Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1912-02-07

II \ OAAI "CSAS ago, III SOu pdAy
with Jim Cochran princeton
'96) I made visit to the fam
- inc district of Anhui and what
We then saw may be taken as
characteristic of other districts in
China where famine is still raging.
1t requires close observer, an ex-
perienced famine relief worker, to
locate the trouble from outward ap-.
pearances. But such a man can point
1t out to the visitor like myself. Ap-
preaching village, you see that all
but these pretty green fields is bare
and desolate. Many of the trees that
beautify every town stand gaunt and
white, stripped of their bark. A
number have already gone in decay,
writes G. c. Hanson from Shanghai.
In the Chicago Daily News. Crows
inhabit them. The willows still stand
and furnish some hope for the peo-
pie, for their leaves, as soon as they
are little larger. will serve for food
On the threshing floors there is not
a vestige of the usual straw; all has
been sold or eaten. The chickens and
the pigs, which are a part Of every
farmers household, have gone long
ago. Even the omnipotent dog has
been starved to death or has served
as nourishment for men. And as for
donkeys, horses and cattle, whereas
almost every household possessed one
or more last summer, a village is for
tunate which can display one today.
l. The doors of the houses and their
straw roofs have been sold. The mud
walls still stand only because they
have no market value. But even some
of the walls have been carried away
by the flood waters. The first cause
of the desolation was a terrific rain
fall in July of last year, covering the
wheat land for thousands of square
miles. The heavens seemed to open
and pour down upon the whole fam
Inc region. In period of hours a
blanket of water from nineteen to
thirty inches deep came down and
the possibility of fall crop was
instantly wiped out
The people of Anhui and northern
Kinngsu are supported from May un-
til December by their spring wheat
crop. In the autumn another crop is
harvested, part of which is sold But
If this crop be wiped out starvation
ensues.
More than 100000 people are on
the governments relief list, about a
million of whom are actually reached.
The joint Chinese foreign committee
has reached another half million. AS
a result not so many people are dy-
ing now as in the months when the
snow covered the ground During
March it was estimated. though no
enumeration was possible, that be-
tween 1000 and 5000 persons died
daily from hunger and cold, but now
It is believed that the famine fevers
Of the warmer weather are claiming
all told not more than a few hundreds
each day. e.
We stood in the village street
studying the people, Cochran trying
to decide whether one distribution of
grain would keep the people here
alive until the time of harvest. for
every ounce of grain Is also needed
elsewhere-indeed. many villages
throughout this vast tract Of devas-
tated country are not even on the
lists for distribution.
The greatest sufferers are always
the last to gather in crowd. They
are too weak to move about quick
ly with the stronger ones. In one
place at a distribution of grain 81 Of
these less fortunate people were
trampled to death. Yet there is much
kindness among them; it is not all a
selfish struggle for ones own exist
ence.
That middle aged man who has just
Joined the crowd about us, whose
neck is so thin that the bones and
tendons of his throat are visible. is
typical of class. When the famine
first drew near last November he and
his wife put their household posses
sions, his aged mother and the chill.
dren on a wheelbarrow and started
OF south, they knew not whittier, in
search of a more fortunate country.
Thousands of such refugees crowded
the roads in this way at that time.
But gradually as they travelled their
possessions grew less and they were
able to find no work in the dead win
ter time, nor were they. able to beg
living from the poor people through
whose country. they passed. Finally
the wife and daughter Of this thin
creature were sold into slavery and
two children died. When. they turned
to retrace their steps the mother sue
cumbed and the man Ii was, now the
only member of the family left.
3 The plight Of the returned refugee