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Envoy From Macedonia

Envoy From Macedonia image
Parent Issue
Day
23
Month
October
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

ENVOY FROM MACEDONIA

Dr. Shoomkoff Tells Why His Countrymen Are Fighting. 

BRUTALITY OF TURKS PICTURED.

He Says the Sultan's Soldier Is Suspicious of His Shadow and Will Not Fight Men- Handsomest Women Carried Off- The Rest, With the Children and Old Persons, Are Slaughtered. 

Sent as a special envoy to create sympathy for the insurgents in the Balkans, Dr. S. J. Shoomkoff of the Macedonian benevolent committee of Sofia, who recently arrived at New York on the Deutschland from Southhampton, has gone to confer with the president of the University of Pennsylvania on the methods of raising funds and creating interest in the distress of his people, says the New York Press.

Dr. Shoomkoff is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and is also a graduate of Chicago university. In all he spent fifteen years in the two universities. Then he returned to his home in Salonika to join the uprising now in progress. 

"The extent of the horror of Turkish warfare," he said, "cannot be conceived in this country. 

"The Turks will not fight the men, but they go into isolated villages when the men are away with the insurgent bands, lay waste whole villages, carry the handsomest women into the harems of the generals and murder the rest, together with all of the Christian children. Then the towns are burned to the ground. 

"Americans cannot conceive of this kind of warfare. But all Europe knows it. The sickening stench of the murders arises from the plains of Macedonia to the nostrils of all civilized Europe. But they do nothing. They are used to the stench. And our blood runs in torrents, but no one cares."

"We have waited for twenty-five years since the treaty of Berlin for the inauguration of the reforms and for the establishment of the home rule that were promised by it. Instead we have been made the slaves of the Turk- disfranchised in every court, our women taken ruthlessly from our homes, our goods and our lives placed absolutely at the mercy of those who are merciful only when they kill. I ask the American people if they could have stood this for twenty-five years?

"Bulgaria is filled with the few women and children who escaped, and in our hiding places we have in bands of 100, 200, 500, men who feed on what they can find, who sleep on the ground, carry no camp baggage, excepting their rifles and hand bombs filled with dynamite. 

"Scouts are stationed all through the country. We have every patriot in the country who lives in the larger towns under a tax according to his ability to pay. This fund supplies us with arms and ammunition. 

"Today in Macedonia the Turk is suspicious of his shadow. He goes abroad only in midday and in force and not to fight, but to murder the women and children in some little village that has been left unprotected through operations carried on at a distance. The actions of the Turkish soldiery in such attacks are those of incarnate fiends. From the time the attack begins until the last woman and child is dead and the village in flames the soldiers are uncontrolled by anything except their fury. Their officers could not restrain them if they would. Discipline is unknown, The soldiers are without pay and find it as they go. 

"It may seem strange to say we are not trying to form a government in Macedonia. But such is the fact. Our warfare is conducted simply with a view to force Bulgaria to fight Turkey. Her people are doing it with food, recruits, arms and funds, but her government has stood like the rest of the powers and looked apathetically on all the tragedies without lifting a finger officially to aid us. 

"The real organizer of the revolution is Dr. Tatarcheff. For his activity in organizing the men of Macedonia he was exiled at one time, but when he secured enough men he returned and headed them himself. His little band was the nucleus of the present insurgent force. Today he directs every thing in connection with the Sofia committee, the benevolent Macedonia committee, composed of Professors Georgeff, Militich, Agoura, Radoff and Karayovoff. 

"I expect to present myself for audience with President Roosevelt soon and then I will have a chance to beg for the aid we need for our refugees now in Bulgaria. There are thousands of them there. The winter is coming on and htey have nothing to live upon. The Turks have stripped them of everything. If aid does not reach them they will starve to death. But they would do it contentedly if they knew the fighting men had plenty of ammunition. 

"I hope to get some of the public spirited men in this country to organize committees to raise funds for our people. I do not wish to touch the money. I would be more than glad if they would appoint a committee to carry the funds across and distribute them to the needy and see for themselves the extremity to which the neglect of the great civilized powers of Europe has reduced my country and countrymen."