The Wrangell sentinel., 1921-03-10

than billions of dollars spent later in suppressing international warfare and strife."
 MT. Vickrey considers the need in the Near East and especially in Ar menia greater than anywhere else in the world because, as he says, "In the countries of Central Europe there are going governments which have merely been temporarily impoverished by war. In the Near East, on the other hand, there is no such thing as stable gov ernment. The whole fabric of the state has to be created from the be- ginning, and the innocent and help less children have to be trained to the responsibilities of future citizenship. Peace in the Near East and, in great measure, throughout the world. will depend very largely on the character of the. citizenship of the peoples of the Near East"
 Irresistible Appeal of Orphans.
 Describing the orphanage work of the Near East Relief in the Armenian Republic, MT. Vickrey said:
 we have at Alexandropol in the Caucasus, one orphanage where there are approximately 10000 homeless children, fatherless or motherless, many of them having no known living relative. Some of them do not even know their own names. or the place of their birth. They have shown wonder full recuperative powers, and to see them play their kindergarten or other games under the direction of our Ameri- can relief workers, one could never be- lieve that they had passed through the years of suffering that most of them have experienced since they, or their parents, were driven from their homes in Central Turkey five years ago.
 For the accommodation of these or phans there are sixty splendid stone buildings, erected as barracks for the Russian army. These buildings are now given to us by the Armenian gov ernmAnt for period Of ten years and lend themselves admirably to relief purposes.
 'This orphanage at Alexandropol Is but one of the 229 orphanages that the Near East Relief Is now operating in various parts of the Caucasus, Anato- lia, Cillcia, Syria and the Constanti- nople-Straits area.
 Thirty miles from Alexendropol, at Kars, there is another group of Rus sian army barracks, which were given us by the Armenian government for relief purposes. I was going through the dormitories of this orphanage at kars when the young American col lege girl in charge turned to me and said: 'Mr. vickrey, it sometimes makes me fcel just a little older than Me thuselah to be called Mother" by 5000 of those Armenian children And that is exactly what she was the cnly mother that these 5000 Ar menian children, have, except as she avails herself of the organized assist ance of native Armenian women, in caring for this large family.
 Tn the hospital at Kars I found 1,150 beds, which. the day I was there, were occupied by 1,26S patients, 1t frequently being necessary to put two or more children in single bed. At Alexandropol we have in one hospital, or group of hospital buildings, 1,560 trachoma patients. At Karaklis, forty miles east of Alexandropol we have nn orphanage devoted exclusively to the care and training of the blind children. At Delijan we have another orphanage, located on mountain side. for the care of tubercular children. this segregation being as much for a of hn f,, the orphanages as for the care of the unfortunate consumptives. At Erivan we formerly had twenty-six distinct orphanages, though they have now been reduced and consolidated to seven In number. There are some thing more than coco orphans in the region of Harpout."