The French intervened and by force undertook to check religious atrocities in Lebanon, in 1861.[590]
Various nations directed protests to the governments of Russia and Rumania with respect to pogroms and atrocities against Jews. Similar protests were made to the government of Turkey on behalf of the persecuted Christian minorities. In 1872 the United States, Germany, and five other powers protested to Rumania; and in 1915, the German Government joined in a remonstrance to Turkey on account of similar persecutions.[591]
In 1902 the American Secretary of State, John Hay, addressed to Rumania a remonstrance “in the name of humanity” against Jewish persecutions, saying, “This government cannot be a tacit party to such international wrongs.”
Again, in connection with the Kishenef [Kishinev] and other massacres in Russia in 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt stated:
“* * * Nevertheless there are occasional crimes committed on so vast a scale and of such peculiar horror as to make us doubt whether it is not our manifest duty to endeavor at least to show our disapproval of the deed and our sympathy with those who have suffered by it. The cases must be extreme in which such a course is justifiable. * * * The cases in which we could interfere by force of arms as we interfered to put a stop to intolerable conditions in Cuba are necessarily very few. * * *”[592]
Concerning the American intervention in Cuba in 1898, President McKinley stated:
“First. In the cause of humanity and to put an end to the barbarities, bloodshed, starvation, and horrible miseries now existing there, and which the parties to the conflict are either unable or unwilling to stop or mitigate. It is no answer to say this is all in another country, belonging to another nation, and therefore none of our business. It is specially our duty, for it is right at our door.”[593]
The same principle was recognized as early as 1878 by a learned German professor of law, who wrote:
“States are allowed to interfere in the name of international law if ‘humanity rights’ are violated to the detriment of any single race.”[594]
Finally, we quote the words of Sir Hartley Shawcross, the British Chief Prosecutor at the trial of Goering, et al.: