The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1914-12-20

France and England and Germany and
Austria are issuing their lists of the
dead, which are mounting up day by day
to CHASTITY million. But these take ac-
count only of the strong young men who
have died in the fighting. They do not
take account of mere noncombatants.
They do not list the women, who. foolish
ly or ignorantly sticking to their homes,
have died under the shell fire of the enc
mics friends They do not list the
weak and helpless who have dropped out
from the pathetic caravans of refugees to
perish along the edges of the roads They
do not take list of those who are begin
ming to die by hunger in stricken Belgium.
And finally, they do not list these babes
of Belgium, dropping off before their
lives have fairly begun. because there is no
milk.
Let us view the situation in cold blood.
Belgium is shut off from the world
ringed with steel Her own food supply
was used up long ago, either by the peo-
pie or by their conquerors. The cattle
were first of all to go; even in August
l saw the Germans killing mich cows for
rations. cow or a small dairy herd is
left here or there, but they are the ex-
ceptons.
The supply of condensed milk ran short
long ago. Now milk Is a necessity to
most civilized children between the ages
of and 2 years Some children, it is true
pull through, under exceptional circum-
stances of privation, without it: but these
are the unusually sturdy; they stand apart
from the rule. The average young child
must have milk or he will die. And
there Is no milk.
Again, the sucking baby must have
mothers milk or a substitute There is,
of course, no substitute to be had in Bel
GUM, and equally there is little mother s
milk
Every woman knows that civilized
nursing mother must keep up her
strength" She must have nourishing
food-in many cases special rood Every
woman knows that certain proportion
of civilized mothers cannot feed their own
babies even at that.
Nourishing food-special foodl The
news which filters out OF that locked,
stricken country to the American commits
sion for relief in Belgium makes sar-
casm and a mockery of those phrases.
In many. If in not most Belgian cities,
the populace is down to one large baker s
bun day, issued by the municipal au-
thorities. In some places the authorities
have beensable to supplement that ration
by one bowl of cabbage soup day. One
bun and one bowl of cabbage soup a day
for nursing motherl
Yet that is all they have and all they
Will have this winter at the best Amer
lea can do The American commission
hopes at best to transmit 10 ounces of food
Gay to each inha of Belgium-and
to do that the people of the United States
must strainsevery resource of charity.
How little that is for a civilized human
being. and especially for a nursing
mother. becomes plain when one learns
that the average inhabitant of Greater
New York consumes AZ ounces of food a
day. The best the mothers of Belgium
can hope for is quarter ration this win
ter
Even allowing for the reduction of the
birth rate due to the war. there must
have been 10000 births in Belgium since
the Germans came. There will be 1000
more in this winter OF hardship and pri-
walton. How many of the newly arrived
10000 have already died unnecessarily
undecorated, unsung victims of this war
no one will ever know.
How many of the coming 10000 will die
this winter depends upon us in America
upon how much food we send to the nurs-
ing mothers, how much milk to the babies.
Copyright by American Commission for
Relief in Belgium. Il Broadway. New
York;