Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1919-01-16
BY JOHN M. OFT

Hold our babies just minute, plead
a hundred thousand mothers to Amer
lea. Take them ON your knee that we
may rest our arms. We have walked
miles and miles. Our breasts are dry.
Our babies are dying for the want OF a
piece Of bread.
Can not the people of Tennessee
hear that cry from across the seas?
From the Near East where filth and
disease Turk under every piece OF de-
molished homes?
Their wall has been heard by the
American Committee for Relief in the
Near East and is being echoed to the
whole United States. With the echo
comes the call for money. Funds for
the greatest and most far-reaching
charitable cause ever presented to the
people of this wealthy nation.
These peoples, this mother and her
brown-eyed baby, were driven from
their peaceful and quiet villages by the
Turkish armies when that German.
differed organization Of fiends invad.
ed the Western Asiatic countries OF
Persia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia
and others. Deported for hundreds OF
miles At each turn In the winding
road lies a heap Of skeletons. Mile
stones in the march Of Kultur with
it's Turkish atrocities.
This mother is one of hundreds Of
thousands returning to their former
homes. Her husband died on the way
that she and Baby might live. Both
were refined and educated Baby was
to have been sent to the village scnoo.
and then given further opportunity to
become a useful citizen of the world.
What if it does prattle with a weak
voice in another tongue? What is Ian
guage, anyway? Speech is nothing
more than certain arrangements OF
sounds that express thoughts. Does the
fact that Baby's mother and father e1-
pressed their thoughts differently
from Americans lessen the duty to
answer the call for help?
And now, unless the people of the
United States heed this prayer for
help, 500 coo orphans will die and their
deaths will be- checked as the sins of a
selfish heart. Every refusal to help
this Baby is the signing OF its death
warrant,
Tennessee is asked to give 100000
The entire State has been organized
under the direction of state chair
man and state director. T. Graham
Hall is the state chairman and Seth
Seiders, state director. Each county
has a county chairman and effective
organization which is seeking contribu
lions for tie saving of these lives
All expenses Of the campaign are me-
by subscriptions privately solicited
Every cent Of every dollar given il
this drive goes to the purchase OF toot
and clothing for these unfortunates
and this Baby will be one of them. /
viii be placed in an orphanage anC
given education, and food for body
soul and mind. 1t Will be allowed u
play with others. If Tennessee does
not give 100000 or more there always
will be stain upon it. Its citizens
will not fail in the only purely CHART
able relief work every undertaken on
ration-wide scale, by such men a!
cleveland II. Dodge, William H. Taft
and Charles Evans Hughes, who are
members Of tho executive committee
Cleveland H. Dodge is National Treas
urer. A. b. Benedict, general mana
ger Of the Nashville Trust~Company
is state treasurer.
This little Baby's mother knows tina
somewhere there is food and lots of ii
she Knows that there are ships to brini
it to her little darling. And the PEG
pie OF tennessee know there is, toe
and they viii make the way clear 70
that life sustaining food to reach thi
mother and child, and hundreds o
thousands of other mothers a;.l c!.N
dren. in time to keep those heaps o
skele tons from growing larger,