Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1908-09-16
CHINAS' CROP FAILURE
DIR. EDW0RDS DESCRIBES THE CROP
FAILURES in CHINA.
Starving Men, Women and Children in a
Mad Fight for Food, Millions on the
Verge Of Actual Starvation.

Soochow, China, Sept. 4:-Prob-
ably nowhere else in the world does a
crop failure bring more distress than
in China 1t is we'll that these people
have no nerves. and stand suffering
with a stoicism that would put to
blush the fakirs of India, for if they
were not so constituted l believe there
would be an epidemic of suicide that
would sweep the race from the face of
the earth. l have seen such suffering
as would drive Caucasian insane,
borne iwith no apparent feeling by
Chinese. Misery so deep as to be i'm
possible of description, has no effect
upon them. l have passed through
such scenes as not even Dante in his
Inferno could conceive of, nor could
Dore with all his wonderful powers
of imagination could depict.
There has been crop failure over
great part of China, and millions of
people are ON the verge of actual star
walton. They have abandoned their
homes and congregate near the large
cities in vast camps, where pestilence
stalks daily, and thousands die every
night. In one such camp near Soo-
chow there are nearly half million
people, of all ages. sexes and condi-
tions. In such miserable rags that
they cannot be called clothing. they
sit at the entrance of little huts, or
shelters that cannot be called any
thing but burrows and there they
wait for the government TO send them
food, and there they die like flies be-
cause the food does not come.
Such awful destitution, combined
with such terrible filth. cannot be
told in language that would bring to
the readers full realization of condi-
tions here. / saw carrier going
along with a horse He had bag of
oats ON his saddle, and amid the filth
and dirt of the roadway, some of
these oats fell to the ground. Imme-
diately there was rush and scramble,
and dozen of the starving men, wo-
men and children were in mad fight
for the few oats which mingled with
the filth. For half an hour after
every possible grain was found these
wretched people dug about in the
filth to see if there might possibly be
another grain.
We speak of persons being skin and
bones, but really we need see some of
the STRIVING Chinese to know what the
expression means. Some of them are
so near skin and bones that the bones
actually make their way through the
skin. If there ever were feeling of
fear in my mind that some day the
hundreds of millions of Chinese
might take it into their heads to be-
come world power and overrun the
rest of the world. that idea was COM
pletely knocked ont by a sight of the
conditions of the people. 1t would be
al utter impossibility for such people
rs these ever to attain 10 anything
like q world power in the sense of
warlike power.
Hundreds of these people are so far
gone that they lie in the road with
staring eyes and powerless limbs.
The others pay absolutely no atten-
tion to them but pass them by. or
even step over them, careless of the
feelings of the dying ones or whether
they step on the body or not, and they
lie there and die, and then lie there
until some one in authority comes
along to order the body .uIied.
asked why it was that some of the
better class of people did not take
pity on some of the wretches lying al
most at their door, and was told that
if anyone assisted one of these
wretches he would become liable for
to care for him and feed him and get
medical ATTENDANCE for him too. One
cannot do indiscriminate samaritan
ism in this country unless he is ready
to take on a heavy burden.
AS one looks over these people he
can scarcely realize that they belong
to the human family. They are as
low as any grade of human beings can
get without becoming brutes. In fact
their actions and their customs tend
to convince one that, the Chinese race
as a whole is but little removed from
the brute creation. They have tor.
lures for their enemies that would put
an Apache Indian to shame They
submit to suffering and torture with
evidence of lack of feeling that is in
comprehensive. and they look upon
the suffering of human beings and of
animals with an Indifference that is
astounding. l have never believed
that the human mind could possibly
reach such a state as would permit Of
the things | have seen in China.
There is an utter disregard for life,
and the wonder is that these millions
of suffering Chinese do not commit
wholesale suicide to escape their ills
That they do not is but another evil
dence of their absence of feeling. 1
shall tell of some of the scenes of the
prison in my next, and then l shall
90 IN mora nIaacant anuntriao