"Fifty or sixty years ago the Armenians began to emigrate; thousands have gone to Constantinople and other cities; others to Europe and America; and there are many thousands in the United States. Those who had seen the world naturally realized the unfortunate situation in which their fellow countrymen were living, even more so than the latter themselves, and began to devise means for their relief. They organized societies; they collected funds; they published newspapers, denounced the iniquities of and eonspired against the Turkish government.
"As soon as the government learned of this movement, instead of relieving the oppression, it bore down on the Armenians more heavily than before. The situation was very much aggravated because the Turks had discovered a pretext for their cruelty in the patriotic movements. All mail matter was opened; everything that related to Armenia was suppressed and destroyed; even the Bible was mutilated by tearing out the leaves that bore the name of Macedonia, and every geography and atlas had the name Armenia obliterated" — and Doctor Crawford showed me a copy of an English classical dictionary in which the text under the word Armenia had been cut out. "It was proclaimed that the Turkish government intended to wipe Armenia