New York Times headline (December 15th, 1915).In a statement issued yesterday from the offices of th

New York Times headline (December 15th, 1915).In a statement issued yesterday from the offices of the AmericanCommittee for Armenian and Syrian Relief at 70 Fifth Avenue furtheratrocities committed by Turks upon Armenian Christians were detailedand additional evidence was given to support Lord Bryce’s assertionthat the massacres are the result of a deliberate plan of the TurkishGovernment to “get rid of the Armenian question,” as Abdul Hamidonce said, by getting “rid of the Armenians”.Professor Samuel T. Dutton, Secretary of the committee, said:“According to all of the best evidence which the American committeehas received, it is probably well within the truth to say that of the2,000,000 Armenians in Turkey a year ago, at least 1,000,000 havebeen killed or forced into Islam, or compelled to flee the country,or have died upon the way to exile, or are now upon the road to thedeserts of Northern Arabia, or are already there.  The number ofvictims is constantly increasing.  Surely there can be no greaterneed of immediate help, even in these troublous times, than thedesperate need of the Armenian refugees.  The American committee hasalready done much in collecting and sending funds, as has also theEnglish committee, but there is still the direst need of generouscontributions.  All contributions should be sent to Charles R. Crane,Treasurer, 70 Fifth Avenue.”Walter H. Mallory, Executive Secretary of the American Committee, sadthat the committee was in close touch with the Lord Mayor’s committeeof London and that “daily authentic reports of almost unbelievableatrocities” were received.  In the statement made public there wasan excerpt from a letter received by the American committee from theEnglish committee, which read:“The committee knows that there are 180,000 refugees still in theCaucasus besides 30,000 who have died there, and 70,000 who havereturned to parts of Turkey and Persia.”A large part of the statement is taken up with a letter received bythe American committee from a missionary stationed in Konia.  Inpart, the letter read:“Soon after the great deportation that preceded the arrival of thenew Vali Miss C. and I drove out to Kachin Han, the first stationof the railway toward Eregli, just to follow the crowd, as a largenumber had been driven off on foot with the expectation of taking therailroad later on.  Kachin Han is about three hours from here bycarriage, and even so near to Konia as this we found about onehundred people, sitting and lying about the station in utterdesolation.  They had been there three days; most of them had eatenup all the provisions they had and looked haggard and emaciated,veritable famine victims such as one sees in pictures of a scene inIndia.“The train from Konia arrived while e were there, and the greaternumber of the people dragged themselves to the cars in an effort toget on board, but were pushed back by the gendarmes, partly becausethey had no tickets and partly because there was no room; so the poorpeople were forced to turn back to where they had been sitting orlying about the station.“Among the hundred people there were not half a dozen tents, andthe half dozen were improvised and of the flimsiest character.  Mostof the people were lying out in the open day and night, many of themwithout even blankets or quilts.  Half a mile from the station Ifound two old women who were crawling off on hands and knees, tooweak to walk; they had been carried off on a wagon ostensibly to goto a village, but once out of sight of the gendarmes, the driver haddropped them in the field and hurried away.  Without exception, allof the people looked forward to certain death by starvation, nor wasthere any other future to be seen by them.” -- source link

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