(1 .a /U^''^^^'-^^ 'Tz^^zri' 
 estern Asia Toda^^l^^ 
 
 A Survey 
 
 The following report is a summary of the findings of a two-day conference held 
 in New York, September 19-20. This conference was attended by 192 persons from 
 all sections of the United States, including former Ambassadors to Turkey, consular 
 agents, teachers from American colleges in Turkey, business men, physicians and 
 missionaries. At least eighty-one of those in attendance had been residents of the 
 Turkish Empire in diplom.atic, educational or humanitarian service. Many of these had 
 resided in Turkey for twenty years or more and nearly all had returned since the 
 beginning of the war. 
 
 The following statement was prepared by Dr. James L. Barton, Chairman of the 
 Committeemen. It was later carefully reviewed, adopted by the conference, and may 
 therefore be regarded as a thoroughly considered statement representing the judgment 
 of those who have most intimate acquaintance with conditions in Western Asia. 
 
 AMOUNT REQUIRED TO xMEET IMMEDIATE NEEDS 
 "By 'Need' we mean merely what is required to save 
 from death those who are now in a condition of abject want. 
 In presenting this estimate we include onlv those who are re- 
 ported by our distributors to be immediately accessible, multi- 
 tudes of them perishing daily and all of whom might be saved 
 were resources adequate. 
 
 In making this estimate we have fixed the smallest sum 
 that can be considered as approximately sufficient to keep the 
 breath of life in the bodies of these homeless, helpless, starv- 
 ing masses, — who depend upon the American Committee for 
 Armenian and Syrian Relief to save them from inevitable 
 death. We place this amount at five dollars a month. There 
 are, some in areas where industrial relief is being organized, 
 who can live on less than this, while in other areas several 
 times this amount will be required. 
 
 We record the number of accessible refugees, according 
 to latest reports of relief agents in the different fields, as 
 follows: 
 
 In Asia Minor Refugees Accessible 
 
 Armenians 350,000 180,000 
 
 Greeks 800,000 160,000 
 
 Caucasus 300,000 140,000 
 
 Syria and Mesopotamia 
 
 Syrians 1,250,000 200,000 
 
 Armenians 50,000 25,000 
 
 Damascus 100,000 
 
 Palestine and Egypt 100,000 100,000 
 
 Persia 1,000,000 130,000 
 
 3,950,000 935,000 
 
 These figures show a destitute refugee body of nearly 
 four millions within the field of operation of thi.s committee, 
 of whom at least 935,000 are within reach of our agents. 
 
 At least 400,000 of the accessible destitute are children 
 
 without fathers, and many of them without mothers. 
 
$30,000,000 REQUIRED TO MEET THE IMMEDIATE NEEDS OF 
 THE WINTER AND EARLY SPRING 
 
 The Committe has taken as a basis, minimum costs as reported by our dis- 
 tributors and others personally acquainted with local conditions in the areas of 
 destitution, a The largest possible allowance has also been made for the de- 
 velopment of self-support through industrial relief. The minimum budget with 
 which to meet the most urgent needs of the winter and early spring, by the most 
 conservative computation, amounts to $30,000,000. 
 
 As rapidly as our agents get to refugees now inaccessible the amount 
 needed for relief will increase, and when the time comes for returning these 
 exiles to their ruined, ravished homes vastly larger sums will be required 
 which will demand special consideration and large government subsidies, but 
 unfortunately at present government appropriations are impracticable."* 
 
 ASIA MINOR 
 
 Audited reports covering relief work in the Ottoman Empire have been 
 received through diplomatic channels from Constantinople accounting in 
 detail for the receipts and disbursements of all relief funds up to July 1st of 
 the present year. These reports, signed and certified by well-known Ameri- 
 can citizens and neutral diplomatic representatives, show the exact amount 
 of relief that has been administered by American citizens or other responsible 
 representatives in more than thirty interior distribution centers. Dr. Charles 
 F. Gates, President of Robert College, the Chairman of the Central Relief 
 Committee in Constantinople, in his extended report says : "The Ottoman 
 Government has not opposed any obstacles to our work. * * * In some 
 places the local governors have recognized the great usefulness of the work 
 and have helped our agents to secure food at reduced prices." 
 
