Sunday, December 3, 1922

New York Times Editorial

Page 6, Col. 2, Section 2,

A BLACK FRIDAY.

There have been many Black Fridays in recent history. Most of them have

been days of financial panic. There has been none of blacker foreboding than

last Friday. And the blackness is not loss or fear of loss in stocks and

bonds. It is the blackness of loss of home, the blackness of exile and

suffering and the peril of death. But that which deepens the darkness that

has come upon the earth in the broad daylight of the twentieth century is

civilization's prompt acceptance of the Turks' decree of banishment not only

of a million Greeks, but incidentally of all Christian minorities within the

Turkish realm beyond the Hellespont, which the Aryan crossed over three

thousand years ago. Light blackens such a blot. Lord Curzon but urged that

the Greeks be gotten out as quickly as possible in order to escape massacre.

For the rest there was, so far as reported, only quiet acquiescence.

Meanwhile, the dispatches from Washington of the same date report that

the Administration believes that the United States "is not without influence

at Lausanne," that not only the Allies but the Turkish representatives

appear to be "wholly satisfied" with the part that the United States is

playing at Lausanne, and that the very latest reports from Ambassador Child

enable the Department of State to draw the conclusion that the work of the

"gathering" at Lausanne is "proceeding satisfactorily." Let us assume that

the "very latest reports" do not include the happenings of Friday. If the

government were knowingly "wholly satisfied" with that day's record, then

black were white. It is inconceivable that the American people can be as

"wholly satisfied" with our part as the Turks are reported to be.

Is this to be the end of the Christian minorities in Asia Minor--that

land where, thirteen centuries and more before the Turk came first to rule

it, Paul had journeyed as a missionary through its length and breadth, and

where the first "seven churches that are in Asia stood," to which the

messages written in the Book of Revelation were sent?