AMERICAN DENOUNCES AMERICA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3146, 4 December 1922, Page 7

AMERICAN DENOUNCES AMERICA.

Bishop Cannon, an American divine who has been assisting in the- Near East Relief Committee’s work among the Smyrna refugees, made no secret of his opinion that the 1 United States fell far short of doing her duty in the Near East. Arriving in Paris lately from Constantinople he immediately .sent the following cable to Mr C. E. Hughes, the American Secretary of State: — “You will recall that American church bodies urged the State Department in July to take whatever steps were necessary to protect Eastern Christians. A prompt and definite American demand, supported if necessary’ by American naval units present, would probably have prevented and certainly greatly‘minimised the Smyrna fires and massacres.

“I believe Almighty God will hold the Government responsible for inaction while thousands were murdered and deported, and 1 for its failure to protect against the heartless, brutal Kemalist announcement that all refugees not removed by to-day, Saturday, will be deported, which means that thousand's more will 1 be added to the dead of the previous Turkish deportation. “Will not our Government realise its opportunity and responsibility as a great Christian nation, politically disinterested, to demand’ that burnings, outrages and massacres cease, and thus effectively prevent the probable repetition in Constantinople• and Thrace of the 1915 Samsoun and Smyrna horrors ? 1 believe the wide world would tremendously approve. “Shall Americai have the condemnation of Merozp See Judges, v., twentythird verse.” [The twenty-third verse of the fifth chapter of Judges reads: “Curse ye the land of Meroz,” said the angel of the Lord; “curse ye the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to the help, of the' Lord, to help his most valiant men.”] Concerning his experiences in Constantinople, Bishop Cannon said: — “Those who have not been there and talked with the refugees and our workers from Smyrna cannot realise the situation—women with little children were shot down hy the Turks at the very doors of some of our hospitals; and, worse than this, young girls were outraged by the Turks on the quay at Smyrna before the eyes of American sailors’, with American guns pointing at them but not daring to lire. “Americans in tbe cast were ashamed that we were put iu this position. There are now 40,000 to 70.000 Kemalists in Constantinople, merely waiting for the word to begin the same thing there. The doors are practically chalked. The warning to the city regarding fires is merely a warning of massacre. “I rode through Stamhoul the night that Italy and France withdrew their forces. The people were in a frenzy, cheering France and crying ‘Down with tho English!’ “One lias to talk with our workers in Smyrna to get the real talc of horrors—it’s enough to make the whole world rise up and tell the Turks they are not fit to negotiate with. Christian minorities can no longer live, in Anatolia, but must be taken where the Turks cannot get at them, the situation being worse than it ever was before tho war.

“We have (30,000 orphans on our hands there alone, which American money must support as a result of Turkish brutality. If our Government were to announce that it would not permit further burnings and massacres, in the inline of humanity. I am confident the Turks would recognise what was meant. But at present our influence is small because they think we will do nothing.”