgment no one could question, saying that the need of oxen was imperative, that unless the ground could be ploughed before it dried and hardened, it could not be done at all, and the next harvest would be lost, and that “Mr. Wood’s estimate was moderate,” I loosened my grasp on the bank account and directed the financial secretary to send a draft for 5,000 liras ($22,000) to care of Rev. Dr. Gates, Harpoot, to be divided among the three expeditions for the purchase of cattle and the progress of the harvest of 1897.