The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1922-02-27
REFUGEES HUNT
FOOD IN Vain
American Relief Workers Are
Finding Constantinople City
of Distress.
IS DAILY GROWING WORSE
City Teens With Refugees in Such
Great Numbers That All Cannot
Possibly Be Looked After
Children Cared For.

New York.-AS warfare and petty
tribal conflicts in the Near East con
tinue, American relief workers are
finding ~Constantinople Il city OF DIS
tress, where conditions daily grow
worse as new refugees wander hope
lessly in on the endlesS-and usually
vain-quest for food. Returning
members of the overseas personnel of
the Near East relief all bring back
the same story of misery. These are
supplemented by the letters and
periodical reports of relief agents on
the field.
Situation Is Desperate.
When the evacuation of the French
from Cilicia and the consequent flight
of the Armenians and other portions
of the native Christian population.
the situation threatens to become one
that the Imagination recoils at pic
turing.
"Constantinople already teens with
refugees in such great numbers thai
all cannot possibly be looked after"
writes Mrs. Jeanette w. Enrich, a
member of the relief unit in the Otto
man capital, who previously had wide
experience as a missionary.
Nov the people of Cilicia are COM
ingt to us. We simply will not be able
to care for them. How terrible the
need is in spite of all that America
has SEM us would be hard to make
any one understand who has not been
here. The weather is bitterly cold
and each day brings its fresh stream
of misery.
''Yet there are also encouraging
things-the gratitude of a group of
Armenian mothers, last week, when
old clothes from America were dis
tributed among them. One mother
said, as she held out the few gar
ments given her: / could never have
bought these, as they would have cost
some liras. Just the same, | want to
give something. | can only give a
mejidi'-or about 10 cents-'but all l
can give, / want to give And each
present did the same. Out Of
their dire poverty they gave some II
liras-about sand, since this is a
country with free education, we need
the money to put additional children
into school.
Clothes for Children.
"At present we are distributing
these old American clothes among
5000 children. They have no fathers,
these having been killed in the war
or deportations; but they have moth
ers or grandmOthers. The mother
scrubs, sews, works in a restaurant
anything to keep a home together,
which home consists of one mean
room renting for a dollar or so month
~. These wretched families are scat
tered through ~ sections of this great
city, and embrace six nationalities-
..rmenians, Greeks, Jews, Syrians,
.haldeans and Turks. The Near East
relief cannot support them-it must
Iook after its orphanages-but it does
help them with one can of condensed
milk and two loaves of bread weekly
oer child. Also during five winter
he market price. ,
1.-The sister of the lad who works in
ny home was recently put into one Of F.,
he Near East relief orphanages here.
She is thirteen years old, was taken
the Turks when she was only eight,
vas held by them for five years, and
# course can speak only Turkish now. :
)ne Of her eyes is gone, and she has
he oldest, unhappiest face imaginable
or a child of that age