TURKEY’S WAGES OF SIN I
(Continued from Page Two 1
*sdth three other Armenian girls to
the tent of their master, who would
return to them every night, bearing
sacks of fresh victims’ clothing in his
blood-stained hands. As he tired of
the girls he sold them to other Cir
cassians for five Turkish pounds and
two camels apiece. The narrator j
lived a nomad life with him for a j
year and a half, then she managed to
escape across the desert,* and finally
reached home.
An Epic of Horror
Thus were Der-el-Zor’s 150,000 Ar
menians “lightened” in a few weeks.
Some survivors claim that the mas
sacre was accomplished in ten days,
and that 50,000 people perished in one
day alone. Those who took fright
and fled the town doubtless perished
in the wilderness, while to this hour
there are thousands upon thousands
cf Armenian slave girls and young
boys serving in their Circassian mas
ters’ tents. Nothing in history—not
even in the the Armenians’ history—
is comparable to this epic of horror.
Der-el-Zor is the Ittibat Terraki’s
bloody minaret of infamy.
Had Inception in Greed
And now, having murdered a mil
lion of its countrymen, the Ittibat
Terraki proceed to milk the country
itself. Food speculation had been
bad enough throughout the war; but
when things began to look ominous
. in 1917, the feverish selling and re
selling of staple foods and manufac
tured articles became a national gam
bling game, comparable to the South
Sea Bubble. This game was run, of
course, for the benefit of the Com
mittee of Union and Progress, whose
tactics were rapidly concentrating
trade and commerce into Moslem
hands. And, indeed, had the Central
Powers won the war, this aspect of
Pan-Turkism would have been a solid
ly established fact. With Ittibat Ter
raki members in charge of the food
control and the railways, the whole
fruitful field of revictualment lay
open to graft. Only those shippers;
who belonged to the Union and!
Progress were allowed freight cars—S
^ which is to say, that when a non
' Moslem producer wished to forward
his goods, he must either sell them
to a Turk in the organization or else j
be prepared to pay big “backsheesh"j
to various Union and Progress rail-!
way officials. It is easy to see where
the unfortunate consumer “got off”
as the result of this procedure, nor
is it surprising that in 1917 food
prices suddenly leaped up five and
tenfold. While bread was reduced in
weight from 2.82 pounds to 2.2 pounds
the loaf, it rose in price from six to
thirty cents. It is true that the gov
ernment sold a small, daily loaf by
card for nine cents—a chocolate-col
ored loaf consisting of just enough
flour to amalgamate such adultera- j
tions as sawdust and macerated straw!
—but even this war-bread soon be
came subject to speculation, until to
day it sells on the streets for fifteen j
cents. Flour, costing the govern
ment 3Y2 piastres (a piastre is worth
4y2 cents) for 2y2 pounds, was re
tailed at 50 to 60 piastres; Austrian i
sugar, entering Turkey at 20 piastres, j
was sold at 250 to 300 piastres; and
the government’s payment-price of j
15 piastres per kilo for gasolene be
OTA 4- O A ~ i- ~ -
faiVU vv/ *-vu piuou to tu 111U pu WUV/.
.Some of Methods Used
Because of the blockade all manu
factured articles were undergoing a
continuous, speculative turnover. A
bale of rugs or a consignment of cot
ton goods, for instance, might be sold
or re-sold half a dozen times without
having ever been opened, much less
displayed for retail sale. And now
the Union and Progress stepped in
once more—this time, apparently as j
a public benefactor—announcing that
all such price-inflated goods must
forthwith be transferred back to their
respective manufacturers, to be put
forth later at normal figures. So
that Greek, Jewish and Armenian
merchants unloaded, thereby cleaning
out their stocks; whereupon the in
visible business partners of the Com
mittee of Union and Proress cor
nered these same stocks through the
manufacturers, then sold them exclu
sively to Turkish merchants. They,
in turn, reintroduced the regime of
speculation which, however, was now
being run for the benefit of Union
and Progress members, and not for
non-Moslems.
Decamped with Loot
Finally, having lined their pockets
up to the very hour of Turkey’s
crash, the Ittibat Terraki’s ring
leaders retired gracefully from power.
