Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-05-05

TWELVE MEN, with grave faces,
were met to decide an issue of life or
death.
No burly criminal stood there to- receive pun
ishment for his crimes only a little child. beg
ging for life.
- Her sin was hunger and nakedness.
She trembled, and almost fell, as she stretched
out. thin, bare arms in suppicahon.
"Hunger!-Breadl' 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
other boys and girls that they are tired Of giving.
There is not enough bread, now. to 60 around
no. not even a crust. We are very sorry, dear
little. girl, .but-we must let you die"
~ 49, ~s.~. 80. =.
A cruel Jest? Mol A cruel fact, multiplied
thousands upon thousands of timesl If only one
such pleading child were condemned to die be-
cause we are tired of giving" it would be enough
to blanch the cheeks of every man and woman
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 blotted
out-while the world looks on. In Armenia peace
did not come when the rest of the world stopped
fighting. Last year 40 villages were destroyed;
thousands of mothers and grown. daughters were
violated and slain; fathers were herded into build
ings and burned; ,multtudes CT orphaned 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. Conditions are worse than at any
time since the arrnistice. Frantic appeals for more
food to save the children, for more clothing to
cover their naked bodies. for more hospitals and
orphanages 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 unnumbered thousands
of children must be answered, the tender charity
of American mothers and fathers has begun to
fail. Their answer to the multitude of little
orphans whose only sin is hunger, and nakedpess,
and immeasurable 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 percent twenty-five
children from every hundred. now receiving care
must be turned away. Among the many thou
sands whose walls of hunger, and sickness, and
cold have not yet been answered. not one can
be satisfied. --
And now the cries of terror and dismay- are
reaching America:
CABLEGRAM, via Paris: Thousands 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 percent reduction necessitates closing
March first all general relief"
cABLEGRAM, constantinople: Appalling
increase Of need for general relief throughout
Anatolia Caucasus. Reduction in already mad
quate appropriations cuts off multitudes Dko are
hopeless withodt American aid"
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I