Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [36]
EDWIN L. JAMES (1890-1951) was a cousin of Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and journalist Russell Baker, and was a managing editor of The New York Times. He was eulogized at his well-attended funeral as a “trusted interpreter” of events.
LAUSANNE, Jan. 10—In the name of peace and justice 1,000,000 men, women and children are to be torn from their homes and forcibly taken to other lands. Such was the remarkable decision taken today by this remarkable Near East conference.
The statesman of the civilized nations and of Turkey this morning voted to exchange the Greek population of Turkey against the Turkish population of Greece. Excepted from the measure are the 200,000 Greeks in Constantinople, and in return the 300,000 Turks in Western Thrace, which belongs to Greece. By the terms of today’s decision all other Greeks in Turkey and all other Turks in Greece must move. It is estimated that 600,000 Greeks in Turkey are affected and about 450,000 Turks in Macedonia and the rest of Greece.
Today’s action is regretted by Allied diplomats, who admit its inhumanity, but defend it on the ground that it is the sole means of preventing a worse fate from overtaking the Greeks in Turkey. These same diplomats yesterday accepted the Turks’ paper promises as being sufficient protection for the minorities in Turkey.
That there may be no misunderstanding, it must be made plain that this extraordinary step is due entirely and exclusively to the Turks’ determination to expel the Greeks from their country. It was only after this determination became plain that the Greeks demanded that the Turks in Greece be expelled in order to make room for the Greeks who must leave Turkey, where their forefathers in many cases had lived for many centuries.
On the other hand, the Turks today agreed to let the Greek Patriarch remain in Constantinople on condition that he be shorn of all his secular powers and retain solely his religious jurisdiction. This concession is probably part of the price paid for yesterday’s surrender of the Allies in the minorities controversy, just as the Turks’ consent to leave the Greeks in Constantinople was given in return for the Greek promise to leave the Turks in Western Thrace, which, by the way, the Turks hope to eventually own.
It is to be remarked that the retention of the patriarchate in Constantinople and the permission given the Greeks to remain in that city represent two solutions favored by the Americans. It should also be pointed out that the dropping of the Armenian home project and the decision to exchange populations represent the rejection of two other measures advocated by the Americans. The net result does not indicate that the influence of the Americans is predominant in the settlements made here.
It is planned that the League of Nations shall supervise the exchange of populations, providing for transportation and seeing that the Turks on the one hand and the Greeks on the other obtain a fair settlement for the property they must leave behind them. While the time limit for the transfer was not fixed, it is generally believed that it will be placed at about six to eight months.
Strange as such a decision may seem—a decision under the terms of which Greeks may live in Constantinople and not in the suburbs, under which Turks may live in Western Thrace and not in Macedonia—everyone here seems to take it seriously. In effect the move seems to mean the actual exchange of a million persons or else formal permission to the Turks to persecute Greeks who remain in Turkey.
EXCHANGE OF POPULATION COMPULSORY
The Turks sought to have the exchange made non-compulsory or voluntary,