The Isset Pasha cabinet was formed,
and overtures toward an armistice
were bojrun. And when, in the early
* v
morning hours of November 13th, the
.Allied fleet came up through the fog
draped Bosphorus and set certain of
ficials ashore, there was found only a
disorganized government and a war
pinched and exploited people. For
Talaat, Enver, Dr. Nazim, Bedri Bey,
Ismail Hakki Pasha—these and the
other big chiefs of Union and Pro
gress bossism had fled Berlinward
from the wrath to come.
It is most significant that, within
three days of the armistice, the gov
ernment abolished all Union and
Progress clubs throughout Turkey.
But the Ittibat Terraki ringleaders
had not decamped without first seeing
to it that all records were destroyed
and, thus far, in the trials of those
officials who stand indicted with mas
sacre or maladministration, the wit
nesses have revealed but feeble mem
ories. Some fifty or sixty of the
Union and Progress gang have been
imprisoned, and, it is said that the
lists of those charged with various of
fences mount up into hundreds of
names. The daily papers are filled
with hysterical letters, urging all
sorts of immediate, drastic reforms.
In short, Turkey is intensely desirous
of setting her house in order and giv
ing that house an immaculate coat of
whitewash.
Noble Work of Relief
Meanwhile, in response to an offi
cial proclamation—I had almost said
an amnesty—-wretched groups of
Greeks and Armenians are drifting!
hack to what were once their homes.
Herein they are being greatly helped
by the American Committee for Re
lief in the Near East. Formerly
known as the Armenian and Syrian
Relief Committee, and founded as:
America’s answer to the massacres
of 1915, this body’s representatives
have maintained a splendid work
among the deportees throughout the
entire war. Up to 919 they had dis
bursed some three and a half million
dollars, in aiding Turkey’s persecuted
subject races—this notwithstanding
the severest handicaps and complete
lack of Turkish governmental co
operation.
As for the Armenians, it was just
before the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in
1917 that they proclaimed the exist
ence of an independent state in the
Caucasus. With its 44,000 square
kilometers, one and a half million peo
ple, and an army of 25,000, New Ar
menia consists of five small depart
ments which are working toward lib
eral principles and a decentralized
form of government. Its leaders con
fidently expect that many of the re
turning deportees will quit Old Ar
menia’s blood-soaked soil forever,
marshalling themselves in the Causa
sus under the red, blue and orange
flag of recent adoption—all this, sub
ject to the peace table’s decisions.
Starvation and Brigandage
Across the Bosphorus in Asiatic
Turkey, chaos reigns and starvation
is slaying its thousands daily. There
is no coal—the Turkish miners imme
diately dropped work at the armis
tice—-and locomotive fuel is supplied
by tearing down houses and up-root
ing olive orchards for wood.( Houses
may be rebuilt, but the newlv-planted
olive tree does not bear full crops
until after fifteen years.) The re
turned deportees’ possessions are in
tVlo rl A'innilora’ Viondo-_tVioi,- Ji r\m <-> c
their fields, and, many hundreds of
miles away, their women. The Turk
ish government has ordered the im
mediate release of all Armenians and
Greeks now held in captivity. This
is, of course, an emulative echo of
General Allenby’s orders in Pales
tine; and it is said that, upon the
strength of a few judicious hangings
at Bagdad, some five thousand cap
tive women and children were pro
duced in that city alone. Brigandage
too, is flourishing in Asia Minor,
where various bands of army desert
ers—as many as 200,000 men, it is
reported—have fortified themselves
in mountainous strongholds from
which they descend periodically to
pillage the towns, driving off live
stock, pillaging houses, and holding
citizens for ransom.
American Flag Conveys Hope
To that handful of Americans, who
have kept the splendid work of Rob
ert College and Constantinople College
in being for these many months of
the war, it was a thrilling moment
when the first American food-ships,
the Western Plain and the West Mo
hammed, came up the Golden Horn in
mid-February, flying the Stars and
Stripes. Hard upon these came oth
er Yankee ships, one bearing the
United States Food Commission, and
another, Admiral Bristol and his
staff—the first American admiral who
has flown our colors in Constantinople
since 1871. The commission at once
established warehouses, sent its inves
tigators into the famine regions, and
is now distributing American flour to
wholesalers at cost price—a step
which has effectually cut the ground
under the food speculators.
