The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-01-17
ONLY AMERICA CAN SAVE

ONLY AMERICA CAN SAVE
The American people have beer
asked to give money for the starving
and suffering good many times since
the great war began and they have al
ways responded in a way that has
made the word america, one of the
proudest titles on the earth.
But there has never been more
urgent need than that of the dying
multitudes of the old Bible lands. Try
to imagine 100000 men, women and
children starving in deserts and old
walled cities, and dying of pestilences
and plaques in the old Holy places of
the Near East. Picture this vast ar
my of sufferers going down into the
valley of the Shadow, with none save
far-off America to succor and to help.
That is what is happening at this
very hour in old Syria, in Armenia and
the o-Turkish parts Of the Near
East. What the fanatical Turk car
ried out under the direction of the
cold hearted Prussians, famine, pes
thence and the black shadow of
starvation are now rapidly complet-
ing.
They call Armenia, that lies up to-
ward the Russian frontier in Eastern
Turkey, "The Death Valley of the
Near East" No one knows, no one
will ever know, how many Armenians
were slain by the Turks since the
great war began.
Millions of helpless people died of
massacre and starvation in this an
cient land. The Armenians were cut
to pieces by Bashi- Razouks, they
were beaten to death by the thousands
under the nail-studded clubs of the
Turkish soldiery who dubbed them to
death rather than waste cartridges in
Staying them. Hundreds Of thou
sands of the old men, the women and
the children were driven off into the
open deserts to die under the burning
sun of Asia. They have disappeared
utterly; the race is at the point of
being wiped out.
There are but 100000 of these per-
secuted, harrassed peoples of Armenia
and Syria left. They are starving,
as no other people in the world have
ever been starved. The Germans
thought they were at the Dark Gates
Sf Hunger when they finally surren-
dered Belgium knows something of
real hunger, but in Armenia and Sy-
ria these stricken people with death
at their shoulders are fighting for the
rotten meat of long-dead animal car
casses, and are sustaining life on the
filthiest garbage that comes to their
hands. They are literally starving.
The sandy trails of the desert are
lined with the bodies of the starved.
The dead bodies choke the village
streets. There are too few of the liv-
ing and they are too week to bury their
own dead. 1t is a Land of Death,
charnel house made by the Turk and
the German.
If these 100000 people are to be
saved it must be through American
help. If the 100000 orphaned children
in the Haly Lands of Christianity are
TO live it must be because Americans
will give enough American dollars to
save them.
1t does not take much to do infinite
good. The man or the woman who
gives $500 gives enough to keep the
breath of life in some poor unfortun-
ate for a month. Twelve times $500
will mean life for wear to some man,
woman or child, who is otherwise
doomed. Only II cents per day is re-
Iuired to make the difference between
ife and death to some one of the
starving millions of the Near East.
Other Americans have helped.
American men and women relief work
,rs have been doing their best there
or long time. Some of them have
given their lives in an effort to save
hese people. The Turks and the Ger
mans were determined to wipe out
hese people while the world was so
,usy with war that it could not turn
lside to answer the piteous appeals
hat We're coming out of the Businesses
# the Turkish Empire. Now that the
has been lifted by the ending
# the war, the world knows that they
uceeeded, all too we'll.
Christian Missourians are asked to
lelp save these stricken peoples. The
Armenian and Syrian Relief Cam
,aign begins February 9rd, and con-
.inues one week, Missourisns will
make this campaign success.