510

[photo of child]

You Won't Let Me
Starve, Will You?

My name is Shushan.

I am a little Armenian girl.

Do I look much different from an American baby girl?

I was happy until my papa and mama died.

I had nice things to eat and wear, now I am
growing blind because I am starving.

I am only one of 400,000 little orphan girls
and boys who are starving.

Have you ever been really hungry?

You dear, good, kind, generous Americans
will not let us go hungry, will you?

Many thousands of my little friends have
already died from slow starvation.

Those of us still alive, but oh so weak for
just bread, can be saved even from the blindness
of starvation if we can get help quick.

You will help is, won't you, dear, good,
[line obscured] kind, generous Americans?

Everybody here is hungry.

Our pretty homes were destroyed and we
were driven across the desert.

My mama carried me to the Relief Station.

She gave me the last of our food and she
starved to death.

Yesterday 800 children had to be turned
away when the Relief Workers gave us supper.
Turned away to die because there was
not enough food to give to all of us.

The others who are living must be helped.

We sleep on the ground.

Winter is coming and it is very cold, but
being cold is not nearly so bad as being hungry
–and being hungry is not nearly so bad as
starving.

The mothers and the tiny babies all around
[line obscured] me are starving.