The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1920-03-12
THEHASKINLETTER
RELIEF FOR THE NEAR EAST
BY FREDERIC J. HAsKIN.

refugees, human bones. what would you
say? Could you blame them?
In normal times, Miss Chamberlain
says, Erivan had population OF 3S,ooO,
but last winter there were at least
400 900 people in the city. They con-
gested the streets, the alleys, the court
| yards and ruined roofless buildings,
! budding anywhere that promised the
| slightest shelter from the pitiless, pene-
| trating rain of the Caucasus that chills
| even the warmly clad to the bone. The
once rich and poor who had fled before
the Turks, were on the same level OF
raggedneSs. Thousands died Of cold
and starvation, but others poured in
to replace them.
Refugees are still pouring into Erlvan,
but conditions are now improved owing
to the persistent and tireless work of
the near east relief. 1t has erected and
organized hospitals, shelters, orphan
ages and workshops. and has estab-
lshed system for rationing the popu-
lation on the same lines that Mr..
Hoover rationed the refugees in Bel
GUM. American relief workers are
now in charge of 81 relief stations in
these impoverished regions; 1856 or
phanages sheltering nearly $4,000 chill
dren; A hospitals treating monthly
$4,000 clinic patients, and Is homes
for women rescued from Moslem ha-
rems They have organized and are
| operating industrial plants providing
| employment for approximately $4,000
native workers, who are thus aided to
| become self supporting and to produce
much-needed goods. In addition, soup
| kitchens are being operated wherever
| they are needed. as we'll as informal
and necessarily crude clinics, where the
| more exhausted and diseased victims of
| Turkish cruelty may be treated.
One New York woman doctor writes
| that she is holding a clinic daily on
| nothing more than a soap box. The
clinic is held in what used to be the
mayors office in Platonia 1T has no
but little furniture, so l commander
| soap box to stand or sit upon" she
writes, land use the formers mayors
| rickety desk for my medicine table.
| THE crowd gathers several hours be-
| fore the clinic opens" continues DIR.
Blance Norton, which is the young ply
| sicians name. ut is a ragged dirty
camorous crowd and they do not mind
| the ceaseless rain They have gone
through so much suffering and misery
that little rain means nothing
First, in full view of the assembled
crowd, l hold my hands out of the win
| dow while woman pours cold water
| over them. There is no way of obtain
ing hot water Fuel is too precious.
This is the signal for the examinations
to begin, and after that it is a steady
stream of woes, of indescribable dis
| eases.
thousands need treatment. and much
precious time will elapse before medi-
cal help or medicines reach the village
again. And We have so few workers
and so little medicine. If Americans
could only realize the conditions and
the needs"
The, situation is one which seems to
be entirely up to America, whether we
| like 1t or not. The British and the
French and the Italians are too pre-
occupied with the partition of the con-
quered territory, and the political dis
position of the Ottoman empire to give
much heed to the human aspects of the
case. America remains the last and
only hope of the famished sufferers of
| the near east.