Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I wish to solemnly observe the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. One hundred years ago, one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th Century began when the young Turk leaders of the Ottoman Empire executed more than 200 Armenian leaders and intellectuals. What followed was an 8-year systematic campaign of oppression, which by 1923, left an estimated 1.5 million Armenians dead and over a half a million survivors exiled. These atrocities affected the lives of every Armenian living in Asia Minor and, indeed, across the globe, and many called for the United States to take action. The U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during this dark time, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., unsuccessfully pleaded with President Wilson to take action, and later remembered the events of the genocide, saying: I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915. Former President Theodore Roosevelt also called for an American response, saying, ``Until we put honor and duty first, and are willing to risk something in order to achieve righteousness both for ourselves and for others, we shall accomplish nothing; and we shall earn and deserve the contempt of the strong nations of mankind.'' Unfortunately, the United States and the world did not intervene.…”