The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1907-04-26

make their crops grow the past season
their only hope of sustenance was
gone.
Last year in more than 100000
square miles of Russian territory there
was sowing but no reaping. The peas
ants hopefully put their little store of
seed grain into the ground. When the
arid land failed TO return a crop. not
only were they robbed of the fruits OF
their toll, but their seed grain itself
which might have served as food. was
gone. There was nowhere TO turn for
work or succor. Hundreds of miles
away there We're cities. but the few
daring ones who reached them sent
back the hopeless words: mo work.
Wholesale "Grafting"
In 1891, when the famine killed hun.
dreds, the Russian government hit
upon the eXpedient of forbidding the
word hunger but the famine of the
present is so much greater that the
government is fully alive to it. Be-
sides having appropriated 5000. 900
already, it Is now negotiating a loan
OF S37 100000 more for famine relief.
But even this sum is totally Inadequate
to the work in hand, especially as half
OF the money will line the pockets of
official grafters to whom the deaths of
thousands of poor peasants is merely
an unfortunate incident in their own
short cut to wealth.
At present the relief work in Russia
consists of doing out pound of bread
a day to sufferers. The aged and
minors get nothing.
Some families of five or six have
perhaps two who draw bread Other
families have none. If two of a fam.
lily of six draw bread and divide it
equally it means that each member
eats one-third Of pound day. The
regular diet Of Russian peasant is
five pounds of bread daily. Thus the
most fortunate are now existing upon
one-fifteenth of their regular fare. or,
to an American who has three square
meals a day, two meals in three
weeks.
The very seeds of the weeds have
been eaten and the ground has been
stripped of every green thing. The lit
tie horses have all been sold or eaten.
and the occasional cows, too. Nothing
remains but the hope of relief from
the outside. There is no wood for
fires and many families have Joined
together in one house for warmth,
tna1ino ha g.
fuel.
1t is estimated that in the province
of Samara alone tNere will be 200. 900
deaths IN total population of 3,000.-
900, and others of the 81 provinces af.
fected will have like averages.
Seek Aid of the World.
Determined efforts are now being
made to enlist the sympathy of the
world with the suffering, ignorant
peasants. and emissaries have been
sent to this and other countries. NJ.
Shiskoff. who is in America to enlist
aid, says that SO will save the life of
an adult and that IS will keep a child
from dying.
The immigrants to Boston from Rus
STA are mostly people from the pale
and they are taxed several times a
year to help their prosecuted friends
and relatives at home. 1t is estimated
that delegates from Russia took not
less than $4,000 out of Boston last
year TO help the victims of persecu-
ton; and probably $1,000 more was
sent across the sea to individuals,
either to relieve suffering or to help
them TO emigrate.
TO the Russian Jews in this city the
famine tragedy now enacting is the
climax of misery long drawn out They
will do what they can, but as one OF
the men at the civic service house on
Salem street said the other day:
Where our people can get more
money to send to Russia is a puzzle:
they have drained their purses time
and time again; and now it remains
for all the charitable in general over
here TO do their share"
The famine means a tremendous set
back to Russia. At present the prob
lem is how TO obtain food. Later win
come the question of the future of
provinces whose people have lost
farms, animals and savings and have
no money. Friends OF Russia, how
ever, see promise of better times
ahead. although this necessarily in
wolves a vast amount of work. 1he
hope of the peasant in the famine area
lies in his education in modern farm
ing methods to take the place of tho
thousand-year-old customs which he
still follows and in the installation OF
great systems Of irrigation so that
crops may be grown even when the
rain fails.