The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1918-01-27

and II comes from 4 source that IS be-
yond the imagination of the Western
mind. 1t is the tumuIt Of scores Of
miserable persons, mostly women and
children, who have come to the gate Of
the Americans seeking bread. They
need not cry and entreat. for their
emaciated faces and rags, through
which nakedness speaks its eloquent
message, tell their own story. These
are few Of the victims of the war,
dwellers in a nutral land and not parties
to either side Of the conflict, who have
lost home, livelihood, possessions and
almost hope. They have struggled down
here from the mountains to the one
place in all Persia where succor is to be
found by such-the homes Of the Ameri.
cans.
In time these poor creatures, like
others Of whom l shall tell Will be re-
hibilitated in thei rold homes. or else
where, thanks TO American generosity
and administrative ability, but at the
moment they need merely to be kept
alive. They ask not for clothes or bed
ding or shelter, though most of them
have none of these; but only for wheat
which they may make into food. Should
! interrupt this article and step down
among these women | might again, as
in the past, be offered babies by starry
ing mothers, who are willing to give
away their children if only they may
thereby assure their being kept alive.
haI mn
10 thrust their children into my arms
poor, weakened little bundles of skin
and bones, with eyes popping out OF
their heads.
Strange Scenes at American Gates.
The most skillful stage-manager on
Broadway could not construct, with the
help Of the most efficient staff, such
creations in rags and patches as man
be found i'm the throng, less than nun
dred yards away, whose babel fills my
ears. l used to think that China took
the palm for raggedness, but now
know that il belongs to the Syrians OF
Kurdstan. More interesting than the
rags, and even more suggestive, are the
patches. L never have been able to
county all the yariegated patches on one
of these villagers, though Mrs. Cochran
a milHonary here, possesses a suit of
clothes that contains six hundred and
thirty patches. They are neatly sewn
too, and of manycolored calico.
Poverty reaches such depths mere
that it is no eXaggeratiOn to say that
the average poor family, receiving re
lief from charitable organization in
.ft nn1lIeutI IH
in every respect than the prospcrou
members of these Syrian villages. ThcN
houses are of unbaked mud bricks "'b
unlined walls and carthen floors an'
the oven for the native bread-whcI
resembles huge sheets of blotting pape'
in thickncss-sunll into the middle o
the floor, and with the animals sharn.
the same roof. The beds are pieces o
felt, or rags, thrown on lle Hoo''
furniture there is none. The SyraA.
are thousand years behind the time
Yet to these remote people, harrle
beyond belief by the counter coi"o''
ants in the war, and suffering as u.
Belgian family ever suffered, has com
the word America as synonyulou
with succor. SO from the distant noun
tains and villages Of the pIalhs lhel
have trudged afoot to Salinas hhoi' ahO
Urumia where the American commit
tee for Armenian and Syrian reHel mas
representatives.; and none has peer
turned away unhelped. A.; the MISSION
aries on the field-an dthis IS one OF tH'
Oldest million fields of the Presbyterian
church in the L. S. A.-have become re
lief workers. They do not attempt l'
proselyte among the sufferers put oI
course the present ministry accredit,
their mission and message as decades OF
ordinary work could not do. They have
become ambassadors OF the American
spirit 1t is almost unbelievable thai
the prestige of a remote and little
known nation could become so grea
amidst q sequestered and ancient peo
pie.
One OutreaCh Of America.
From these bare, brown mountain;
OF the ancient world, better known t(
Noah and to Abraham than to the mod
ern schoolteacher, many men have
found their way to the United State
and Canada; and when I speak OF
America in these articles I include Can
ada. for the people here scarcely dis
tinguish between them. Now, in the
need of the homeland, these exiles are
sending back money amounting, in the
aggregate, to more than n million dol
lars to their families left behind There
IS only one way to send it, since mails
are unsafe and uncertain, and banks dc
not have correspondents in this out'oi
the-way place and it takes letters nova
days from three to SIX months TO arrive
.L,,, r,ot bara Of a That rlp6ium is