San Francisco Call Bulletin

March 27, 1919. This article is reprinted below.


S.F. Greeks to Rally Sunday for Oppressed People

Aggravated to the last degree by repeated stories of outrage, butchery, oppression and misrule coming from their former homes and the homes of provinces largely inhabited by Greeks, several thousand San Francisco Greek American citizens have formed an organization known as the Unredeemed Hellenes Society, which on Sunday night at the Auditorium, will hold a mass meeting for the purpose of calling upon the Peace Conference to take these provinces away from Turkey and make them a part of the Greek nation. These men and women from the "unredeemed" territory are Thracians, Romylians, Pontians, Dodecanicians and other Greeks from the Turkish sea coast territory and the islands of Asia Minor.

Dr. E. Apostolidas is the chairman of general committee arranging for Sunday night's mass meeting, which will start a movement soon to become nation-wide. Resolutions will be cabled to President Wilson, Colonel House and Representative Julius Kahn, who will be requested to place the cause of the oppressed provinces before the Peace Conference.

"The publicity which has been givent the atrocities of Turkish misrule is all in our favor," said Fr. Apostolidas, in speaking of the prosposed mass meeting, "and we have every hope that the claims of our people will be recognized. It is unbelievable that provinces in which the population is 10 per cent Turkish and 90 per cent Greek should continue to suffer the villaines of Turkish oppression. The whole story of these sad people will be brought out at Sunday night's meeting."

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