Birmingham age-herald., 1895-02-24
NEBR RASKA'S BITTER FIGHT FOR LIFE.
EOPLE OF THIRTY COUNTIES DESTITUTE AND STARVING.
Stephen Cranes ReportWang in c Bitter Cold of Winter for the Spring. When They'll Have No Seed Cor1-
 The Relief COmmission-The Exempt Counties.
lcopYRIcHT. 1895. l

tween his vision and his scorched fields. The soil of the road turned to powder in this tempest, and men travel ing against the winds found all the difficulties of some hideous and unnat- ural snowstorn. At nightfall the winds always vanishcd.und the sky which had glistened like astcel shield became of a soft blue, as the purple shadows of merciful night advanced from the west.
 These farmers now found themselves existing in a virtual desert. The earth from which they had wrested each morsel which they had put into their mouths had now abandoned them. Nature made light of her obligation under the toll of these men. This vast tract was now a fit place for the no- mads of Sahara.
 And yet, for the most part, there was no wavering, no absence of faith in the ultimate success of the beautiful soil. Some few despaired at once and went to make new homes in the north, in the south, in the east, in the west. But the greater pro- portion of the people of this stricken district were men who loved their homes, their farms, their neighbor- hoods, their countries. They had be- come rooted in this soil, which so sell dom failed them in compensation for their untiring and persistent toll. They could not move all the complexities of their social life and their laboring life. The magic of home held them from travelling toward the promise of other An came the weight of the strange and un- speakable punishment of nature. They are fearless folk, completely Amer ican. Their absolute types are now sit ting about New England dinner tables. They summoned their strength for long war with cold and hunger. Pros- perity was at the distance of new crop of 1895. It was to be from August to August. Between these months loomed the great white barrier of the winter of 1S9495 It was supreme battle to which to look forward It re- quirod the profound and doggcd cour- age of the American people who have come into the west to carve farms, railroads, towns, cities, in the heart of a world fortified by enormous distances.
 ne WedkeSJ were, or course, the first to cry out at the pain of it. Farm CTS, morally certain of the success of the crop, had already gone into debt for groceries and supplies. The hot winds left these men without crops and without credit They were instantly confronted with want. They stood for a time reluctant. Then family by fam fly they drove away to other states where there might be people who would give their great muscular hands oppor- tunity to earn food for their wives and little children.
 Then came the struggle of the ones who stood fast. They were soon driven to bay by nature, now the pitiless ene- my. They were sturdy and dauntless. When the cry for help came from their lips it was to be the groan from be- tween clenched teeth. Men began to offer to work at the rate of twenty-five cents day, but, presently, in the towns no one had work for them, and, after time, barely anyone had twenty five cents day which they dared in- vest in labor. Life in the little towns halted. The wide roads, which had once been so busy, became the dry veins of the dead land.
 Meanwhile. the chill and tempest of