My failure to prevent the destruction of the Armenians had made Turkey for me a place of horror, and I found intolerable my further daily association with men who, however gracious and accommodating and good-natured they might have been to the American Ambassador, were still reeking with the blood of nearly a million human beings. Could I have done anything more, either for Americans, enemy aliens, or the persecuted peoples of the Empire, I would willingly have stayed. The position of Americans and Europeans, however, had now become secure, and, so far as the subject peoples were concerned, I had reached the end of my resources. Moreover, an event was approaching in the United States which, I believed, would inevitably have the greatest influence upon the future of the world and of democracy--the presidential campaign. I felt that there was nothing so important in international politics as the re-election of President Wilson. I could imagine no greater calamity for the United States and the world than that the American nation should fail to heartily endorse this great statesman. If I could substantially assist in Mr. Wilson’s re-election, I concluded that I was certainly wasting valuable time in this remote part of the world. I had another practical reason for returning home, and that was to give the President and the State Department, by word of mouth, such first-hand information as I possessed on the European situation. It was especially important to give them the latest sidelights on the subject of peace. In the latter part of 1915 and the early part of 1916 this was the uppermost topic in Constantinople. Enver Pasha was constantly asking me to intercede with the President to end the war. Several times he intimated that Turkey was war-weary and that its salvation depended on getting an early peace. I have already described the conditions that prevailed a few months after the outbreak of the war, but by the end of 1915 they were infinitely worse. When Turkey decided on the deportation and massacre of her subject peoples, especially the Armenians and Greeks, she had signed her own economic death warrant. These were the people, as I have already said, who controlled her industries and her finance and developed her agriculture, and the material consequences of this great national crime now began to be everywhere apparent. The farms were lying uncultivated and thousands of peasants were daily dying of starvation. As the Armenians and Greeks were the largest taxpayers, their annihilation greatly reduced the State revenues, and the fact that practically all Turkish ports were blockaded had shut off customs collections. The mere statement that Turkey was barely taking in money enough to pay the interest on her debt, to say nothing of ordinary expenses and war expenses, gives a fair idea of her advanced degree of bankruptcy. In these facts Turkey had abundant reasons for desiring a speedy peace. Besides this, Enver and the ruling party feared a