The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-10-09
GIVE THAT A PEOPLE DIE NOT.


Saturday, October 81, and Sunday,
October %; have been set apart by
proclamation of the President of the
United States when special efforts
should be made by the whole people of
the country to give of their means for
the dying that they may live in
Armenia, in Syria and in Persia. And
proclamations have also been issued
by the Federal Council of the
Churches of Christ in America that
the church offerings, and special ones,
too, on Sunday, october %, be devoted
in their entirety to this pressing cause.
Talcott Williams, director of the
Columbia School of Journalism, New
York City. has written an appeal for
these occasions that is being circulated
by the American Committee for Ar
menian and Syrian Relief, that is
strikingly compelling. 1t follows:
1.-The life of a people is laid at the
door of America.
THE Armenian Nation, sufferer and
martyr beyond all of our present day,
lies near death as a people. Unless
aid come, the race perishes from the
face of the earth.
"All woe has come to it. Captivity,
pestilence, the sword, starvation Half
are gone. The rest starve and die.
For two years, a thousand a day have
persisted For miles and leagues of
long roads and trails. their bodies lie,
men, women and children, dead as
they fell. The remnant is in the
! desert, where no food is. dying by
scores. by hundreds, by thousa nds, by
hundreds of thousands.
Driven by the sword from their
homes to a long tramp of five to six
hundred miles. what the sword spared
the desert has slain. what the desert
left the pestilepce has smitten, and
hunger has followed to end a people,
scattered, wounded and forsaken. 1t
is as though all the population OF
Kansas were driven, a headlong, help
less mass all the blood stained way to
| the Rio Grande, there dying as they
searched for food, in a desert of un-
sown fields, eating of the wild. This
Armenian remnant waits American
aid as the one hope left.
Europe has its own to aid and
cannot succor. No help can come
save from America and from the
churches of America of every faith
and creed.
Give, that these may live. Give
that people may be saved. Give
that once more these thousands thai
are left may be fed today and in due
season be set in their homes again.
This good work has begun behinc
the advancing Russian army. Already
homes are rebuilt, the naked clothed
the hungry fed. and plows and see6
corn promised for the harvest Give
that this may spread. The plate
dotted with change that goes down ar
aisle will save a family. Small gift.
and large will save a nation.
''A1l this applies in full measure t.
the Syrians. They outnumber tn,
Armenians. They have not suffered
such sore persecution as the Armen
ians, but the privations of hundred.
of thousands of them are equal,
great.
Remember the Sunday, October %
set apart to this work, to Armenian
and Syrian and Persian-to all tina
suffer, Jew and Gentle, Christian anc
Moslem. All that need share.
Give lest the blood of those tina
die, because you gave not, be on you
garments. Lest faces you will neve
see, stiffen in death because you CAV,
not in this day and hour of helpless
hopeless need which cries aloud TO
your gift to save from the grave"