The Idaho Republican

A TURKISH PATRICK HENRY
The ring of the patriots of the American revolution is in these words spoken by a young Turkish governor, under forty years of age, in a recent address to a crowd in front of the Government house in Adana. He said in part: "Fellow citizens, you are living in one of the most fertile districts of this empire. The past thirty years of oppression were not able to dry up these fine rivers or wither this beautiful greenness around you. Yet in the change from autocracy to constitutional government, for the moment the atmosphere was poisoned and people were stirred up to this horrid slaughter. Accursed the moment when thousands of Ottoman citizens manifested a savage thirst for human blood. A thousand curses on this black page in fair Ottoman history. As I passed through the ruins of this fair city salt tears flowed from my eyes. I bowed before God for strength that I might be able to perform my duty in binding up the wounds, comforting the hearts and assisting the needy of my fellow countrymen. My first exhortation to you is, forget the past, look to the future. I hope you will heed this injunction, for it comes from a heart that loves his fellow subjects and fatherland above everything. In the second place, unite. Always work for union, for in union is strength, disunion is weakness and ruin. Our first effort must be the feeding and re-housing of the thousands in direct need and desolation, and the reconstruction of destroyed places of worship and schools. The construction of irrigation works, the draining of thousands of acres of swamp land, the building of the Bagdad railway and electric plants, and the construction of a harbor in Marsine are undertakings which will improve the country and afford work to many. The carrying forward of these enterprises and the organization of an educational system will, I hope, make your province an enviable one. I exhort you to be faithful to the government, to be active in your efforts to co-operate with it, to be industrious in your own work. Do not forget that God loves the industrious. I warn the idle loafing in coffee shops and street corners that no mercy will be shown them. If anyone discovers a lack of justice, or wrong doing on the part of any one, government official or private citizen, let appeal be made to me at once. The door of the government is open at all hours to the people, rich and poor, small and great alike. All transgressions of law and order that come to its knowledge will be treated with severest justice."
Rev. W. N. Chambers, an American Board missionary who heard this speech, says: "I am persuaded that the governor was perfectly honest in all this and the effect was excellent on the people, Moslem and Christian alike. It has helped the well-nigh hopeless Christians to turn to the future with a rising hope."