“What they need here more than anything else is good men, and that is the work which the American schools are doing.
“Formerly every man professing the Christian faith, from the date of his birth to the date of his death, had to pay $2.50 tax a year in lieu of military service, because none but Moslems were admitted to the army. That rule has been abolished and members of all religious faiths, Jews and Gentiles, are now eligible for military service and are compelled to serve three years in the army when they become of age. Hence the increased emigration, which is becoming very large. Some of our most promising young men among the Armenians and Greeks are going to America. Three of our own native teachers left recently, among others, to work in shirt and collar factories of Troy, N. Y. Others have gone to the shoe factories of Massachusetts, to work in restaurants, and to engage in other business in the United States where their friends have gone before them and have found positions for them. During the last few months sixty promising young men from our little Protestant congregation have left for the United States, and thus our schools and churches are educating future American citizens.
“This emigration is not entirely due to a desire to avoid military service, but very largely to improve their condition. If there was a common foe, if Turkey was at war with some foreign power, the Christian young men would be perfectly willing to go into the army, but they are afraid of being sent to Arabia to suppress uprisings of Mohammedans, a duty from which no soldier ever returns, or to Macedonia to put down insurrections of their co-religionists in that province.
“The Turkish government is trying to make the military service more attractive for Christian young men and has commissioned several of the most intelligent young fellows as officers. It is providing military schools for the education of Christian as well as Turkish cadets, and as soon as they are competent gives them posts in the gendarmes.
“The cost of living in Armenia has been increasing gradually for several years,” continued Doctor Crawford, “which is a serious matter for teachers as well as for the pastors of the Greek and Armenian churches, who are very poorly paid and receive barely enough to buy their food. The pastor of our Protestant church is being urged by friends to go to Dakota, where there are several prosperous Armenian colonies. We have a neat little Protestant church here. Services in the Armenian language are held Sunday morning, in the Greek language in the afternoon, and in Turkish in the evening. Many Turks attend our evening service—some from curiosity and some from interest. A thoughtful Turk is usually fair-minded. He is willing to hear what you have to say, although he is not easily convinced. Indeed, there is a great deal that is good in a Turk. He is charitable and hospitable; he is industrious and reasonably honest; and we can get along with him very easily if his religious prejudices are not excited and he is given a good government.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE MASSACRES OF 1909
In April, 1909, there was an organized uprising of fanatical Moslems at Adana, Kessab, and other towns in eastern Turkey, in which more than 25,000 native Christians were massacred and four times as many lost all of their belongings by the burning of their homes. At Tarsus several hundred Armenian houses were destroyed, and at least four thousand refugees were protected from massacre in the grounds and buildings of the American College. At Antioch, forty miles south of Alexandretta, an Armenian population of 7,000 was nearly annihilated. Ruthless gangs of Kurds, Arabs, and Circassians attacked the small Armenian villages, pillaging and burning the houses, and carrying the women into captivity. Kessab, a thrifty Armenian town of 8,000 inhabitants, was entirely destroyed and a large portion of the population was put to death. The Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, the residences of the American missionaries, an American high school for girls and grammar school for boys were all destroyed. At Adana, Tarsus, and Mersina the atrocities were beyond description, and the survivors of the massacres were reduced to poverty and despair. All the Armenian villages throughout that section were looted and burned, and the crops of the people were destroyed so that 50,000 helpless, innocent peasants fled to the mountains, where only starvation remained for them. It is estimated that not less than 25,000 people were massacred and more than 100,000 were made homeless—the victims of a fiendish conspiracy for which Abdul Hamid, the former sultan of Turkey, was directly or indirectly responsible. Appeals for help and protection came down to the cities on the coast from scores of interior towns and villages, but the local officials as a rule, knowing the reason and recognizing the significance of the outbreak, dared not interfere, even had they desired to do so. The consuls of foreign governments cabled information as promptly as possible. American physicians and teachers organized relief forces, and Mr. Kennedy, an American missionary at Alexandretta, even persuaded a battalion of 450 Turkish soldiers to follow him to the relief of Deurtyul, an Armenian city of 10,000 inhabitants, which was besieged by a horde of Kurds and Circassians.
The officials of the American Red Cross at Washington, learning of these horrors through the newspapers, appealed to the Department of State for information and got reports from all our consuls in this part of the world. The Honourable G. Bie Ravndal, American consul-general at Beirut, E. G. Freyer of the Presbyterian mission, and George E. Post of the Syrian Protestant College had already organized a relief committee which was promptly equipped with the authority as well as the supplies of the American Cross.
The sum of $30,500 was sent immediately through the secretary of state and the American ambassador at Constantinople and was liberally expended in feeding the hungry, nursing the wounded, and providing for the orphan children of the families that had been put to death. Temporary hospitals for the sick and wounded and barracks and tents for the homeless were erected, provisions and clothing of all kinds were supplied, and as soon as the actual suffering was relieved, seeds and implements were provided for the farmers so that they might be able to replant the crops that had been destroyed.