Turkey Washing her Hands June 9th 1916

Turkey has made official announcement of the execution of fifty-one soldiers and civilians found guilty of participation in the Armenian massacres. This is the first definite evidence that the Turkish government felt any disapproval of the barbarities which have  shocked the world. It is good as for as it goes. If Turkey undertakes to punish all the men responsible for the atrocities it will have huge job on its hands.

Reliable reports have indicated that several hundred thousands of Armenians have perished. The latest contribution to that harrowing page of history comes in the form of a bulletin issued by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, telling of the Erzerum slaughter. American missionaries corroborated in detail the charges that the Turks at Erzerum perpetrated a general massacre of the Armenian population just before the Russians entered the city. Of 20,000 Armenian residents, says the bulletin, only 200 escaped. The victims were slaughtered with incredible cruelty and outrage.

The Turkish government, in announcing the execution of the offenders referred to, asks Americans to suspend judgement. It is too late for us to take a dispassionate view of the matter, but Turkey would regain a good measure of our respect if it undertook to execute every Turk who has issued orders for the massacre or voluntarily participated in them. That, however, might decimate the civil and military population of the Ottoman empire.

Never in the history of southwestern journalism has a political convention or a political situation been handled as thoroughly as The Star is handling the news of the Republican and Progressive conventions. The series of pictures of Republican presidential possibilities in itself is a distinctive picture scoop. They are not pictures dug up from some dusty morgue, pictures made years ago, but are made from recent photographs. The star has beaten every newspaper in the southwest and has equalled the metropolitan newspapers in its picture service on politics. Readers of the star now realize the signification of the fact that this paper carries the full Associated Press report, for every move that is being made at Chicago is accurately reported in its columns.

There is one thing missing from the political picture which must make the old Standpatters lonesome. That is the empty dinner pail. The Republicans might promise, however, to provide two palls for each workman.