Frederick Davis Greene

“ No one wishes to hurt any Mohammedan who will live peaceably and not hurt Christians. No one wishes that any man, merely because he is a Mohammedan, should be in any way worse off than a Christian, or be put under any disability as compared with a Christian. There is no reason why he should be. For the Mohammedan religion, though it does not command that Christians shall be persecuted, does command that Christians shall be treated as subjects of Mohammedans. But the Christian religion in no way commands that Mohammedan shall be treated as the subject of Christian. ”

“ It is not the Kourdish robbers, or famine, or cholera that have to answer for the present state of the country. It is rather the robbery, and famine, and worse than cholera entailed on the country by the workings of this system. It is not alone the blood of five thousand men, women, children, and babies, that rises in a fearful wail to heaven, calling for just vengeance, but also the fearful suffering, the desolate homes, the wanton cruelty of tax collectors and petty officials, and the violated honor of scores and scores. ”

“ As I have said, I hope it is not so, and I will hope to the last, but if it is so it is time that one general shout of execration, not of men, but of deeds, one general shout of execration directed against deeds of wickedness, should rise from outraged humanity, and should force itself into the ears of the Sultan of Turkey and make him sensible, if anything can make him sensible, of the madness of such a course. ”

“ I have confessed already to a prejudice against the Armenians, but it is not possible to deny that they are the most capable, energetic, enterprising, and pushing race in Western Asia, physically superior, and intellectually acute, and above all they are a race which can be raised in all respects to our own level, neither religion, color, customs, nor inferiority in intellect or force constituting any barrier between us. Their shrewdness and aptitude for business are remarkable, and whatever exists of commercial enterprise in Eastern Asia Minor is almost altogether in their hands. ”

“ It is to be greatly regretted that the Ottoman Ambassador should attempt to cover up the path of these horrid atrocities which have agitated the whole Christian world and for which Turkey must give account. It were far better to deplore the fact and work for justice and judgment. It may be the time has passed when such deeds of blood and torture, committed upon unarmed men, women and children, can be condoned by the civilized world. ”

“ Why longer exact or accept from the Sultan promises which he cannot make without doing violence to his own conscience and to his office, and which he cannot execute without imperilling his throne? You might as well ask the Pope to abandon the doctrines of temporal sovereignty and of infallibility, which to him are fundamental. If the situation in Turkey demands that anything be done, and if the rest of humanity and civilization have any responsibility in the matter, let practical statesmen proceed to business. ”

“ It is not in the power of this country, acting singly, to undertake to represent humanity at large, and to inflict, even upon the grossest wrongdoers, the punishments that their crimes may have deserved; but there is such a thing as the conscience of mankind at large, and the conscience is not limited even to Christendom. (Hear, hear.) And there is a great power in the collected voice of outraged humanity. What happened in Bulgaria? The Sultan and his government absolutely denied that anything wrong had been done. ”

“ Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas,—one and all, bag and baggage,—shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to the memory of those heaps on heaps of dead; to the violated purity alike of matron, of maiden, and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large. ”

“ The Armenians are a noble race, but few in number, scattered and unarmed. The Turkish Government has never had the least fear of any such movement. It knows well that there is no place in the Empire where one thousand or even one hundred Armenians could assemble with hostile intent. And besides they have no arms, and they are not accustomed to their use. They would be lambs in the midst of wolves. Every one knows this who knows anything of Turkey outside of Constantinople. ”

“ Everywhere there is an activity, a watchfulness, and an energy displayed by the government in the recent efforts to encompass the Christians and to cut off their name and existence, that point to a newly formed plan to be put into execution with as little waste of time as possible. Woe to the poor remnant in this land if the European and American governments disregard recent events in Turkey! Christian nations in that case, even if they do not directly participate in what will certainly follow sooner or later, cannot be held guiltless of the blood of their fellow-men.... ”

“ Destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies of the religion! O Allah! Make their children orphans, and defile their abodes! Cause their feet to slip; give them and their families, their households and their women, their children and their relations by marriage, their brothers and their friends, their possessions and their race, their wealth and their lands, as booty to the Moslems, O Lord of all Creatures! ”

“ I have rarely found it difficult to persuade intelligent Armenians that an autonomous Armenia is impracticable. But I have never been able to convince one of them that the course of England and the other powers has been anything but one of selfishness, jealousy, and dishonor as far as fulfilment of their treaty obligations is concerned.
During a residence of four years in Eastern Turkey I noticed a marked and rapid alienation of Armenian sentiment from England in favor of Russia, who now seems to them the only source of succor. ”

“ It is not a question of Mohammedanism simply, but of Mohammedanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mohammedans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force as opposed to government by law. ”

“ It is to be hoped that the time will come when the children of the Armenian church of every shade will no longer look upon her as a mother frail and failing, yet to be treated with respect while she lasts; nor as a mother ignorant and bigoted beyond hope of reform ”

“ The most open and shameless bribery is practised from highest to lowest; prompt, even-handed justice for rich and poor alike is unknown; sentence is given in favor of the suitor who ‘places’ his money most judiciously; imprisonment or freedom has in many places become a matter of bribery; robbers, when arrested, are protected by members of the Court, who share their spoil; a simple order may send an innocent man to prison for months; crime goes unpunished, and all manner of oppression and injustice is committed with impunity. ”

“ The history of Turkey has been a sad and painful history. That race has not been without remarkable and even in some cases fine qualities, but from too many points of view it has been a scourge to the world, made use of, no doubt, by a wise Providence for the sins of the world. ”

