The Wrangell sentinel., 1926-12-23
Another Letter
 From hr. HeCkmaD

Lhsl 8EEA hIuLB you concern ing a friend here in Seattle who has been telling me about condi- tions in the Near East. He has | just left ny apartment, having read to me the most interesting | letters and dispatches concerning the situation in the earthquake zone in Armenia.
 It seems that on October 23rd. l the American Relief workers had l put their nine thousand orphan l children to bed when a severe earthquake centered in the orphan age district Amid falling chim- neys and walls the American doc tors and nurses rushed back into the buildings and brought all of their terrified children outdoors. | The Associated Press in comment ing on this earthquake said that l to the cooIness and courage of these Americans was due the fact that not one Of nine thousand ehil= dren was killed.
 After the children recovered | from their first excitement, they thought 1t quite a picnic to sleep in the alfalfa fields all night, as the weather fortunately was not very cold and the children are hardened to enduring suffering which our children could not stand.
 Six days later, the children walk ened in a blizzard. Many of them forgot their own sufferings in the l fact that thousands of other ehil- dren from the villages were, if pos sible, in a worse plight than they were, and they cheerfully divided their blankets with these other children.
 Fortunately. the Near East Re lief hospital was not destroyed, al though the government hospital collapsed. Six hundred patients in the Ameriaen hospital were rushed out into the wheat fields. Hospital tents were erected, and one physician operated continuous ly for 48 hours. when he stopped for eight hours of exhausted sleep. He was awakened from this to re- organize his first-aid stations in twenty villages which had been wrecked by the shocks. Twenty eight earthquake babies were born in the tent hospital.
 The shocks continued for fifteen days seyenty-fiYe shocks being registered. h the entire district, five hundred people were killed out right, twelve thousand houses are in ruins and eighty thousand homeless people face the long se- we're winter of the Caucasus. Their extra clothing and bedding are buried under tons of debris and stones, now frozen into a solid mass after having been soaked by | days of rain. sleet and snow. Their poultry and cattle have been killed and half of the food supply of the entire region destroyed.
 scarcely know which to admire l the more=the heroism of the American relief workers, the un- selfishness of the children who gave up their food and blankets to children less fortunate, or the peo- 1 pie of the thirty-fiye wrecked yil- lages who, after years of hardships, had just begun to come back, now finding themselves deprived of everything, even food, clothing and shelter. In spite of their hopeless circumstances, they grimly went to work again eheered by the knowI- edge that America, which had sav- ed from death more than 135, 1000 of their children. would again ex- tend aid in this crisis Shelter was immediately provided by the Americans for eighteen hundred village children. To restore the wrecked buildings and to care for this additional number of children will require an outlay of at least $S00,000 by the Near East Relief this winter.
 Because I am so sure that Alaska people, when they understand this situation. will not be satisfied to do less than they have always done in such an emergency, am asking their generous contributions to be sent to our Western Washington and Alaska Near East Headquar- ters, 339 Burke Building, Seattle.
 Next week I am to tell you the story of a man, who, almost single handed and alone, is responsible for the saving of the lives of four thousand children.
 Yours truly,
 J. R. HICKMAN, Alaska Chairman Near East Relief.