Williams news., 1922-04-14
SENTENCED TO DIE

S T face, were met to decide an is. sue of life or death.
 No burly criminal stood there to receive punishment for his crimes, s,-only little child beg. ging for life.
 Her sin was hunger and She trembled, and almost fell. as she stretched out thin, bare arms in supplication.
 "Hunger-Bread!" !" were the only words she spoke.
 A long time passed, while those men fought to escape the verdict they must render. But then the words came:
 I've have not found anyone who will give you bread, little girl. We have told a great many people about you, but they have given to so many oth- CT boys and girls that they are tifed of giving. There is net enough bread, now, to go around-no, not even a crust. We are sorry, dear little girl, but-we must let you die"
 A cruel jest? No! A cruel fact, multiplied thousands upon thousands of times! If only one such pleading child were condemned to die because we are tired of giving" if would be enough to blanch the cheeks of every man and wom- an who reads this page. But upon many thousands of boys and girls the sentence of death has just been passed.
 In Armenia a Christian race is being blottedout-while the world looks on. In Armenia peace did not come when the rest of the world stopped fight ing. Last year 40 villages were destroyed; thousands of mothers and grown daughters were violated and slain fathers were herded into buildings and burned; multitudes of orphan ed children were driven into the wilderness to wander and die unless perchance, they might be gathered like lost lambs, into folds of safety by the Near East Relief. Condft- ions are worse than at any time since the armistice. Frantic appeals for more food to save the children, for more clothing to cover their naked bodies, for more hospitals and orphan ages to give them refuge come surginG over the cables to "kind generous America" the hoped for savior of Armenia.
 And in the moment of this crisis, when the question of life or death for unnum pered thous- ands of children must be an- swered, the tender charity of American mothers and fathers has begun to fail. Their an- swer to the multitude of little orphans whose only sin is hun ger, and nakedness, and inn measurable grief, has been,- in December, and January, and February. and March-not more money, and more clothing and more food, but less. And so the cruel order has gone forth from the offices of the Near East Relief to reduce all expenditures twenty-five per cent. Twenty-Five children from every hundred now re- ce1V1ng care must be turned away. Among the many thousands whose walls of hun ger, and sickness, and cold, have not yet been answered. not one can be satisfied.
 And now the cries of terror and d1smay are reaching Amer ica:
 Cablegram, via Paris: "Thou sands of deportees filling Near East threshold, receiving crust of bread, hoping for summer peace. Shall we push them off our doorstep? Order of twenty-five per cent reduction necessitates closing March first all general relief.
 Cablegram, ConstantinopIe: Appalling increase of need for general relief throughout Ana tOlia Caucasus. Reduction in already inadequate appropria- t1ons sutS off multitudes who are hopeless without American aid"
 Cab1egram, from American