Perth Amboy evening news. [volume], May 05, 1922, FINAL EDITION, Page 18, Image 18

About Perth Amboy evening news. [volume] (Perth Amboy, N.J.) 1903-1959

Image provided by: Rutgers University Libraries

                
I -
|| (Editorial from The Literary Digest of Apeii.lStk)
II '
Sentenced To Die
TWELVE MEN, with grave faces,
were met to decide an issue of iife or
death.
No burly criminal stood there to receive'pun
ishment for his crimes,—only a . little child, beg
Hging for life.
Her' sin was hunger and'nakedness.
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:
"We 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 go around—
no, not even a crust We are very sorry, dear
little,girl, but—we mutt let you die”
'»*•- • •' • •
A cruel jest? Nol A cruel* fact,' multiplied
thousands upon thousands of times! 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 girlsAthe sentence.of.death.has just
been passed.
In Armenia a Christian race is'' being blotted
* out—while the world looks on. Ia Armenia peace
did not come when the rest of the world stopped
fighting. Last year 140 villages were destroyed;
thousands of mothers and grown daughters were
violated and slain; fathers were herded into build
ings and burned; - multitudes cf 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 armistice. 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 nakedness,
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 wails 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 inade
quate appropriations cuts off multitudes who are
hopeless without American. aid. * *
CABLEGRAM, from American Women’s
Hospital, Erivan: “We have^eight hundred and
fifty-two cases in the hospital, and children; dying
in all comers of Erivan. All day long : we can
hear the wails and groans of little children outside
the office buildings hoping we can and will pick
them up. If the sun shines a little while they quiet
down; When it rains tbfcy begin again. One day
when the rain turned to snow it was a^ful to
listen to them. vThe note of terror th^t-came into
the general wail was plainly perceptible upstairs,
and I had the windows dosed: They well know
what a. night in the snow would mean to them.
We are picking them up as fast as possible, but it
is fatal to crowd' them to such a point that *we
would lose even those already in orphanage.**
Erivan-that one time prosperous city sot
Armenia, not far from Mount Ararat, famous, in
days of peace, for the peach orchards and vegetable
gardens that surrounded it on every side. Walk
through its streets to-day, and here is what you will
see: “Children walking through the muddy gutters
hunting for bits of orange peels, apple cores, or any
thing that once resembled food; little boys and girls
sleeping in stables, with straw and manure spread
over their bodies to keep them from freezing to death;
or, in the early morning, deserted children lying in
the doorways of the buildings, wrapped in old burlap
bags, some silent, perhaps already dead, others sobbing
unconsciously in their sleep. They have been placed
there during the night by their mothers who, unable
to feed them any longer, have resorted to desertion
as a final chance to save their children’s lives.
There is always a chance that they will be rescued
by the Americans, and it is with this one hope that
the mothers leave their little children, praying to
God that they will be saved by the 'kind,and
generous Americans."*
Has that story of unutterable suffering; of pas
sionate love and gratitude for what has been given,
that trusting, prayerful appeal for rescue of children
whose lives now depend on us—has it all grown
wearisome to us? Are we tired of being “kind and
generous ?” . Is there no longer any sacrificial tender
ness for little children in our heats? Is it time to
be rid of the burden, to stop our giving, and so,
through the Board of Trustees of the Near East Relief,
who mutt act as we dictate, to pronounce the
sentence of death on these thousands of boys and
girls who have believed, to.the last moment, .that
we would save them?
Mothers and fathers of America, it is not true!
You will not allow it! Your hearts have not turned
to stone! What are a few paltry miles of distance!
They can not separate you from that famine-stricken
land, where dead and dying children litter the .city
streets. They can not shut out from your vision
those hunger-pinched faces and outstretched hands!
You can shut your wihdcrws, as they did, in very
desperation, in the City of Erivan; but the wails
and moans of little Children, waiting in rain and
snow, hy day and night, to be “picked up” and
clothed and fed, can not be shut out of your heart
_ m .. . _ «___• _ _ *_•_
r rum iar-away siauous, uy m© magu. ui owisiiww,
