Speech #1030027147

And between 1914 and 1923. an estimated 1.500.000 Armenians were killed and another 500.000 forced into exile. In the words of Henry Morgenthau. Americas Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time. "* * * When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations. they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race: They understood this well. and. in their conversations with me. they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact." The genocide all but ended the 3.000yearold presence of the Armenian population in the Turkish Near East. Survivors scattered across the Russian border. into the newly formed Arab States. into Europe and many to the United States. It is testimony both to the humanitarian nature of the American people. and to the devastating cruelty of Ottoman policies. that 132.000 Armenian orphans came to the United States during this period for adoption or foster care.