The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-02-23
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsIxIN, Director.
Washington, ID. G.
RELIEF FOR THE NEAR EAST.


East Relief hasa suggestion to make
for promoting it. Its treasurer wants
to know if, the next time you are
i seized with the uncomfortable impulse
to part with cash, you won't let him
| know SO that he can sell you some
flour or some canned milk or some I'M
| derwear to be sent to the Syrians and
i Armenians. Or, perhaps if your par
ticular orgy has proceeded far enough,
you might even adopt an orphan over
in the destitute provinces of Asia.
The treasurer of the Near East Re
lief has his office at its headquarters
| at l Madison avenue here, and you
will find him there any day, surround
ed by grim Photographic evidence of
! the awful conditions existing in Ar
records of a peoples suffering. and
! occasionally by real witnesses of that
suffering, who have just returned to
| this country. Naturally, living in such
an environment day after day. the
| treasurer has become a trifle preju-
diced in favor of relief work. He
| thinks it is lots of fun. He thinks,
to be quite explicit, that it is much
more fun to save the life of an Armen-
ian, who is starving and in need of
medical attention, than it is to buy u
new automobile or a fur coat. The
| treasurer has done both in his time,
| you see. so he speaks from experience.
The Near East Relief workers who
are coming home to recuperate after
| their strenuous activities in the deyas
tated provinces of Asia also share this
preference for relief work when it
| comes to being eXtravag CANT.
| II am afraid 1 shall never regain
my old outlook on life" said a young
relief worker just back from Armenia,
who visited the headquarters of the or
ganization the other day, on the way
back to her home in New England.
II am not a good person for you to
/ talk to concerning conditions over
! there. because l saw so much suffer-
ing that it seems actually common
| place to me. When you live amidst
starvation, misery. and disease, and
death, every day of your life for weeks
at a time, you eventually become used
! to it-never hardened to it. but hav-
/ ing reached a certain point, If you
know what 1 mean, you can't expert
ence any more horror
'T thought I would never feel hor-
ror-struck again. but I did. 1t was
when I reached New York, and walked
up Fifth avenue, and saw all the mar
! velous luxury of its show windows, the
! expensive limousines blocking traffic,
| the thousands of women in fur coats,
and the satin covered boxes of bon
| bons on display in the big candy stores.
For the price of one of these 1fmou-
sines, a hundred Syrian babies could
have been fed; for the price of one
/
| lily could have been supplied with
flour for a month.
II suppose my viewpoint is quite
morbid, but you see L have just come
/ from Erivan. the present capital OF Ar
mena, where the streets are lined with
shivering beggars, barefooted, their
emaciated bodies wrapped only in bits
of sacking. Winter is bleak and cold
in this part of Asia. and the popula-
ton is totally unprepared for it. Tiny
| children wear only the sheds Of filthy
trags and crouch on the streets numb
with cold, whimpering with pain.
| Often they are compelled to fight Off
the hungry parish dogs. which driven
| by hunger, attack any 1iving-thing. We
| did what we could to gather in those
who were too helpless or exhausted
themselves to come for aid, but every
day we came across dead bodies in
corners where the poor people had
dragged themselves, seeking shelter
from the wintry blasts"
| The young woman spoke in a calm,
dispassionate voice; her eloquence was
| cold and unanimated. She COMPLAIN
| ed of this herself. IF 1 could only
make you people here at home feel
what l felt when 1 first reached Ar
menia, but it is all gone. After L get
a rest, perhaps"
| Miss Louise Chamberlain, another
American girl who has just returned
| from service in the Near East relief
| hospitals at Erivan, also complains
| that her outlook on life is changed
| forever. 1T isn't too much to say
that my soul was frozen within me
over there in Erivan.' she says.
with my own eyes 1 have seen liv-
| ing children in the shelters sleeping
| on what l supposed al first were dirty
mattresses in a courtyard, but not
| until We reused the little ones did we
see the mattresses were the blackened
| bodies of their companions, some of
| them dead for several days. I asked
some of the children why they slept
on the bodies and their answer was
| that they had to have something to
sleep on to keep their almost naked
bodies from the frozen ground.
IF you had seen children in the
| streets of Erivan pounding with stones
the bones of animals into a rough,
pasty mass and greedily devouring it;
| if you had known that in the ceme-
| teries bodies had been stolen and the
next day were seen in the cooking pots
would you say? Could you blame
/ them ?"
In normal times, Miss Chamberlain
| says, Erivan had population of 35,
| 600: but last winter there were at
| least 100000 people in the city. They
| congested the streets. the alleys, the
| court yards. and ruined, roofless build
ings. budding any h ere that
promised the slightest shelter from
| the pitiless. penetrating rain of the
| Caucasus that chills even the warmly
| clad to the bone. The once rich and
poor who had fled before the Turks.
We're on the same level of raggedness.
| Thousands died of cold and starvation,
! but others poured in TO replace them.
| Refugees are still pouring into Fri
van, but conditions are now improved
owing to the persistent and tireless
work of the Near East Relief. 1t has
l erected and organized hospitals, shell
| tiers. orphanages and workshops. and
! has established a system for rationing
! the population on the same lines that
| Mr.. Hoover rationed the refugees in
/ Belgium. American relief workers are
now in charge of fifty-four relief sta
! lions in these impoverished regions;
/ 1876 orphanages sheltering nearly fifty