Evening star., 1924-10-27
IN TODAY'S SPOTLIGHT
BY PAUL y. COLLINS.

At the Near East Relief dinner,
in the great banquet hall of the
New Willard Hotel last Friday eve
ming. grace was said by a bishop.
Then d little girl of Z years, her
childish voice sweet and clear. sang:
God is great and God is good
And we thank Thee for this food;
BY Thy hand must we be fed,
Give US, Lord, our daily bread
Amen,
1t was impossible to picture that
exquisitely sweet and winning child
as a bit of Armenian salvage which
had been abandoned by the roadside,
four years ago-a waif, meager as a
skeleton-thrown out to die, by the
en- nemies of her ancestors. Turks had
slaughtered her parents and sepa-
rated her from her relatives and
friends, starved and then abandoned
her.
Later in the evening, the same
child thrilled the company with:
My country, tits Of thee,
Sweet land OF liberty.
OF thee l sing.
Somehow, that anthem took a
deeper meaning from the singing of
AZadouhi than it had ever had be-
fore She had long ago captured the
heart of a relief worker who had
taken her out of the midst Of $4,000
other Armenian child refugee or
phans, sheltered and fed her by the
Near East Relief orphanages, and
had adopted her Loving care and
plenty of food had wrought wonders,
and 80 the "waif' was now singing:
Sweet land of liberty
OF thee sing
1t would have been a wonder if
the sentiment behind that tragedy
and baby gratitude had not brought
tears, unshamed from many a SYM
pathetic heart
Diplomats and statesmen were
present The Ambassador of France
spoke eloQpently, and the President [
OF the United States made an address
which outlined the great cooperation
given by this country to the spffer-
ing nations-to the victims of war in
the Occident and to tho victims of
earthquake in the Orient. But in that
distinguished company. tho queen of
all was Azadoughi, for such not only
in the Kingdom of Heaven but even
of such are wandering. starving, be-
reft thousands of orphans gathered
from the dreary roadsides and deserts
of Asia Minor, and rescued-by Amer
lea.
I'm our country" said President
Coolidge, ARE many exceedingly
modest souls. Constantly they depre-
cate their own assumption that our
country has done nothing for Europe,
made no contribution to the world
welfare. Perhaps they may be slight
ly heartened by this recital. Per-
haps II they will contemplate that our
country has done many times over
what any one country ever did for
another, and probably many times
over what all the countries of the
world put together. ever did for other
countries since the beginning of time,
they may find some slight relief for
their notification"
y X + y
The rescue of $4,000 orphans and
their nourishing and care, is not the
work of our National Government,
but of individual American hearts,
quick to respond to the sufferings Of
the oppressed, and especially to that
of the pathetic tens of thousands of
weeping, starving, orphaned babies:
Never before in the worlds history
have there existed such numbers of
helpless children, bereft SO cruelty,
and balancing between death or lov-
ing rescue by strAngers--even by
men and women from another hemis-
phere, who couid not underotAad 4
word 9f their ulAtnS nut tA3N11