 ' The report gives details of the efforts being made at the various centers 
 to keep the breath of life in the bodies of the homeless widows and orphans, 
 once prosperous, but now absolutely dependent upon this relief until they can 
 be restored to their homes. "In some places the Armenians who were de- 
 ported are beginning to drift back to their old homes and there are some 
 signs which seem to indicate that the Government may take measures to re- 
 store them. But they are coming back in a state of destitution, finding their 
 homes in ruins, their lands laid waste, their cattle and implements gone. 
 They will need help to reestablish themselves, and they will need much help 
 for they have lost everything." * * * "We plead for a large increase in 
 the money with which to feed the starving. America has given so generously 
 to feed the sufferers of all the world, I am sure she would provide the money 
 if she knew the needs of the people. We must not let go now." 
 
 THE RUSSIAN CAUCASUS 
 
 A large portion of the 300,000 homeless refugees in the Russian Caucasus 
 were last summer driven by military operations into southern Russia. 
 F. Willoughly Smith, the American Consul to Tiflis, reported that when he 
 left Tiflis these refugees were passing through that city northward at the 
 rate of 5,000 a day. Our commissioners are now serving them by means of 
 soup kitchens and such employment as can be procured in Vladikavkaz and 
 Samara where they are gathered in large refugee camps. The commissioners 
 are cabling through the American Consul at Vladivostok for funds not only 
 to maintain soup kitchens, but also to help return these people to their 
 homes or colonize them in Siberia on a self-supporting basis at the earliest 
 possible date. 
 
 * The above summary was approved before the recent advance of the 
 British Army in Palestine and change in the Ottoman Empire. Recent political 
 and military developments have made accessible a large proportion of the 
 3,1)50,000 refugees heretofore inaccessible, and have greatly enlarged the com- 
 mittee's opportunity and needs. 
 
PERSIA 
 
 Dr. Harry Pratt Judson, President of the University of Chicago, as the 
 leader of the Persian Relief Commission of twenty members, has now reached 
 Persia and is engaged in organizing relief along industrial lines wherever pos- 
 sible that will prevent the awful harvest of death of last winter when people 
 "died of starvation by wholesale." Recent cablegrams from the American 
 Minister to Persia, John Lawrence Caldwell, and from American Consul 
 Gordon Paddock report the arrival at Hamadan, within the British lines, of 
 the remnant of 80,0(X) Assyrian Christian refugees from Urumia, 15,000 having 
 perished en route. Rev. W. A. Shedd, D.D., Chairman of the Western Persia 
 Relief Committee and later American Vice-Consul, died of cholera while leading 
 these 65,000 refugees to safety. A letter written in Urumia before his departure 
 bu^ received in New York since his death, says in part: "The suffering in the 
 city is shown by the fact that we are burying about twenty famine victims every 
 day. This does not represent the whole number and of course includes only the 
 city. The funds you have sent are saving thousands." "70,000 starving in 
 Teheran alone." Under the leadership of Dr. Judson's commission, we must 
 this winter prevent a repetition of such wholesale destitution and death. A well- 
 known representative of the State Department says : "This is the best combina- 
 tion that we know of patriotism and philanthropy." 
 
 MESOPOTAMIA 
 
 Thousands of refugees, most of them women and orphans, are finding 
 their way from their hiding places in the mountains and deserts to points 
 within the British lines, and are being cared for temporarily by our commis- 
 sioners in refugee camps in Bagdad and vicinity. 
 
 PALESTINE AND SYRIA 
 
 The rapid advance of General AUenby's army has brought within reach 
 Relief Workers in Palestine, whole provinces and vilayets with hundreds 
 of thousands of Syrians, Armenians, Greeks, and others, whose ports have 
 been blockaded for four years, tens of thousands of whose relatives and 
 countrymen have starved, and who themselves, reduced to the last stages of 
 destitution, are now a challenge to American philanthropy in providing the 
 necessities of life for the coming winter, after which they will very quickly 
 return to self-support and prosperity. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL RELIEF AND REHABILITATIOW 
 
 Contributors may depend upon the wisdom, business sense, and practical 
 philanthropy of our commissioners in the various areas to see that industrial 
 self-support is developed at every opportunity. Moreover, the people them- 
 selves, the subject races of the Ottoman Empire, are for the most part frugal, 
 enterprising and industrious, and will eagerly avail themselves of every op- 
 portunity to reestablish self-support and their once prosperous homes. 
 
 A TASK OF GOVERNMENTAL MAGNITUDE— BUT NO GOVERN- 
 MENT AID AVAILABLE 
 
 We rejoice that our own government is able to loan millions of dollars to 
 Belgium, France, Serbia, and other allied nations with which the war orphans 
 and other dependents of these nations may be supported. Unfortunately there 
 is at present no friendly, paternal government to which our government can 
 legitimately make loans for use in behalf of these millions of homeless destitute 
 in Western Asia. Therefore our task is not merely that of supplementing by 
 charity, government grants, but rather a task of governmental magnitude in 
 which, temporarily at least, the full responsibility rests upon the shoulders of 
 private philanthropy. As soon as peace and order are again restored, an effort 
 will be made to provide proper governmental assistance to these unfortunate 
 people who because of their pro-ally sympathy have probably suffered as a result 
 of the war more than any other people. 
 
