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Orphan homes open as captives are freed. News Bulletin, Apr 1919.
Location
New York, United States
Year
1919
Item Detail
Barton's cablegram of 1 April is the news of the issue. Buildings were being engaged for industrial orphan homes and workers called from Constantinople to Marash, Aintab, Adana, Tarsus, Mersina, Hadjin and Aleppo, as Moslem households released large numbers of Christian women and children. From Tiflis, Main reported on 27 March that people were starving by thousands and had come to using dead bodies for food. American subscriptions had passed $20,000,000, Ohio leading at $2,412,614, and the Committee set its budget at thirty-six millions against a thirty-million minimum. A long article follows one deported Harpoot family from 1915 to Tiflis and the United States.
Context
The News Bulletin was the monthly publication of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, formed in New York in 1915 and renamed the American Committee for Relief in the Near East during 1918. It was published at One Madison Avenue.
The Bulletin kept contributors and campaign workers informed. Issues carry cablegrams relayed through the Department of State from relief stations across the Ottoman Empire, Syria, Palestine, the Caucasus and Persia, with campaign news, donor rolls, field photographs and accounts by survivors of the Armenian and Greek genocides.
The four 1919 issues cover the thirty-million-dollar campaign, the sailing of the Barton Relief Commission on the Mauretania and of the relief ships Mercurius, West Cape and Pensacola, and the turn from emergency feeding to the industrial orphan homes opened at Marash, Aintab, Adana, Tarsus, Mersina, Hadjin and Aleppo as Christian women and children were released from captivity.
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Holding Institution
Columbia University Library
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External Link
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Attribution
Columbia University Libraries, digitized for HathiTrust
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Rights
No known copyright restrictions. Based on available information, NERHS is not aware of copyright restrictions on this material. Items are presented for non-commercial research and educational use. Users are responsible for determining rights status and compliance with applicable law. If you believe you hold rights in this material or have information about rights holders not currently reflected, please contact [email protected].
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Notes
Masthead: ACASR wording with banner line 'JUST A CHANCE TO LIVE'; 'No. 11—Total Number 23.'
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Document Contents
Front-page photograph 'Not Gardens But Graves.' 'Committee Accepts Additional Responsibilities In Syria' prints Barton's cablegram received 1 April: buildings are being engaged for industrial orphan homes and orphan and social workers called from Constantinople to Marash, Aintab, Adana, Tarsus, Mersina, Hadjin and Aleppo, as Moslems release large numbers of Christian women and children under pressure; the Syrian field is organised under Trowbridge. 'Recent News From the Field' prints Main's Tiflis dispatch of 27 March, that people are starving and dying by thousands and are down to using dead bodies for food; Main is the Committee's Commissioner to the Caucasus. 'More Than $20,000,000 Subscribed' gives state and county standings; Ohio leads at $2,412,614, East Washington at 163 percent, Tillman County, Oklahoma at 437 percent and Jeff Davis Parish, Louisiana at 485 percent. 'The Story of Aksor': Aksor, in English 'Exile,' was born a few hours after his mother, Mrs. Pareez Harpootlian, saw her husband and two sons tortured, killed and thrown into the Euphrates with all the men of a large party of Armenians deported from Harpoot on 8 May 1915. The Harpootlians were a wealthy family owning about a quarter of the land at Harpoot, and she offered the Turks all her property to spare her husband. Left for dead, she was jailed on returning to the city, secretly rescued by Armenian soldiers from Russia, and sheltered a year among the Kurds in the Dersim highlands with the baby and four other children she recovered by payment; taken to Erzingan, she reached Tiflis and eventually the United States, where she repairs Oriental rugs. Dr. MacCallum of the Committee vouches for her. 'The Children's Crusade' on the seventh contingent, a Sunday School Commission of sixteen denominational secretaries and editors sailing 15 March on the Mauretania under H. C. Jaquith, Assistant Executive Secretary, by way of Liverpool and Port Said to Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus and Aleppo, dividing there for Armenia and for Smyrna and Constantinople. 'Wanted, Volunteer Life Savers' sets the budget at thirty-six millions against a thirty-million minimum, with over four hundred workers already sent and three shiploads gone, and sets out the Easter campaign mechanics: 'Bond To Save Life' in denominations from $5 to $1,000, the percentage plan, coin cards and Easter checks. 'Takes More Than 6000 Miles of Water to Dampen Some Spirits' prints Charles Bailey's 'Dere Mable' letter from the Pensacola. 'Save a Life' on the Atlanta campaign. 'The Cunard Line Helps': the Mercurius returned to New York on 1 April with a commercial cargo to be sold for the Relief Fund, unloaded at cost by the Cunard Line. 'Real Giving' on Arthur D. Millard, a laborer at Houston, who sent his savings of $850. 'Our Great Loss,' the memorial for Samuel T. Dutton, who died on 29 March. State Department cablegrams: Beach and Arrol from Tiflis on forty-five thousand without bread at Erivan and deaths at Ashtarag and Etchmiadzin; Boyce from Azerbaijan; Stewart, Dana, Dodge and Brown from Beirut on the Pensacola's arrival, eighteen hundred orphans supported and thirty thousand helped in all; Heinz through Hoover at Paris; and Peet on White's party of 241, Hatch and Pye leaving with Admiral Bristol for Samsoun, Washburn taking the medical unit to Konia and Moore at Smyrna. 'The Eighth Contingent': the Newport News is to sail in mid-April for Constantinople with 3,500 tons, including four hundred tons of clothing from the Red Cross drive.