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Show GREEKS CARRY AMERICAN FLAG I Old Glory Borne for Luck But They Have None CHICAGO, Oct. 2 i By The Asso-elated Asso-elated Press ) An American flag was; carried beside the Greek colors in ov- ery Greek division which took the. field against the Turks, according to I Alunzo Wilson, national director of; the Near Kast Belief, who has returned re-turned from a tour of Asia .Minor which Included Smyrna. "I learned this from Beveral prominent prom-inent Greeks," said .Mr. Wilson. "The troops carried th American colors for luck, and they had extremely bad luck. Nevertheless, their choice of a talisman indicated the men's respect for America and its Republican form of Kovernment "The soldier's leaning toward a Republican Re-publican form of government characterizes charac-terizes the majority of the Greek rank and file, and with It went discontent) which weakened Greek morale. Poverty Pov-erty and the low rate of exchange contributed to th discontent. The withdrawal of GO, 000 troop from around Smyrna to Thrace, where I saw many of them, gave the Turks their opportunity. " 'Infidel Smyrna' Is the Moslem's name for the city, because twothlrdt : of its population are Christians or f Jews. Tho church at Smyrna,' Is the' only survivor of the seven churches of! Asia addressed In the Book of Reve-; latlon. When I saw Smyrna last summer sum-mer It was a beautiful city of "00,-! 000 Inhabitants, exclusive of 300,000 refugees. It has been tho principal trading port of the Levant. A shor: time ago nobody anticipated 1he disaster. dis-aster. "Constantinople and several large ifien of India are threatened by Mos-' lem riots which may flame into an j extensive 'holy war' The only thing j Wblh will save the European ouar-l ter of Constantinople from a fate like' Smyrna's will be tbe control of that city by the allies. "Many of the 'iG.OOO girls who were reported kidnaped at Smyrna were college-tralni-d and as beautiful as American girls. Bofor.? they were captured the N'ear East Relief rescued res-cued 126,000 Christian girls throughout through-out Turkey." |