Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 69, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1920 — WAITING FOR US TO SET THE TABLE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WAITING FOR US TO SET THE TABLE

A table twenty-four miles long Is plainly an extension table and that Is Just the length that would seat all of the orphans now being fed by the Near East Relief. This table Is set in sections all over the hills of Asia Minor, Syria, Armenia and In Northern Persia. It is not tn one piece. The Turks, who still keep the Armenians in a state of terror, do not allow it. But there the table is, seated on both sides with orphans —Syrian and

Assyrian, Greek and Armenian, Jew and Christian —all rescued from the fear of the Turk and under the care of American men and women. Most of the children are cared for In 229 American supported orphanages. The first ceremony In receiving these starved, almost naked children, is to clean them up. They are not only emaciated, but dirty with sores and vermin—69 hospitals and over 6,000 beds are kept full of the little sufferers. But the children keep changing. Last year they were all thin and pitiful; now it Is the newcomers who are thin. The srphans who have been from six months to a year in American care are well fed and well clothed. Best of all for a new Near East which surely must come out of all this distress, every child old enough is being taught a trade which will make hlw self supporting.

They nre n tunny tot. mene ntue parentless exiles. From their scant store of bread they always carry a portion In a small bag about their necks —they fear the day of another killing, another drive Into the desert They horde the shoes sent from (America until snow files —they remember their barefoot pain In the snowa last spring. They cling to their new found friend®. Every day other little fcalfs find a place in the orphanages and are told <?f the generous people es the United States. Soon the entrances will be crowded with children frozen out from their temporary summer quarters. Then the table of the Near East Relief must be extended —many, many new leaves will be needed, and America is usked to set the table. It is estimated that more than 155,000 different books, pamphlets and magazines are published annually in the different countries of the world.

The Table Is Now 24 Miles Long.