Peace leader in Oberlin's past

Few Oberlin students know about the central role an Oberlin president played in the first effort to bring peace to the Middle East.

This is probably because it had little relation to the current Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Instead, Henry Churchill King, Oberlin's sixth president, led a team who visited the Middle East in 1919 to resolve territorial conflicts after the First World War.

King's role will be discussed this Monday in a program that includes speeches by retired Egyptian ambassador to Canada Tasheen Basheer and Professor Janice J. Terry of Eastern Michigan University.

"I felt it was important to recognize the role of Oberlin people in peace-making efforts for the Middle East with the idea that a diplomatic resolution brings better quality of life for survivors than does violent confrontation," said Ernestine Evans-King, OC '38. She is the wife of the late Charles B. King, OC '37, President King's grandson.

The program, "Controversial Diplomacy: the 1919 King-Crane Commission," focuses on the American contingency to the Inter-Allied Commission Mandates in Turkey.

This commission, eventually called the King-Crane Commission after President King and Chicago philanthropist Charles Crane, was the first to attempt a diplomatic solution to territorial disputes in the Middle East.

The Commission arose after the signing of the Armistice of Madros in 1918, when the German-allied Ottoman Empire collapsed. This left uncertain governance of the vast expanse of Middle Eastern territory and the ownership of the oil, copper and natural resources it contained.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, then participating in peace talks in Paris, had already made quite clear his belief "that every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live." He thus sought to prevent any further colonialization of the Middle East.

The Commission, which operated out of Jaffa (now Tel Aviv), was intended to register the opinions of the peoples living in the Middle East as to future governance of the area.

Wilson called on President King and Crane to head the American contingency to the Commission. Among its members were three Oberlin affiliates: King, former Professor of History Albert H. Lyber and Donald Brodie, OC '11.

Brodie wrote in the October 1922 issue of the Oberlin Alumni Magazine that they spoke with 57 distinct religious leaders, including Moslem Muftis and Ulema, rabbis from Jerusalem and Catholic archbishops. In all, the Commission heard 1,863 petitions and recorded various opinions as to territory, future governments, the Zionist initiative and other general protest.

The commission found that Syrians were anxious to be relieved of Turkish oppression. Under no circumstances would they accept a French mandate over their land, as word had gotten out of British and French intention to carve up the Middle East amongst themselves.

Furthermore, petitioners did not want the severance of any part of their land. The commission also found that the Moslem majority would "resist to the uttermost the immigration of foreign Jews and the establishment of a Jewish government."

The commissioners did note, however, that some communities wished for an independent Lebanon, that the French and British were unwilling to leave and that there was disunity among the Syrians.

There seemed to be no one who could govern the whole of the area in question. Thus the Commission's final recommendation was that the United States be given a mandate over all of Asia Minor, provided that "all plans for cutting up Turkey, for the benefit of outside peoples, into spheres of influence and exploitation be abolished."

The Commission's report was delivered to the White House in the fall of 1919. President Wilson suffered a massive stroke shortly afterwards and never read the report, which was kept secret by the Versailles peace conference until 1947. The peace treaty was never ratified by Congress, and the King-Crane report was never put to its intended use.

College archivist Roland Baumann said that in researching the subject he had come to know about the deep-seated complexity and character of the issue. "I hope that there will be a sense that past is prologue," he said.

The presentations about the King-Crane Commission will take place in King 106 at 7:30 p.m. on November 9. Opening remarks will be made by Dean Clayton Koppes and will be followed by a speech by EMU Professor Janice J. Terry, entitled "The King-Crane Commission: An Overview." The last address of the evening will be given by former Egyptian ambassador to Canada Tasheen Basheer and is entitled "The King-Crane Commission and the Challenge of Molding Modern Arab States."

King-Crane Commission: President King joined other members of the delegation in researching the sentiments of communities in the Middle East. (photo courtesy College Archives)