“ She has again caught Turkey in her trap. The whole civilized world will now approve of her marching in with force to stop the slaughter of an industrious, peaceful, unarmed peasantry. If Russia enters, it will be with professions of great kindness toward the Sultan. It will be to aid him in his well known benevolent intentions in the government of his Christian subjects! But she will call the Armenians to her standard and will arm and train them and they will prove a brave and valiant soldiery. Some of the ablest generals of the Russian army have been Armenians. ”

“ If it be allowable that the executive power of Turkey should renew, at this great crisis, by permission or authority of Europe, the charter of its existence in Bulgaria, then there is not on record, since the beginnings of political society, a protest that man has lodged against intolerable misgovernment, or a stroke he has dealt at loathsome tyranny, that ought not henceforth forward to be branded as a crime. ”

“ The Armenians, very numerous in ancient times, now number only about 4,000,000, of whom 2,500,000 are under the Sultan, 1,200,000 in Russia, 150,000 in Persia, and the rest widely scattered in many lands, but everywhere distinguished for their peaceable and enterprising character. They are the leading bankers, merchants, and skilled artisans of Turkey, and extensively engage in the various trades, manufactures, and agriculture as well. They love their native home and are yet destined to play an important part in the moral and material regeneration of western Asia. ”

“ They may be slaughtered like sheep, but they will not all die like dogs. The revolutionary movement, as it is called, is thus far nothing but a blind turning of the worm. It is ill considered, without resources, reckless, and foreign to the real spirit, objects, and methods of the Armenians on Turkish soil. It is not denied that there are a few Armenians in Europe who, in despair and for lack of better teaching, have imbibed Nihilistic views and are trying, in a very bungling way, to apply them. They are hated by the vast majority of Armenians in Turkey. ”

“ It has been the rule of cruelty, faithlessness, and brutal lust; it has not been government, but organized brigandage. His rule cannot be reformed. While all other nations get better and better, the Turk gets worse and worse. And when the chief powers of Europe join in demanding that he should make even the smallest reform, he impudently refuses to make any. ”

“ But the Armenian question should not be allowed to fill the whole horizon in the Levant. Just now the blaze comes from their house, but no one can tell when it may result in a general xixconflagration. All the other Christian races and the Mohammedan races, too, are equally concerned. Europe itself is endangered, as her statesmen well know, and safety depends only on their prompt and united action.
I have seen the crushing and—what is worse—demoralizing conditions from which the Armenian and all other races in Turkey suffer under Moslem misrule. ”

“ But as soon as foreign pressure was relaxed the activity of the Censor revived, and is now more intolerable than ever. A gentleman of long experience and intimate knowledge writing from behind the scenes within a month, states: “The Censorship of the Press is so severe as to amount almost to a prohibition. At Constantinople a most reckless and destructive mutilation of books goes on; and, contrary to the expressed utterances of the Porte guaranteeing religious liberty, Christian doctrines are expunged or changed, so as, at times, to become ridiculous and false. ”

“ If the executioners themselves overlooked any of their victims, the jackals, dogs, and vultures have surely found them by this time.
There are fifty native-born American citizens, not counting their children, who are now buried in Eastern Turkey. The fanatical outbreak which has slain thousands in their midst may yet involve them. The President of the United States long ago ordered a U. S. Consul to make a report as to the facts, simply for his own government, which has no official knowledge of what has or is taking place in that isolated region. ”

“ It is true that Armenians who have come under European influence, especially French, have to some extent become sceptical and indifferent to religion. But even such men still profess at least an outward loyalty, as a matter of sentiment, and because they believe the formal preservation of the Armenian church to be the condition of national union in the future as it has been in the past. It is, indeed, almost a political necessity, as the Ottoman Empire is now constituted. ”

“ As Orientals they understand Oriental character and modes of thought as we never can, and if a new Pentecostal afflatus were to fall upon the educated and intelligent young men who are being trained in the colleges which the American churches have scattered liberally through Asia Minor, the effect upon Turkey would be marvellous. I think most decidedly that reform in Turkey must come through Christianity, and in this view the reform and enlightenment of the religion which has such a task before it are of momentous importance. ”

“ The fundamental doctrines of Christianity, such as the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Atonement, and the Resurrection of Christ are specifically repudiated in the Koran.
The reform of Islam as a system is, therefore, not within the range of possibility. How about the reform of the Ottoman Government? On this point I yield the floor to the great historian E. A. Freeman, who will close the debate [51] :
“There are some people who say the Turks are no doubt very bad, but that the Christians are just as bad, and have done things just as cruel. ”

“ There is another evil connected with this system which may lead to serious difficulties with foreign Powers. All foreign relations are supposed to be managed through the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Grand Vizier, but these officials have no power and but little influence. They can promise nothing and do nothing. But in all delicate diplomatic questions it is essential to treat with responsible agents, and to discuss them with such agents in a way in which it is impossible to treat with the Sovereign himself. The present system has been a serious injury to Turkey. ”

“ The blind policy which was inaugurated by the present Sultan of dismissing non-Moslems from every branch of public service—post, telegraph, custom-house, internal revenue, engineering, and the like—has already been carried out to a large extent all over the empire, and especially in Armenia. The frequent changes in Turkish officials keeps their business in a state of “confusion worse confounded,” and incites them to improve their chance to plunder while it lasts. Traces of the relatively large revenue, wrung from the people, and spent in improvements of service to them, are very hard to find. ”

“ The prospect of reform is brightened by three facts: first, the Armenian church is essentially democratic, and is not in bondage to any “infallible” human authority; second, her errors of doctrine and practice are not fundamental, and, having never been sanctioned by councils, but simply by custom and tradition, can in due time be discarded; third, she has always acknowledged the supreme authority of the Bible, which is no longer a sealed book, having been translated into the modern tongue by American missionaries, very widely scattered, and at last gladly 142received by all classes. ”