NATION-WIDE DRIVE FOR $30,000,000 JANUARY 12-19 
 
 Last April the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief pro- 
 jected a nation-wide campaign for the dates of November 23-30, 1918, for the 
 purpose of securing adequate funds to meet the winter's relief requirements. 
 
 These dates were, determined upon in conference with Y. M. C. A. leaders and 
 other officials and were chosen for the purpose of avoiding conflict with the 
 Y. M. C. A. and other financial campaigns at that time scheduled for the early 
 autumn. 1 
 
 Later developments and enlargements of the United War Work Campaign 
 for $170,500,000 for the later dates of November 11-19 resulted in a resolution by 
 the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Rehef 
 
 1. To postpone the Armenian-Syrian Relief Campaign and give all possible 
 
 assistance to the United War Work campaign. 
 
 2. To realign the Relief campaign for the dates of January 12-19 in order 
 
 to secure the fullest possible cooperation Of the National organizations, 
 committees and workers engaged in the war work campaign. 
 
 ADVANCE PAYMENTS 
 
 Most cities and communities having war 'chests have already made full pro- 
 vision for their quotas on the $30,000,(X)0 basis by appropriating from their war 
 chests. Wherever it is practicable for a city, church or individual contributor to 
 make advanced payments previous to January 12-19 without affecting contribu- 
 tions to the War Work fund, November 11-19, such payments will help the com- 
 mittee to meet the requirements of the early winter months when demands are 
 heaviest for funds with which to purchase advantageously grain and necessary 
 supplies for the winter. Receipts for such contributions will be sent in a form 
 that can be presented to local committees as vouchers and credited on the state 
 and city's quota. The remainder of the quota will be expected in connection with 
 the simultaneous campaign January 12-19. The closing day of the campaign, 
 January 19, by the old Gregorian calendar is Christmas Day, as observed by the 
 Armenians and the Eastern Church. The funds will be at once cabled as Amer- 
 ica's Christmas gift to the widows, orphans and destitute of Bible lands. 
 
 ONE HUNDRED CENTS OF EVERY \)OLLAR GOES FOR RELIEF— 
 
 NONE FOR EXPENSES 
 
 All printing, postage, and administrative\ expenses, even the cost of cabling 
 the monev, are met privately without deductions from contributions. 
 
 ^ 
 
 AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF 
 
 One Madison Avenue, New York 
 
 NATIONAL COMMITTEE 
 
 James L. Barton \ . Cliairman 
 
 Samuel T. Button .\. . .Vice- Chairman 
 
 Charles V. Vick I'Cy \ Secretary 
 
 Cleveland H. Dodge \ Treasurer 
 
 Chairmen of Local Committees are Ex-officio Membe^i of the National Committee 
 Hon. William Howard Taft Jerome D. Greene \ Rt. Rev. P. Rhinelander 
 
 Hon. Charles Evans Hughes Rt. Rev. David H. Greer '. Karl Davis Robinson 
 Hon. Elihu Root Fred P. Haggard William W. Rockwell 
 
 Hon. Henry Morgenthau Harold A. Hatch Wm. Jay Schieffelin 
 
 Hon. Abram Elkus William I. Haven Albert Shaw 
 
 Hon. William B. Millar Alexander J. Hemphill William Sloane 
 
 George T. Scott Myron T. Herrick Edward Lincoln Smith 
 
 Charles R. Crane . Frank W. Jackson James M. Speers 
 
 Frederick H. Allen / \ Hamilton Holt Oscar S. Straus 
 
 Charles E. Beury / Arthur Curtiss James Harry A. Wheeler 
 
 Arthur J. Brown Woodbury G. Langdon Stanley White 
 
 Edwin M. Bulkley Frederick Lynch Ray Lyman Wilbur 
 
 John B. Calvert Vance C. McCormick Talcott Williams 
 
 Wm. 1. Chamberlain Charles S. MacFarland Stephen S. Wise 
 
 Charles W. Eliot John R. Mott Harry Pratt Judson 
 
 William T. Ellis Frank Mason North Col. Wm. Cooper Proctor 
 
 James Cardinal Gibbons George A. Plimpton Hon. H. B. F. MacFarland