Vartans Appe;i 
 
 400,000 
 
 children starving 
 in Bible Lands 
 
VARTAN'S APPEAL 
 
 Vi 
 
 'ARTAN is an Armenian boy who 
 shows in his face the possibihties of 
 his people and the suffering through 
 which they have passed. He is named 
 after their great hero who fifteen hundred 
 years ago fell gloriously resisting the 
 overwhelming invading army that would 
 have crushed out their race and Christian 
 faith if it could. 
 
 Through all these centuries Armenia 
 has been the bulwark of Christianity in 
 the Near East and its people have been 
 the seed of coming democracy. "Ar- 
 menia," says an English military critic, "is the Belgium of Asia." 
 Brute force has kept this land in subjection, but her spirit lives 
 on unquenched. 
 
 Vartan appeals to America on behalf of Armenia and also on 
 behalf of the Greeks, Assyrians, Syrians and Persians who are 
 ground under the heel of the Turk. 
 
 • This work of relief has a vital connection with the winning of the 
 war. Germany cannot be absolved from the responsibility for the 
 massacres and deportations from which these people have suffered. 
 This was part of her plan for dominating the world by force, a 
 plan which we can help to foil by keeping alive the remnant who 
 have survived and by rehabilitating their desolated countries. 
 
 EPORTS indicate that of orphans alone there are 
 Jtv more than 400,000. The situation is so distressing 
 as to make a special appeal to the sympathies of all." 
 
 WOODROW WILSON, 
 President of the United States. 
 
 * "T'HE appeal for funds to relieve the sufferings of the 
 X Armenian and Syrian peoples deserves the most sub- 
 stantial support." SIR ROBERT L. BORDEN, 
 
 Premier of Canada. 
 
""1^7"ITH all my heart I wish you Godspeed in the 
 W work of relief you have undertaken in Western 
 Asia." THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 
 
 The suffering races are our aUies in this war; eighty thousand 
 exiled Greeks from Asia Minor are working in the munition factories 
 of Greece and Macedonia, sixty thousand more are in the Greek 
 army fighting with the Allies in Macedonia, and a little Armenian 
 army held out for a long time in the Caucasus against the invasion 
 of the Turk. Mr. Thomas Dann Heald, who has returned from 
 the Caucasus, reported as the latest news from there that the 
 Armenians, after refusing terms with the Turks when the Germans 
 offered a small area for a republic, had taken a large town in which 
 there were food supplies. 
 
 Immediately after the surrender of the Turks a representative 
 commission was appointed under the chair- 
 manship of Dr. James L. Barton to sail at once 
 and study the situation anew and prepare the 
 way for a company of workers who must soon 
 be sent to direct the work of rehabilitation. 
 
 From the devastated countries in this great 
 area there are four million known refugees. 
 A full million are now within our reach, 
 among whom are 400,000 children, and their 
 only hope of life is in the food and clothing 
 we supply them. 
 
 War has ravaged their land and for the 
 present has destroyed the possibility of self- 
 help, but they are our brothers and must have 
 our sympathy and support. 
 
 Much of the food for the people in 
 f f ^'-J^'. "^Hi^^B Palestine section of this wide field 
 
 W ■'. ^ ^WF^I^m is obtainable in Egypt. We purchase 
 
 it there and have it shipped in on 
 motor trucks at top speed so that 
 lives may be saved that might be lost 
 by a little delay. 
 
 Long ago the words "grain in 
 
can be sure that the money, whatever is given, 
 X will be properly administered for a people that need 
 it sorely." WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT. 
 
 Egypt" brought hope and heart to the household of Jacob, whose 
 ten sons made the journey with asses and brought food for the 
 families in need. Motor trucks instead of asses, with telegraphic 
 and wireless communication, is a great advance in efficiency, but 
 in view of the greatness of the need and the multitude of the 
 people served, the problem is much greater in proportion. It is 
 interesting, though, to remember that once more messengers are 
 passing over the same roads on the same errand as they did years 
 ago. They are serving a people like those who were kept alive 
 then and from whom came such men as Moses, David, Isaiah and 
 Paul. Who can say what man may yet be found from among these 
 people in days to come and what blessings may result to the world 
 from the saving of these lives that to-day look to us for bread ? 
 
 The Armenian atrocities are so recent and what can be told has 
 been so widely published that it is perhaps not necessary or wise 
 to attempt to repeat the harrowing tales that have made the story 
 behind this destitution one of the blackest pages 
 of human history. We must, however, 
 see the need in its breadth and fullness 
 and heed the challenge of the people's cry. 
 
 WHAT A 
 CHARGE! 
 
ASIA MINOR 
 
 The Armenians and the Greeks are the people who have suffered 
 most in Asia Minor. There are at present known to be 1,200,000 
 refugees. The reports that come through give us a graphic story of 
 the constant effort on the part of our workers to keep the breath 
 of Ufe in the bodies of such of this number as we can reach. Many 
 of these who are now destitute and absolutely dependent were 
 once prosperous people. Some of them are beginning to drift 
 
 back to their old homes, 
 but they are coming in an 
 extreme state of destitution 
 and are finding their homes 
 in ruins, their land laid 
 waste, their cattle lost and 
 their simple agricultural im- 
 plements gone. They face 
 their dreary task of hfewith 
 naked hands. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN 
 CAUCASUS 
 
 Here there are 300,000 
 homeless refugees. Think 
 of them, almost a thousand 
 a day for every day of the 
 Ready and Willing to Help Themselves year, without home, without 
 food and without friend. Our committees are able to reach many 
 of these and are attempting to meet the absolute need, but the 
 best they are able o do in many cases is to supply one bowl of 
 -^oup twice a week. 
 
