Albuquerque morning journal., 1921-03-14
s,MADHOJ1SE OF CRUELTY AND DESPAIR
I AMERICAN OFFICER CALLS ARMENIA
Captain Paxton Hibben lellS
Touching Story of Homeless
Starving People Succored by
Near East Relief.

"Emaciated little girls with
,inrhed and unreal faces theN
clothing a mere piece of torn sack
ING held together with thorns Tor
nins paraded listlessly along the
side of the train with uplll'eu'
scraRny arms and cupped hahus'
whining a scarcely audible prayer
for food. Their great oark va
looked out from under tu'iinaeu
hair. uncombed for months, per
hans wears, seeing neither the tram
nor US God knows what they saw
those fathomless eyes of giTlhoou
that had never been-Gou knomss
what they had seen, in the years oL
wandering from place to place, uh,
protected unloved, uncared for!
Thus Captain Paxton Hibben de
scribes the journey of the Unlteu
States Army officers VINO accom-
panied Major. General James ss,ioIe
Harbord into Armenia, In an srued,e
& Magasine, DALLAS, Texas. Captain
Hibben is a well-known writer n anu
war correspondent, a9tnor u oPraooIe.
who was with the Historicai sec
tion,' General STAFF, A. E. f. during
the war.
People Lack Everything
aThese desperate, destitute people
who have no land to cultivate, no
food to eat and no clothes TO wear
and have been in that condition Tor
nve years. now," he calls the more
vhahs half a million Armenian
refugees wandering from place to
,laoe seeking food and shelter that
does not exist. "Under the old
s'sarist system, the peasants plowed
with a charred stick plow, drawn
by three to six span of oxen. NOW
sde oxen are dead-they were killed
.ur food long ago. There are no
honest-to-g goodness piows' binders" b9 sers"
Nothing Is left In this country OF
% claFes. mot a pair of shoes; not
s,,ssss1nothing Ching but the fiotsam and
the Jetsam Of war and destruction
Captain Hibben describes the ar
rival of the American Near East
lfettef workers at Erivan, the capl-
tai OF the unhappy Armenian Re-
public, with its war-gutted railway
station crowded with hundreds OF
homeless refugees.
~ Hundreds of Homeless
-'"Ail about, on the ground, close
tcsthe walls for shelter from winds
under freight cars, in the meager
covering of dusty hedges, in the
open-eyerywhere-- groups lay
on the dry earth. hundreds ant
hundreds, almost all women, with E
few, children. Near them pitifu
bundles of rags that constituted III
whole of their worldly possessions
three stones and a bit Of rusted I'll
made the stove upon which VIVA
cooking there was to do-littl
enough-was done. They live
where they lay at night-withou
shelter or privacy or anything the
tcould call their own. Sometime
seemtngly for no reason, littl
group would pack up the handtl
81 rags that served as cover
sleep under, and move off. The
etfnnbed on freight cars and Nei
,smewhere else, only to hnd thlnt
t.a same or worse. Again the
settled down in abject, patient, y
curious misery. to await--G'
knows what!
.1.Along the road from the static
toythe town more groups OF refuee'
we're camped. in appalling, mlstf
Te the srightpof the road was,
rreat, barren field, where huge hQi'
FAD been. dug and filled n agal
Where they were new. mounos
aAFib marksd them; wssrs 1aey =