The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-02-08
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

It's human nature to want to get dollars worth for dollar, and It's even legitimate to make a reasonable profit.
 You are going to be asked to put your money into the relief fund for the destitute in Bible lands of the near east, and you have right to know something about how it will be spent.
 In the first place, after the most careful estimate and pruning the sum of sSO, ,OOO,0 900 was agreed upon as the minimum. When you give to this fund you can rest content that 10D cents of every dollar you give goes for relief-none~ for expenses.
 Get this into your head. All print ing, postage and administrative eN' penses, even the cost of cabling. ara met privately and not deducted from contributions. The personnel of the committee ought to be a sufficient guarantee to any American for it's composed of the picked men of this country.
 When the committee speaks of sso,- 100000 being needed, the word need means merely what Is required to save from death those who are now in condition of abject want Thousands have actually perished for the lack ot food, multitudes are perishing daily who might be saved if only people real ized the naked facts.
 I have studied carefully the detailed and tsbulated needs in Asia Minor, in the Caucasus, in Syria and Mesopo- tamia, in Persia, in Palestine, in Egypt and from the Armenians, Greeks, Persians and Syrians the cry for bread comes up from nearly 100000 hungry throats and empty stomachs.
 It is impossible for us who live here in sheltered America to realize that 100000 orphan children in the near east will starve unless we feed them. The actual sight of a hungry child
  us deep down in his pockets, but it's hard to visualize the scenes on tho other side of the world--of gaunt little ones holding out pitiful hands for crust of bread.
 It wrings ones heart to read the stories sent in to the committee from the trusted workers on the fields. Be it remembered that the work of distri- button is carried on by American mis- sionaries, physicians and teachers who have remained on the field. braving the dangers of war and pestilence to give aid and comfort to the suffering people, while we are only asked to give out of our surplus I give d | few typical stories,
 "A boy of 12 years came to a relief center in Palestine wearing only 1 tiny shirt that did not begin to cover him. He and the other children III the band of refugees were wearing the same garments they had on when driven from homo three years before | dust and rain and had lain at nigh. | often in mud or offal. so their condi- ton can better be imagined than de- 1 scrbed. Clothing Is almost as desper- ately needed by these poor wanderers as food"
 i Tn a schoolroom crowded with sick | i,ann1a MnDOyunl1 1 fainting woman on bench with 2 l baby only a few days old in her arms. 1 When she was sufficiently revived to 1 talk, Dr. Mcdowell asked her where she was staying. Just here she re, piled. How long have you been here 1 Two months,' She said How do you sleep atsnight?' T lay the baby or. the desk in front of me and lean against the post at my back ThisAl a very good place. Thank you very much"
 | Passing near the Damascus gat, one morning I saw an aged granny and her grandchild eating from most repulsive garbage pail. Many, <man. | tliHeS uSeu to see poor women ana ' children in the streets stoop to gather orange peels from the mud and thrust them in their mouths?"
 1
 Five dollars supports a refugee fo, one month; $60 furnishes the neces- sities of life for one year. In different sections of the field prices of food and
 
 this amount Is the average estimated at conference of returned ambassa dors consuls. missionaries, teachers and physicians
 It was Syria that gave the world its Christ. It was the gentle Jesus that took little children in his arms and blessed them. It was Syria which gave the world its Bible and It's religious llterature-but today Syria Is bleedins to death, and the Syrians, the descend ants of the Phoenicians, who dissent mated the alphabet. and of the Arab: who in the middle ages were the only bearers of the torch of civilization ar, threatened with extermination.
 
 Right here in Birmingham we hay. a colony of men, women and childre, from Syria who are proud to call them selves Americans; and if you coult have sat with me a few Sunday eve , nincs hack in their D1aca worsli, f,