And what are the net results? Of
Prussian penetration there remain
but some rapidly dwindling stocks
of German goods, a few Turkish of
ficials who still wear the gray, field
service uniform, and hard by St. So
phia, Wilhelm’s imposing gift, known
as the “Emperor’s Fountain.” If this
last was supposed to have typified
Kultur’s revivifying flow through Is
lam’s veins, the symbolism is now
made perfect, for today the fountain
no longer functions—it has run dry.
And what of Turkish bossism? Hav
ing played its magnificent game
through four centuries of sultans, it
ends in a national orgie of blood and
and graft—a panic-stricken, greed
frenzied country tearing at its own
vitals as the curtain falls. And when
that curtain rises again—whatever
the peace delegates are preparing be
hind it—we may be certain that bar
barism will have vanished, and that
betterment will await the Near East
peoples.
Just the covering for your kitchen!
Congelum Art Rugs. They are clean,
sanitary and durable. Northwestern i
Hardware Company. tp
X; * X*
X; X;
v.
Unseen f < >es j
of Good Health
lurk all about us—in the air, on
our clothes. We know that
clothes that merely look clean
may be highly impure. To be
truly clean, clothes must be ster
ilized,
That is but one of the many
reasons why our laundry service
should appeal to you. When you
send them to us your bed linen,
garments and household things
are more than washed—they are
purified.
We are able to do this be
cause we change from nine to
twelve times the waters in
which we wash your clothes.
Dr. H. G. Ellidge of the Millon Institute of Industrial Re
search, who has investigated laundry methods, says:
“T here is absolutely no chance for disease being
spread through a Modern Steam laundry,3'
Can you be sure of this gj
cleanliness and sterilization
when you intrust your clothes jg
to unknown persons whose jg
methods are dubious—or even
to the home methods?
Once too often you will
take the chance—and will it
have paid you ? Safeguard the gj
health of your family. Have gj
your work done under the su- gj
pervision of one who has had gj
fifteen years’ experience. gj
Send it to
The Modern Laundry
Phone 66
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PROFESSIONAL j j
* DR. W. W. COUNCIL *
PHYSICIAN and SURGEON
Office and Residence, Cordova
General Hospital vOstrander
Building).
Phones—Residence, 115: Office, 132 8
DR. W. H. CHASE * j
PHYSICIAN and SURGEON
Office over Cordova Drug Store.
Calls may be'left at Cordova
Drug Store.
Residence, Alaska Hotel.
♦ -♦
! DR. W. D’ARCY CHACE
PHYSICIAN and SURGEON
WINDSOR HOTEL
Hours: l
j 1 p. m. to 3 p. m. and 7 p. m. to 8 p. m. ;
♦-♦
DR. CHAS. DAGGETT
DENTAL OFFICES
CORDOVA, ALASKA
<>-<■
DR. CORA DAGGETT
SPECIALIST
| Pyorrhea and Dental Prophylaxis
♦
DR. VON ZESCH
Dentist
ADAMS BUILDING
*DR CHARLES M. RODSETH
CHIROPRACTIC PHYSICIAN
Northern Hotel,
Phone 158
♦-♦
D0N0H0E & DIMOND
ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW
Offices: »
CORDOVA and VALDEZ
FRANK H. FOSTER
ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
ROOM 1, OSTRANDER BUILDING
♦-+
E. F. MEDLEY
ATTORNEY AND COUNSELLOR
AT LAW
Room 1, Adams Block
CORDOVA, ALASKA
♦-+
R. H. L. NOAKS
ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
SECOND ST., OPP. HOSPITAL
i-—+
FRANK A. METCALF
CIVIL AND MINING ENGINEER
U. S. MINERAL SURVEYOR
Juneau, Alaska
MERCY R. MURRAY
Shampooing, Manicuring, Facial
and Scalp Treatment, Bleaching
md Dyeing. Room 22, Hospital bldg.
Telephone 163, three Rings.
♦—-♦
H. I. CALL
Piano Tuning and Regulating
C St., Opp. Hegg’s
Phone 123—2 Rings
♦-»
THE ALPHA
SCHOOL OF DANCING
Private lessons every evening.
American Bakery. Phone 203.
♦-—--------♦
.1 f
CORDOVA
IS ON THE EVE OF
GREATER PROSPERITY
AND THE WISE ONES WILL
TAKE ADVANTAGE
OF THE
GOOD THINGS
IN STORE BY BRANCHING OUT-AND ALSO
ADVERTISING INJTHE DAILY TIMES
1