The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1920-06-05
ARMENIA is COUNTRY
STRICKEN BY FAMINE
Capital City of Erivan Filled with
Sick and Starving Men, Women
and Children.

or timely interest because of Presi-
dent Wilson's proposal that the United
States assume a mandate over Armen-
ia. though written prior to that pro-
posal, is communication to the Ma
tional Geographic society from Mel
vile Chatter
Relating his personal experiences
in that famine-stricken land several
months ago, Mr. Chatter writes:-
"Erivan, the capital of Armenias
provisional republic is an inconceiv-
able contrast to the Georgian govern
ment seat at Tihis. At Erivan one
finds no spacious prospect nor vice
regal palace, no smart shops, Russian
opera, nor gay night life. To behold
misery in Tiflis, one must search it
out. In Erivan one cannot escape it.
Ararat Only Beauty.
This poor, struggling, dingy city
of the plains, whose government Of
fees suggest some hastily extempor.
lied election headquarters and whose
parliament chamber is rugged up with
benches and cheesecloth in the audi
forum of the second-class theater,
boasts of but one beauty, and that
to speak in paradox-is 40 miles
away; for, in whatever quarter of Fri
van you may be, lift your glance and
great Ararat of eternal SHOWS is seen
brooding distantly over the mean
streets with his aspect of majestic
calm. He is the Armenian's Olympus,
or rather say, the Sinai of a race
which has known bondage and wilder
ness wandering, and for centuries a
peoples imagination has turned to
ward him.
THE little Erivan republic which
centers about Ararat contains within
it's present limits hess than 1900
square miles only one-half Of which
area is capable of high productivity
two hundred miles of railroad, and
about two million people. 1t has been
the center of refuge for Turkish Ar
lmenians ever since the massacre OF
1915 and between 100000 and 100000
of them are camped within its Dor
\ ders
'As for the city itself, its former
population Of 10000 has been doubled
by this influx. There, starvation and
! typhus have claimed their toll of 5000
/ the death rate fluctuating between
fifty and eighty day
Though the doctor and l were here
to observe the worst phases of the
situation. each of us waited for the
other to suggest trip to the Igdir re
gion, where we were told starvation
was most acute.
"The town Of Igdir, with its loca
and nearby populations of 10000 Ar
menians, 10000 Tartars, and $1,000
Yezidis. revealed some squalid streets
with but a few people seated discon
solately here and there, as we drove
in. Throughout those tortuous sun
beaten byways no children played ant
no animals roamed. The air wa!
heavy with dreadful silence, such a:
hangs over plaguestricken commui
tiles.
I'VE found the children, such az
they were, inhabiting an orphanag,
wherein one sickened putridity!
horrible odor, and we were informed
that there were neither medicines no,
disinfectants wherewith to allay tn,
condition Of the many little sick beds
Sick? Say, rather, the bed riddel
"a word which more justly describe
those tiny, withered up, erone-lik
creatures, upon whose faces the ski
seemed stretched to drumhead'
tightness; whose peering eyes sho
terror and anguish, as.if Deaths pres
ence were already perceptible to then
and who lay there at Famine's china
of physical exhaustion.