New Britain herald., 1916-10-21
TWO RELIEF DAYS.

1
 At the request of both houses of Congress the President of the United l States has named today and tomorrow
 as Armenian and Syrian Relief Days 1 By personal direction of the Presi l dent a navy collier will carry supplies 1 from New York harbor to Arnenians and Syrians. The story of the suffer- l ings of these people marks one of the | most tragic tales in history. In all, | there are some five million Armenians | and Syrians under the rule of the Turks and while those portions of the Turkish empire known as Armenia
 and Syria are not nations in the true
 sense of the word, still the survivors are striving might and main to hold
 together the traditions of a glorious ast,-buried now in centuries of time.
 Of the two million Armenians, 750,000 have perished from actual slaughter, exposure, hunger, torture,
 drowning and from sheer mental
 distress and shame. Modern history
 does not furnish parallel to the fear
 full suffering of the Armenians.
 James A. Bryce, former British am-
 bassador to the United States, says
 very conservative1y that not since the
 time of Tam merlane has the world wit
 messed such persecution, destitution
 and wholesale slaughter. Most of
 those who have perished have been
 old men, women and children, the youths and able bodied men being al-
 ready in the Turkish armies. A quar- ter of a million Arm enians are refu- gees in several countries, chiefly Russia. About a million remain, nearly all in a destitute, dying con- dition.
 The Armenian atrocities furnish an chapter in the history of prosecutions. The most complete account of them has been published by Lord Bryce, in g. book of 700 pages, compiled from $, 1 Europeans, and Americans. One Is appalled, to read that in the twentieth 1 century women and girls have been 1 shut up in buildings and burned to death In wholesale fashion, that in whole towns not one woman or girl l has escaped nameless outrages, that l literally thousands have been placed 1 on rafts and pushed off in rivers to 1 drown, that the populations of whole 1 districts were forced to march day and night with no apparent destina-
 tion not allowed to carry supplies, 1 and not allowed to stop even for
 water.
 1 Last spring word came to America 1 that the Armenians were living upon 1 Many are living upon carrion The condition of many of the Syrian
 people is almost as bad. They have
 not been persecuted so severely, but
 hundreds of thousands of them are as
 destitute as the Armenians. One l hundred thousand in the Mount Le-
 banon region have perished. It is for l these people that an American Presi- l dent has set aside two days in which
 some form of relief might be planned | On these days the American people, aside from offering material help can mediate upon the horror that is
 known In other lands, and thank 1 Divine Providence the United States l is free from such suffering. It is esti l mated by our former ambassador to 1 Turkey, Henry Morganthau, that $5,- l 100000 will be required to alleviate
 the suffering of the Arm enians alone l The American committee for Ar l menian and Syrian relief has it's head
 quarters at 70 Fifth avenue, New l York. where articles of food clothing and other supplies gathered in these
 two days will be massed previous to | transportation The Rev. Dr. James l Barton is chairman of this commit