Evening star., 1920-06-13
WRITES Of NEEDY
PEOPLE IN ARMENIA
Melville Chatter Describes
Want, SquaIor and Misery
!, of Nation.

dent wilson's proposal that the
United States assume a mandate over
Armenia. though written prior to that
proposal. is a communication to the
National Geographic Society from
Melville 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 inconceiNa-
BILE contrast to the Georgian govern
ment seat at Tiflis. At Erivan one
finds no spacious prospects nor vice
regal palace. no smart shops. RUSSIAN
opera. nor gay night life. To behold
misery in Tifiis, one must search IL
out. In Erivan one cannot escape II.
This poor, struggling. dingy CITY
of the plains whose government OF
fees suggest some hastily extern
porized election headquarters and
whose parliament chamber Is rlgged
up with benches and cheesecloth In
the auditorium of the Second-ciass
theater. boasts of but one beauty.
and that-to speak In paradoA-le
forty miles away: for. iii whatever
quarter of F,rivan you may be. lit
Your glance and great Ararat OF eler-
nal SHOWS is seen broodlng distantiy
over the mean streets with his aspect
of majestic calm. He IS the AT
menian's Olympus, or rather say. the
Sinai of a race which has known
bondage and wilderness wandering
and for centuries a peoples magma
tion has turned toward him.
1,5OO Square Miles in Area.
.The little Erivan republic which
centers about Ararat contains WITHIN
its present limits less than !,?oo
square miles-only one-half of which
area Is capable of high productivity
will nf railroad. and
about two million people. 1t has oeen
the center of refuge for Turkish Ar
menians 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 dou-
bled by this influx. There starvation
and typhus have claimed their toll OF
5000, the death rate fuctuatingsb
tween fifty and eighty day.
Though the doctor and / were here
to observe the worst phases of the
situation, each of US waited for the
other to suggest trip TO the igdlr
region, where we We're told starvation
was most acute.
'The town of Igdir. with its local
and nearby populations of 10000 Ar
menians, 10000 Tartars. and $4,000 Ye-
zidis, revealed some squaiid 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 and
no animals roamed. The air was
heavy with dreadful silence. such as
hangs over plague-smitten communi-
ties.
1--WE found the children. such as they
were inhabiting an orphanage where
in one sickened at putridity's horrible
odor, and were informed that there
were neither medicines nor disinfect-
ants wherewith to allay the condition
of the many little sickbeds.
"Sick? Say, rather. the bed-ridden-
a word which more justly describes
those tiny. withered-up. cronelike
creatures, upon whose faces the skin
seemed stretched to a drumhead's
tightness; whose peering eyes shot
terror and anguish. as if deaths pres
ence were already perceptible to them,
and who lay there at famine's climax
of physical exhaustion. In those
young, yet grotesquely aged faces, We
seemed to see a long lifetime of trag-
edy packed into eight or ten childish
years.
Feeding on Human Bones.
The mud huts which we visited
presented an invariable picture--a
barren. cavelike interior. lacking one
stick of furniture or household uten-
sill and with a few bleached bones
scattered here and there. The occu-
pants, stretched on the clay floor,
would half lift themselves to regard
US with dazed. questioning eyes.
Those gaunt faces, those attenuated
bodies clad in a shagginess of filthy
rags. seemed centuries removed from
civilization. You felt that you had
stumbled into prehistoric mans den
during some great famine year.
Suddenly a Shrek went up and a
woman rushed out of her hut, with
agonized face and with hands lifted
to heaven. Hers was such abandon
ment as proclaims that death has
struck the first-born; yet it was
tale of mere robbery. What the cap
tured thief delivered back to her
proved to be a paltry handful of
roots. And upon entering the wom-
ans house we found. in fact. her only
daughter lying dead. not yet cold.
while the mother crouched dry-eyed
before tiny fire, intently watching
the pot wherein bubbled those preci-
Gus roots. her next stomachful.
"One seven-year-old girl crouched
by herself. cracking something be-
tween two stones and licking her
fingers. The doctor bent over, exam
lining the object. He asked with pc
culiar sharpness. Where did she get
that-that bone?'
THE child looked up with scared.
guilty glance; then her answer came
through the interpreter. who said In
a low voice, 'Yonder in the grave
yard
IT am not sure that we preserved
our composure."