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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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THE REVEREND RALPH HARLOW ON THE LAUSANNE TREATY 

    IN POOF of the statement that many eminent followers of Christ are not in entire sympathy with certain missionaries in their policy with regard to the Turks, I am quoting again from the Reverend Ralph Barlow. The following extracts are from an article and two letters written by him. The article appeared in the "Outlook" of October 25, 1922, and in it, among other things, the author describes an interview with the late Theodore Roosevelt:

    "At that time, I had just returned from Asia Minor where I had witnessed the fearful deportations on the Bagdad Railroad, and could give him first-hand information of the awful atrocities going on. He asked me a number of questions, continually shaking his head and saying, ‘terrible, terrible, terrible’. "

    "Then with a tense expression on his face, he said, ‘Mr. Barlow, the greatest regret that I have as I look back on my administration is the fact that when the awful Adana massacre occurred, this government did not take steps against the outrage on civilization!’"

    A further quotation from the same article indicates that the men on destroyers did not fully share the pro-Turk sentiments of their officers:

    "I have just listened to the contents of a letter sent by one of our boys on an American destroyer at Smyrna. He tells of having to stand by while the brutal Turkish soldiers seized beautiful Christian girls and tore them screaming from their mothers and outraged them right on the public quay of Smyrna. He saw these brutal soldiers shooting down helpless women with children in their arms, unarmed men beaten to death by the butts of these Turkish soldiery. And then he tells of the anguish that he felt because the orders of our government were such that he had to stand by, helpless, before such atrocities."

    I have been told that many such letters were written by our navy boys at Smyrna to relatives and friends in the United States. In a letter to me, Mr. Barlow says that he believes it to be his duty to tell the truth about affairs in the Near East, and he continues:

    "Doctor MacLachlan and Reed demanded my resignation and said that I endangered the college. I resigned. I have been made to feel that I ought to keep still, but justice seems to me greater than buildings and institutions. At the time of the Lausanne Conference and after, I claimed that our American Board (of Foreign Missions) ought to have stood four square against the wretched treaty. Dr. Barton did not like the openness of my criticisms and I lost a position as Board Secretary through his opposition to me."

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