HORRORS OF TURKISH RULE.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17701, 1 March 1923, Page 9

HORRORS OF TURKISH RULE.

DR. LINCOLN WIRT'S NARRATIVE. (Melbourne "Argus" Correspondent) NEW YORK, January 3. ''lt was just year ago," said Dr. Wirt upon his arrival, "that I left New \ork for a trip round the world, sailing from Sail Francisco early in January. I I have visited twenty-six countries. The commission given me by the American Near Relief Committee was: 'lnternationalise the work of relief in the Near East!' 'We have spent,' ti'ev said, 'seventy-five million dollars in trying to Bave the minority races within the domain of the Turk, but the task is assuming such gigantic proportions that we would welcome the sympathetic cooperation of other coimtritss. We are sending you to find other springs of chanty, that a great outpouring orsyni- ; path.y may come, not only from America j but from the generous-hearted people j of other lands.' Working under that i commission I have been trying to bring i about an entente of friendship by! stretching a golden chain of mercy j around the world, believing that co- j operation in service for the less for-, tunato nations is bound to help bring in that spirit'of brotherhood and good-j will tor wnich the world stands in sucJi great need to-day. "My message was received everywhere with . courtesy and responded to with gratifying generosity. Near East relief organisations were perfected, and are now gathering iunus, in Hawaii, Japan, Korea, China, the Phillipines, and all the States.of Australia and New ZieuUtnd. i<'our cargoes or flour and foodstuffs have been sent from Australia and these great-haarted colonials have undertaken to send a cargo every month.

"Tho latter part of my commission was to revisit the Near East, make a thorough inspection of all orphanages and hospitals, and then return to America, with the latest report on our work in the field. I arrived in Constantinople just after the debacle at Smyrna, and during the exodus from Thrace, and found myself in the ceritie of that human stream of misery, sweeping from the interior of Turkey, outward, anywhere, to escape the red hand of those who had sworn to clear the Holy Land of the Christians. During tho last two months I have been in hell. That is I have been in the Near East. But I have also seen that darkest theatre of "man's inhumanity to man shot through, with courage and faith and human kindness. I have seen a refinement of cruelty practised openly and widely that would make the story of the Dark ■ Ages read like a Sunday supplement; but I "have also seen men die gloriously, fighting to save the honour of women and the lives of little children. I have seen camps containing ,5000, 20,000, 50,000 cowering,' frightened, cold, wretched, half-starved human beings, stripped of wealth anc} happiness, reduced to the ' elemental condition of savagery. I have seen little children dying like JSies after tho first frost—lßo of them a day. I have seen women —scores of them, lying on the ground in the rain, -giving birth to children, without a, curtain, without a blanket, without doctor or nurse.

Plight of Refugees. "Prom this seen© I have come as fast , as trains arid'steamer could bririg- me' from Constantinople, Smyrna., Mityten&,: Atheiiir, Salonika. ' Ten days ago I visited the Greek and Armenian refugees, huddled in a dozen wretched camps at The Piraeus. Tho sight reminded me'of the Chicago stockyards.l Added to the crowded misery, the cold winter rains had begun. ; The first camp contained 6,000 people, who had escaped the flames and massacres at Smyrna. They were quartered in what had.once been a series of warehouses along tho water front. 'These old buildings had been abandoned. The floors were of dirt, half the walls broken down. The roof was only an apology, through which the rain was : admitted by a thousand rents and openings. On tW muddy floor sat the refugees in groups so close together that there was' not even a passage ! %ay. Here was misery, to I the ninth degree. These people had lost everything except the clothes they sat in. Very few had blankets. Some were able.'to find a piece of reed matting or burlap upon which they ' could lie. Others were prone upon the wet ground. Half of them had trachema or conjunctivitis. Half a pound of bread was rationed daily to each person. Water could bo found only at a distance. _ Sanitary conditions' are better imagined" than described. Through this reeking 'Black Hole of Calcutta' I passed, my heart torn to shreds to be forced to believe the' unbelievable—<t!hab in this Christian age, human beings, fellowChristians, pro-Allies, those who had every claim of blood, faith, and honour upon us, could be left to rot and dio in such a place of contagion and human suffering. Women called to us on eveiy side, clinging to our garments, begging that we take away their; bread ration and give them "blankets instead. For a single person to sit through a long, cold night, with the rain beating in, clad'in a thin dress or linen suit, without protection against the bleak night wind, is a refinement of torture; but to multiply this a hundred thousand times (a million would be nearer to the truth) is to expose our national selfishness,? indict our political expediency, and tear the veneer from our Christian civilisation. During the hour I spent in this inferno I saw three persons die. T)r. Mabel Blliott, of the American Women's Hospital, to whom I went with a, plea for immediate help, told me that one-third of the people in that camp vore sick, and should be in hospital". Small-pox, typhoid, typhus, and diphtheria were all about us. She and her o;-ganisnticm. together with the personnel of the Near East Relief, were doing what could lie done in the emergency, until the American Red Cross could begin functioning, but to us, on ' the ground, every day's delay seemed inexcusable. 'Phis was one of the five camps I visited that day.» It was typi- | cal of them nil.

