Would Send Here 550,000 Armenians -nyt19150914
WOULD SEND HERE 550,000 ARMENIAS
Morgenthau Urges Scheme to Save Them From Turks--offers to Raise $1,000,000
SEPTEMBER 14, 1915
Special to NEW YORK TIMES. CHICAGO, Sept. 13.--The Chicago Daily News prints this dispatch from Sofia, Bulgaria: "Henry Morgentau, American Ambassador to Turkey, recently made an offer to the Turkish Government to raise $1,000,000 to transport to America the Armenians who thus far have escaped the general massacres. Enver Pasha, the Minister of War, and Taalat Bey, Minister of the Interior, accepted the offer, and Sept. 3 the Ambassador asked the Government at Washington to appoint a committee of five Americans, whom he recommended, to take charge of the great undertaking. Mr. Morgenthau declined, however, to give me their names when I saw him recently in Constantinople.
"Since May," said the Ambassador,"350,000 Armenians have been slaughtered or have died of starvation. There are 550,000 Armenians who could now be sent to America, and we need help to save them. One million dollars is too little for the purpose of transporting them, as it takes $100 to equip, feed and transport one man. Perhaps $3,000,000 will be necessary. I should like to see each of the Western States raise a fund to equip a ship to bring the number of setting it wants. The Armenians are a moral, hard working race, and would make good citizens to settle the less thickly populated parts of the Western States."
Turks admit that the Armenian persecution is the first step in a plan to get rid of Christians, and that Greeks will come next. Jews also are marked for slaughter or expulsion. American missionaries must also be driven out for Turkey henceforth is to be for Turks alone. The Sheik-ul-Islam, on being questioned, said that the deportation of the Armenians was contrary to Moslem law, but that he was powerless in the face of military despotism.
Foreigners in Constantinople hold the Germans, in part at least, responsible for the persecution of the Armenians, for they are doing nothing to prevent the distribution of inflammatory literature among the savage tribes inciting them to attack Christians.
A hard copy of this article or hundreds of others from the time of the Armenian Genocide can be found in The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts From The American Press: 1915-1922