 PERSIA 
 
 hn Lawrence Caldwell, the American minister to Persia, is the 
 best authority on conditions in Persia. He recently cabled, report- 
 ing the arrival at Hamadan of 65,000 Assyrian Christian refugees 
 from Urumia. These are all that are left of 80,000, who, a little 
 while before, were driven out from their mountain homes. The 
 others perished by the way. Dr. W. A. Shedd, chairman of the 
 Western Persian Relief Committee, died himself while trying to 
 lead these people to a place of safety. 
 
 Dr. Harry Pratt Judson, President of the University of Chicago, 
 
«*TN spite of the rupture of relations between the United 
 X States and Turkey the relief work was fortunately being 
 carried on most effectively through reliable agents among 
 the Armenians, Greeks, and Syrians. Thousands of lives 
 have been and are still being saved by the efforts of the 
 American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief." 
 
 HENRY MORGENTHAU. 
 
 is now in Persia as leader of the Persian Relief Commission and is 
 organizing the relief work in that country. Last year 70,000 
 persons died in Teheran alone. Dr. Judson's work will prevent a 
 repetition of such wholesale death this year — if the funds are 
 forthcoming. MESOPOTAMIA 
 
 With the Turk conquered, thousands of women and orphans 
 are creeping out from their hiding-places in the mountains of 
 Mesopotamia and are being passed on through the British lines to 
 places of safety and refuge. These famished creatures are adding 
 daily to our great and urgent responsibility. 
 
 PALESTINE AND SYRIA 
 
 Whole provinces with hundreds of thousands of Syrians, 
 Armenians and Greeks are 
 coming within the reach of 
 our relief workers as a result 
 of General AUenby's trium- 
 phant advance. These 
 people are in a starved con- 
 dition, their little property 
 is gone, their relatives by 
 the thousands have been 
 killed, and their meager 
 means of livelihood have 
 been taken from them. We 
 become responsible for the 
 threefold task of feeding and 
 clothing their bodies, cheer- 
 ing their broken spirits, and 
 helping to reestablish them 
 
 in self-support. Registering Refugees 
 
GET THE COMPLETE PICTURE 
 
 Four million destitute people foodless, homeless, in rags and 
 without means of support! This includes 400,000 homeless child- 
 ren. The number is increasing daily, and each one is looking to 
 our land of plenty for bread to eat and help to life and self-respect. 
 
 NOT CHARITY, BUT A CHANCE 
 
 Now it is necessary to give food to the famished and raiment to 
 the ragged. These people, however, are industrious and thrifty. 
 They do not desire charity, they want a chance. Our call is for 
 financial help to make it possible to satisfy hungry mouths and 
 give these people bodies capable of the work they must do in 
 rehabilitating their devastated land. 
 
 Our commissions buy food and distribute it with infinite care. 
 They buy plows, harrows, rakes, hoes and seeds to get these people 
 back on their land again. Sewing machines, needles, thimbles, 
 thread, cloth and garments of all descriptions are taken over to 
 help the women to self-help. Cattle must be secured for them 
 to stock their land, and household supplies, such as cooking 
 utensils of the simplest character, must be provided to help these 
 people to live. The most careful superintendence is practised so 
 as to make your money secure the most in this field of need. 
 
 WHERE YOU COME IN 
 
 Thirty millions of dollars is a small sum with which to attempt to 
 meet so great a need. However, that is the sum that is asked for. 
 $2,000,000 of this must come from the Sunday Schools of North 
 America. 
 
 Five dollars supports one of these orphan children for a month, 
 sixty dollars for a year. Will you or your class undertake this plan 
 of systematic, sustained help ? Here are thousands of children 
 within your reach dying for want of food. If it were a child at 
 your doorstep you would not allow it to starve. These are at your 
 very door in spite of the miles of distance. What will you do "i 
 
 Make checks payable to Cleveland H. Dodge, Treasurer 
 American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief 
 One Madison Avenue, New York 
 
The Child at the Door 
 
 CHILD is cryiv-g beyond our door 
 In the cold and the wind and the 
 
 wild downpour, 
 {How can we sit at ease within?) 
 A child is calling beyond our gate. 
 Starving and stark and desolate, 
 {How can we hid the feast begin?) 
 
 The doors of the world are heavy and tall. 
 But the cry of a child can pierce them all 
 {A cry of a child in anguish sore). 
 And though it sounds from a land apart, 
 ' Tis at our threshold and at our heart, 
 {A child is crying beyond our door). 
 
 How may we sit content and warm 
 When a child is lost in the night and storm? 
 {The night of famine, the storm of War), 
 How may we break our bread in ease, . 
 Hearing the voice of the least of these? 
 {A child is crying beyond our door.) 
 
 Theodosia Garrison