Instances of Suffering. At one place I was struck by the cultured appearance of a grey-haired man and his wife, who sat huddled under a piece of canvas, in what had' been an old blacksmith shop. I asked my interpreter if lie would get the man's story, but the refugee himself spoke up in excellent English, and said he needed jig. interpreter. And then I learned that he ha/1 been a wealthy wholesale merchant in Smyrna; his business and property investments'had represented a fortune of half a million dollars. All had 1 been swebt away. Their children had been separated from them—wliether still alive or not they could not say. Both this man and his wifo were college graduates, had travelled widely, were <is sensitive and high-minded as iiv person wKo reads these words. Yet hero they wore, refugees, as empty-handed and almost as naked' as the day they were born, sitting on a niece of canvas in the cold rain. "Why? I asked myself, and I ask, you—[Why ft Has the world lost every sense «r shame? Is the age of chivalry entirely past? This aged couple had done no wroncr. They 'stood for the virtues and principles for which w© live, and yet thev suffer the loss of all things save self-respect. They were but two out of as many millions who bad fled or are fleeing from the land.which gave themt

birth, and winch gave birth to the reli- 1 gion of Jesus Christ—in defence of which they perish. As I passed from one camp to another' I saw a group of several hundred standing it* the rain. Upon enquiring the reason for this I was told it was a bread " ne —that these people had stood for three hours in the street waiting for their dole of dark bread. Word had been passed that the distribution would be made at 7 o'clock. They had. arrived at 7 o'clock for their breakfast ration. It was now nearly 11 o'clock, and they were still waiting. Some break in the machinery, some fault- in the administration, someone had blundered ; aud it is always the poor refugee who must bear the brunt of it all. Leaving another cainp a woman rushed to our automobile, thrust her thin tace under the top, from which the rain was pouring in streams over her bare neck and down her back, clad only in a thin calico slip. She, too, was speaking English: she, too, had attended' an American school, had been a teacher there, and was now a refugee. She asked nothing for herself, but begged in the name of compassion that some place might be found for her daughter, who at the moment was Iving on piece of matting in the dark corner of a shed, in child-birth.

So it was all day long, as I passed from one camp of miserv to another. Jhere were between 90,000 and 100,000 of these poor wretches, scattered over the five-mile plain from Athens to In reus. Ana everywhere it was the same cry. blankets, blankets.. I saw a woman whose sweet face and white hair reminded me strangely of my mother. I stopped to tpeak to her. Through an interpreter I asked if she was in special need—what would' make ; Lei- happy. 0 pointed to the,'piece of soiled calico over her feet, saying, "That is all the covering I have at night." Beneath ner was a flour sack. The ground was wet. . This dear old soul, with her sweet face and white hair, was cold, cold with a chilling cold that none of us has ever endured. If I could but give blankets to thorn all! But it was not my sphero of service to distribute blankets or relief. I was there, simply to see and tell tho story, and yet one would have needed a heart of stone not to have handed that dear old lady the price of a blanket. Did you ever have a saint and a martyr kiss your hand? The spot burns yet I

Call to Christian Nations*

Standing in the midst of this human wreckage, with the eternal question ia my mind-—Why? I could but turn mv eyes upward to the Acropolis, dominating this region ,o£ a thousand ancient glories. Outlined against tho grey sky stood the Parthenon, its broken magnificence enabling one to rebuild in imagination the perfected outline of its pristine grace and beauty; and not sp long ago either. Through the centuries that glorious temple had been held sacred, even by the Hun and the vandal, until those for whom nothing is sacred, save the tomb of the false prophet, made a powder magazine of this matchless work of art, with the result that it is to-day the world's most glorious ruin. And the same hand_ that can..strike dowjn the most beautiful fabric ever conceived by the mind of man is the hand that can' destroy, in fiendish cruelty an equally ancient and 'glorious race of men. ' The thing that seisms strangest of all to some of us who have been walking in the trail, of the serpent iB that the _ Christian nations of , the earth sit supinely by and watch this reign of terror, this defamation of every noble feeling, this flower of Christian civilisation tramped upon, spurned, and insulted, and do nothing to stop it. As I left Athens/ a wireless came from Constantinople saying: "We are sending you 12,000 children, orphans whom we have been caring for for five years. They have /just been driven over tho mountains from Rivas, and have, after incredible suffering, reached Constantinople. These .children, I lest a worse fate befall them, we have [ crowded upon a vessel, and aro now sending to you at Piraeus.'* That was all. That was the message which Mr Fowle, director of our relief work in that area, .received. What could he do? Where could, lie send these children? Every, nook and cranny was crowded with refugees. Yet within the hour he asked Mr Berry, European representative, of our work, together with myself, to proceed by train to the "Peninsula of the Monks," hoping-to find ( asylum there for these little wastrels, who otherwise must be thrown upon the beach and become like stray dogs in the streets. To Salonica we came, where we received much encouragement from those to whom we applied, for help.' Mr Berry proceeded .immediately to Mount Athos, that "City of { Refugo" which these kindly • brothers of; the Religious order had promised, to provide for our army of little children. So we were glad to help forge one, last link in the chain of mercy which' Near East relief has been trying to throw around the world. Then I left that "land" of a million sorrows" to hurry on to New York, and to you who are holding the ropes while others go down to hell. i