our homes are being filled with song, and story, and
- music for the dance. But there are messages more
wonderful than any controlled by the wizards of
wireless. They are coming now from far away, and
the story they bring is burdened with tears. The
music is not for* dancing, for those who make it can
scarce stand upon their feet The song, swelled to
a chorus of woe by thousands of little voices that
ought to be musical with laughter, is always the
same: .."Hunger!—Bread!" And with the plead&ig
cry of the children, there comes a voice, sweet and
solemn, saying: "These are MY little ones;;ye
are My Shepherds; Feed My Lamb*”
To catch these messages, every American heart
that has thrilled at the laughter of a little child or
throbbed.at: its cry of pain is the receiving instru
- in ■ '
ment, and the messages are broadcasted to us from
the very .throne of. Heaven.
No mistake can be^nore tragic at'this moment |
than for ybu to^say,"as you read, “The call is not to
me; / cap-ndt—/ need not respond this time; others
wilLgfve, and the children will not have to die.”
There* are no othere-^-if yoa turn away.
The appeal has gone throughout the length and
breadth of this peat land, and these “others”
have heard it and some have given gladly; but
too many have said, “/ need not respond thia
time.” During the past four months not enough
has been given to continue the care even of those
children already gathered into the hospitals and
orphanages, while thousands more are' waiting to
be “picked up” from.the streets and countryside.
There are no others—if you refuse. Armenia !
is surrounded by bankrupt nations, or nations
struggling to keep themselves from bankruptcy.
Europe is full of suffering and need. Armenia’s
only hope is America. A Christian race will die
if America fails at thin crisis.
There are no others to love^and w care' far |
Armenia's little children—no others but you. The
vast majority are orphans. Father is dead; mother,
too, is d&d; sister-—if not dead is praying God for
death; brother is dead; aunt and unde, grandfather
and grandmother—all dead, the home destroyed,'
and the lonely little girl or boy has no one—but *
you. You are father, and mother, and sister, and
brother—the only ***** in whose4heart*thersad
little, waif can.now find refuge.
•* 4
Hour spiendidjf you nave given, pemaps,
sometime in the past, and 'have brought health
and laughter to some of Armenia’s little sufferers!
But for every one saved then, at least one other
was left without food, or shelter, or friends. And
the child to whom you'gave , one meal a day last
year can not live now if that meal is stopped.
A year ago the delivery of supplies for the Alex-]
andropol orphanage was interrupted between Nov
ember and May by transportation difficulties. .Be-'
fore April the children had to be placed on half
rations, and by the first of May, on the very 1
morning the supply train arrived, the last meager
ration was distributed. During those sad weeks,
when there was so little food at Alexandropol,
more thqn two thousand children died.
If you withhold your gift now, die boys and
girls you fed last ^ years may -be ^ the* very-ooes
“sentenced to .die.”
V I
rcevoKe tne cruel-sentence i stop' tne" orner
to-reduce all relief work twenty-five percent 1
Thank God it is in your power at this Easter
time to give life in place of death, health in place
of sickness, laughter in place of tears. You can
speak the word of Resurrection which will call j
back some little child from the dark valley of
shadow and flood its new life with sunshine.
Two things will fill your Easter Day with
sweetest joy: the knowledge that Armenia’s chil
dren did not wait for you, and trust in you, and
appeal to you in vain; and the voice of the Risen
Christ, the Lover of little children, speaking to
your soul, and saying, “Ye have done it unto MeC
Ye have done it unto Me."
So deeply have we, as publishers of THE
LITERARY DIGEST, been stirred by the jtragedjy
impending among the innocent children of Arme
nia, that we would feel a heavy share of respon
sibility for the needless death of countless little ones
if we did not do as we are urging you to do, and
give, still again, a substantial contribution to save
their lives. Therefore, altho we have given several
times before, we feel that we can not—we must not
—do less in the present crisis than add immediately
another five thousand dollars to help save the chil
dren of Armenia from the death that threatens them.
, \
« Send your check at once to CLEVELAND H. DODGE, Treasurer, Room 1601, 151 Fifth Avenue, New York City ||
This editorial it reprinted'in this newspaper with the confident hope that the sympathetic p
hearts of its reader* will respond quickly with checks made payhbfc to Mr. Dodge |[