( oNCKKSS. (TnK ARMENIAN Qri:sTiox.) 



215 



It is seldom, indeed, in this day of civili/ation. tliat 

 such a story is told to men: :!li.(>()() Cliristian peo- 

 ple, within twenty months, slaughtered by tlie un- 

 speakable Turk solely because of their religious 

 views! Ami what do we propose to do about it i 

 This resolution contains, first, our mild protest 

 against < nit rages like these. Then we express our 

 sympathies for those that yet remain in Armenia 

 and that may be the subject of slaughter. Sym- 

 pathy for the people menaced with a peril like this, 

 or suffering grief for slaughtered friends ! They 

 do not want sympathy. Mr. Speaker: they want 

 rescue. They do not want our mere words; they 

 want Christian people to come to their relief. And 

 we ask that those nations that have witnessed all 

 these transactions of outrage, that are as familiar 

 with all of these f.v are we ask these 



people who for years have been derelict of duty 

 now to respond to the dictates of duty and see to 

 it that their treaty stipulations are enforced. That 

 is what we do. We protest, and the gentleman 

 from Xew York tells us that he scarcely thinks it 

 po-sible that it is 'barely possible' that some- 

 thing may come from this action which has been 

 reported by our Committee on Foreign Affairs after 

 a month of deliberation. 



"Mr. Speaker, we all know that the English 

 Government owns largely of Turkish bonds. We 

 know that English capital, to the extent of hun- 

 dreds of millions, is invested in Turkey, and that 

 capital is intent upon preserving the autonomy of 

 Turkey in order to protect those investments. We 

 know that it is that and that alone which has kept 

 this foul blot of a Government upon the map of the 

 world for the last twenty years. We know that 

 Russia stands anxious to get to the Mediterranean 

 Sea. and that France and Germany and Austria 

 and England are unwilling that the balance of 

 power in Europe shall be disturbed. We know that 

 they will continue the situation as it is. and yet we 

 appeal to them to do that which humanity says we 

 should do and that we know they will not do. We 

 have it in our own hands to do something more 

 than make this mild protest, and at the proper 

 time I intend to offer this amendment : 



"'That for the purpose of emphasizing our pro- 

 test against the murders and outrages aoove re- 

 cited, the President is directed to furnish the Turk- 

 ish minister his dismissal as a representative of the 

 Sultan at this capital, and terminate all diplomatic 

 relations with the Government of Turkey.' 



" Mr. Speaker, that kind of a protest would mean 

 something. Gentlemen around me say that tin's is 

 too drastic, that this is not diplomacy. It may be 

 that it is not diplomatic and that it is drastic, but 

 it means something more than mere words. It is 

 within the limitation of that action that we can 

 take. We can say here to all the world that we 

 will not recognize as a civilized government that 

 government which permits the outrages against its 

 citizens that the Turkish Government has per- 

 mitted. We can do that. We can say that it is 

 unworthy of a place among the nations, and we 

 ought to" do it." 



Mr. Hitt. of Illinois, said: 



" I have no want of sympathy such as the gentle- 

 man expresses for those who suffer; but his remedy, 

 dismissing the Turkish minister, to be certainly 

 followed by the dismissal of our minister at Con- 

 stantinople, is a strange, extraordinary one to 

 take away the one instrumentality by which we 

 now are protecting many : an instrumentality which, 

 by the code of the world, by international law, 

 stronger than the applause of the gallery, enables 

 us to put out our arm and save an American any- 

 where in the midst of massacre, of burning, and of 

 blood, and it has done it. 



"That is the testimony. No one regret < more 

 than 1 do that these resolutions seem so weak, that 

 the remedy is so feeble. But how far can v. 

 Our action is limited by our power. Gent.. 

 have suggested to the committee and numerous let- 

 ters from eminent men and from societies have pro- 

 posed that we sei/e the ports of Turkey. That is 

 still more drastic than dismissing the Turkish min- 

 ister. It has been proposed that we send a fleet. 

 Another distinguished gentleman. who>e name it 

 would not be proper to mention here proposed, that 

 we should join with Russia in what is substantially 

 an invasion of Turkey. 



These are not methods consonant with our tra- 

 ditions or our policy. We can do something not 

 much. 



" Any swagger which we may ourselves indulge 

 toward Turkey will lie wholly ineffectual. Dismiss- 

 ing their minister and bringing home our own, we 

 will simply exasperate them and take away from 

 ourselves the power we have now of preventing the 

 property and lives of our citizens in Turkey from 

 being destroyed. The Turkish Government is re- 

 sponding to the claim for property being destroyed, 

 that every cent will be paid in full. They are tak- 

 ing the same time to examine the bill that we took 

 in making out the bill. That is not only the usage 

 of nations, but of individuals in private disputes. 



" Protection has been given to Americans in per- 

 haps overabundance, in order that we might not 

 have a claim for intervention on behalf of those 

 unhappy victims of cruelty and fanaticism who are 

 falling all about the Americans there." 



Mr. Smith, of Michigan, said : 



While I would not go so far as my friend from 

 Iowa and sever all official relations with the Gov- 

 ernment of the Sultan, I would not dispatch this 

 joint resolution expressing the sentiment of the 

 American people by the ordinary method of trans- 

 , mission, but after if passes and receives the sanction 

 of the Executive, I would authorize him to place it 

 in the hands of a captain of an American man-of- 

 war and ask him to deliver it in person to the reign- 

 ing authority on the shores of the Black Sea." 



Mr. Mahany. of New York, saitl : 



" Mr. Speaker, in the speech of the gentlemen 

 from Georgia I notice that he laid especial stress 

 upon the fact that we are indebted in a marked de- 

 gree to the Government of Turkey for 'special and 

 particular protection to our citizens.' I do not ap- 

 prehend that the people of this republic are under 

 any especial obligation to the Turkish or to any 

 other government for not murdering in cold blood 

 citizens of the United States. Nor should we be 

 grateful to any foreign power for refraining from 

 practicing on American citizens such villain: 

 may be perpetrated on the defenseless subjects of 

 its own sovereignty. 



Mr. Speaker, the gentleman [from Texas said 

 that this question, viewed from the standpoint of 

 the signatory powers that participated in the Treaty 

 of Berlin, was somewhat in the nature of a eon- 

 tract, in which the obligation concerned only the 

 contracting parties to fulfill or not to fulfill the 

 terms of the agreement ; but. if the gentleman from 

 Texas will permit me to observe, there is no con- 

 tract known to man that will permit either or any 

 of the contracting parties an unlimited license in 

 murder, in brutality, in every conceivable atrocity. 

 International law, in its development, has a tend- 

 ency to narrow and to crystallize. From time to 

 time great revulsions of human sentiment, great 

 declarations of allegiance to higher principle.*, sweep 

 aside these crystallizations of outworn conditions 

 and establish new ideas and new phases of thought 

 and action for the government of mankind. And 

 it seems to me. Mr. Speaker, the time has arrived 



