Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/227

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

faintest possibility of it has proven beyond the feeble powers of the present writer. If the Armenian problem had ever been really understood in the United States, certainly no sane American would ever have meddled with it. The past, however, is beyond recall. In the tragic position to which the Armenians have been reduced today, three courses suggest themselves as being open to Americans in the future:

First, Congress may declare war on Turkey and by dispatching an expeditionary force of a strength of possibly 200,000 men, we may conquer Cilicia and install an Armenian State which will stand as long as our Army or some other Western Army remains in occupation and no longer; and by so doing, we shall succeed in righting one wrong by committing a greater wrong. Happily, this course is out of the question.

Second, we may continue to support the Armenians with charity and to insist upon "minority rights" in Turkey as distinct from the rights of Turkey's majorities. This course we have followed consistently since 1918, and it has only succeeded in stiffening the Turks, pauperizing the Armenians, and preventing that peace which is the very first essential of both.

Third, we may permit the Armenians to work out their future alone. This is the course which thoughtful Armenians in Turkey now desire us to adopt, and its principal remaining opponents are certain Armenians who live in New York and are frightfully far from reality. If we adopt this course for the future, it seems quite possible that those Armenians who prefer to live in their own