216 



CONGRESS. (THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.) 



for us to state squarely and fairly to the Govern- 

 ment of Turkey that we, as a civilized nation, in the 

 forefront of human progress and human enlight- 

 enment, will not sit idly by and see these outrages 

 perpetrated without at 'least lifting a manful voice 

 of protest against them. 



"There is manhood in nations as well as in indi- 

 viduals. If one of you gentlemen sitting in this 

 hall if my friend from Georgia or my friend from 

 Texas were to see a helpless woman or a defense- 

 less child assaulted upon Pennsylvania Avenue and 

 did not raise his voice in protest or offer other re- 

 sistance to prevent the outrage he would be, in the 

 eyes of the law, a participator in the crime ; and I 

 say that as the representatives of the United States 

 sitting here in this magnificent Capitol, dedicated 

 to tolerance and to human liberty, we shall be guilty 

 participators in the Armenian outrages and atroci- 

 ties if we do not lift our voice in protest against the 

 infinite and unspeakable villainies perpetrated by 

 the Turkish Government. My friends who oppose 

 these resolutions have laid great stress upon the 

 view that it is not our duty to interefere in the do- 

 mestic concerns of foreign nations and that we ought 

 to keep distinctly to ourselves. Well, my friends, if 

 we let these slaughters pass without protest, if we sit 

 here in suppliance, if we sit here in silence and in 

 cowardice while such wrongs shame the eternal heav- 

 ens, then everything that we stand for among the 

 governments of earth, all the national mission and 

 destiny to make for truth and freedom which is the 

 just pride of American citizenship, is but the empty 

 phrasing of still emptier words, and that magnifi- 

 cent statue in the harbor of New York which holds 

 up the light of tolerance and of liberty to all the 

 world is a delusion and a lie. 



" What the distinguished gentleman from Iowa 

 said is the gist of this whole question. We may 

 with justice and propriety turn aside from the minor 

 considerations of international law and say to the 

 Executive, as the eminent Representative from the 

 State of Iowa urges us to say : Give back to the 

 Turkish minister his passports ; send him home to 

 the Sublime Porte with the message that the Con- 

 gress of the freest, the most moral, the most intel- 

 ligent, and the most tolerant country on earth pro- 

 tests against his outrages on defenseless women and 

 helpless children, and that we want no fraternity 

 with a man or a sovereign whose hands are dripping 

 with the gore of the innocent." 

 Mr. Grosvenor, of Ohio, said : 



" If the outrages committed in Turkey are so 

 great as to call upon us to demand the execution of 

 the provisions of that treaty by the other powers of 

 Europe, why may we not, in a proper manner, pro- 

 test to Turkey herself, directly, against the outrages 

 she has committed ? Why may we not say to Turkey 

 in some sort of diplomatic language, that will mean 

 a little something : ' You have murdered 30,000 peo- 

 ple for no other reason than that they were Chris- 

 tians and did not belong to the religion of your 

 nationality. We in America protest to you against 

 it as an outrage and protest in the name of Chris- 

 tian civilization.' Why should we call upon other 

 nations of Europe to do that which we have a per- 

 fect right to do for ourselves ? 



"That is not all. Why may we not say to a na- 

 tion that murders 30,000 people in a very few months' 

 time, by a line of atrocities that has stirred the 

 blood of the American people as nothing has ever 

 done heretofore, except it be the recitation of the 

 murders committed in the Wyoming valley and 

 other scenes in our own country by the Indians 

 under the stimulus of the same nation that stands 

 across the pathway of the protection of Christians in 

 Turkey why may we not protest, in thunder tones, 

 against such treatment as that, by saying plainly and 



emphatically to that sort of nation, ' We do not want 

 anything to do with you.' 



"The argument is now that Turkey has hostages 

 in the person of our representatives abroad. Tur- 

 key, we are told, has in her camp some of our pris- 

 oners that will be scalped and burned at the stake. 

 You must not disturb the peace and harmony of 

 the Emperor of Turkey, because they are such a 

 peculiar people, they are such a class of men, they 

 belong to such a peculiar race of people, that if the 

 United States should protest against the outrages 

 already committed they might work destruction, 

 and kill some of our American citizens and burn 

 American property. And so, in the face of this dire 

 threat, the protest comes that we must waive our 

 manhood, we must sink our national independence 

 and make our protest through somebody else who 

 will transmit our language lest the deadly Turk 

 should drive his scimiter, already gory with the 

 blood of 30,000 Christians, into the bodies of some 

 of our own people. 



" We have in that way on this floor to-day given 

 notice to Turkey how she can. protect herself. She 

 needs no ships, she needs no army, she needs noth- 

 ing but her murderous purpose. She has been in- 

 formed by distinguished gentlemen, representatives 

 of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, that she has 

 a means of redress in her own hands. They have 

 said : ' Go on, Mr. Turk, with your outrages, murder 

 as much as you please, disgrace civilization, kill and 

 burn, and we dare not do anything, for you have 

 hostages in your camp, and we fear you will kill our 

 people; and therefore, in the interest of saving the 

 lives of American people who are to-day in the 

 Ottoman Empire, we will make ourselves contempt- 

 ible in the sight of the world.' 



" So, Mr. Speaker, I adopt the position taken by 

 the gentleman from New York who made this re- 

 port. There is nothing in these resolutions; and 

 when a great nation, when a great power like the 

 United States opens its mouth to say something 

 and says nothing, she has lowered herself in the esti- 

 mation of all the nations of the world. Let for- 

 eign diplomacy take hold of this insignificant pa- 

 per. Let foreign diplomats analyze the meaning 

 of all this, and what have you got if You have an 

 enunciation, corning from the champion of this reso- 

 lution, speaking, I take it, by authority of the com- 

 mittee, that they dare not attack Turkey lest Tur- 

 key shall retaliate against the United States. I 

 should like to have the gentleman tell me when 

 the time will come that that argument will not be 

 an absolute barrier to an expression of the manly 

 independence of this Government against any na- 

 tion on the face of the earth t " 



Mr. Hepburn's amendment was rejected by a vote 

 of 19 to 121. Mr. Taft, of Ohio, offered an amend- 

 ment proposing to add the following to the concur- 

 rent resolutions : 



"Resolved, That the conscience of humanity fas- 

 tens upon the six Christian powers above named the 

 responsibility of the continuance of the butchery of 

 Armenian Christians; that the spectacle of these six 

 leading Christian powers permitting the murder of 

 Christians who by treaty stipulations were placed 

 under their special care is humiliating to the last 

 degree and discredits the Christian religion through- 

 out the world. 



' Resolved, That that one of the signatory powers 

 which first takes action under the Berlin Treaty to 

 prevent the further butchery of defenseless Armenian 

 Christians will receive the grateful recognition not 

 only of the American people, but of the entire civi- 

 lized world." 



This was rejected, as was also a motion to re- 

 commit with instruction, and the resolution passed 

 by a vote of 143 yeas to 26 nays. 



