Evening star., 1914-12-27
$4,000 TONS OF FOOD
MONTHLY is REQUIRED
Holds 100000 People on Edge of
Famine in Winter Is Blacklist
I Case in History.
BY JOHN GALSWoRTHY.

America, you are q great country
America, without fiattery, you are the
humane country. Save this little ma
tion, this little, brave, starving ma
ton.
A London slun- child prayed: 70
Lord, If ye ever felt yer'd like to 'elp
a feller. now's yer chance, o Lord "
Now is your chance. America. We in
England have done something; we will
do as much as we can; but the scythe
OF Sacrlflce sweeps in all our fields.
Funds are many; the war long and
desperate. No more foodstuffs may be
sent forth from this country, or from
Holland
But from somewhere foodstuffs must
be sent, for the Belgians are starving.
You n America are already doing
much; you have given sympathy, and
time, and money But the dimensions
of this catastrophe are terrible. Eight
hundred thousand to a million pounds
monthly expert eStimate-are
wanted to keep starvation from these
seven million people. Let me quote
from official sources some evidence of
the appalling situation:
Orphans, Orphans; Graves, Graves.
From the report of Theodore Waters,
secretary of the Christian Herald:
II do not want this to be a history
of the trip through Belgium, but only
to recall some impressions of the peo
pies need. Women of refinement herd
ed with women of the street, both
dressing and undressing in sight of all
the men; a woman with nine children
mothering her fatherless brood in the
same room-these sights were bad
enough. But / drove through ruined
villages all the way from Antwerp to
Brussels and l could hken it to moth
ing but going to a funeral through a
lov1Cr It,1r
was one huge burying ground. Always
between the ruined houses we could see
graves. Graves, graves, graves. In
some would be stuck a bayonet with a
Belgian soldiers cap upon it. Above
others rough white crosses rudely in
scribed. To the memory of a Belgian
soldier On one grave was 4 child's
shoe; poor little mark of its parents
grief. Graves, graves. Orphans, or
phans. A country devastated; it's trees
felled in rows to make way for bullets;
its crops long gone to seed, standing
UP leanly; dead things in rows like
markers in miniature cemetery"
From Malines:
In the name of His Excellency Car
dinal Mercier, I beg leave to ask you
for strong assistance. In the
city of Malines alone 10000 mouths
have to be fed every day. The children
come to the German soldiers and tear
the bread from their hands.
There is hardly a single laborer who
can find any work to gain his daily
bread. Everything is lacking-we are
in want of potatoes, peas, beans, grain,
Hour, wheat and bacon"
From the burgomaster of Wetteren:
"Wetteren is inhabited by over 1900
people. =. B. About II 900 work
men and numerous families of militia
men are without resources
From he mayor OF Hamme:
For some time our (town) commit
tee has had daily to distribute soup.
NJ fnr nrn
than 5000 men. Flour is hardly to be
obtained. = The stock of meat
and corn in Hamme will not last till
the end of this month
From o. S. Consul at Antwerp.
From the American consul at Ant
werp:
81 have been called upon by the mayor
of St. Nicholas, impIoring me to hasten,
If POSSIBLE, such assistance as the
American people could and would rem
der, as they had over 10000 people
without bread and without work in
their little own, and no means of pro-
yiding them. In the coal dis
trict near Charleroi a number oS poor
people, naddened with hunger, attack
ed a German military train laden with
provisions
ative al Rotterdam of the commission
for relief in Belgium:
THE total amount of supply so Tar
available is entirely lnsufhcient 10
meet the immediate and urgent needs
of the people Reports and re-
quests for assistance are pouring ln
The districts of Liege, Namur.
Dinant, are entirely out OF gram
-four, salt, peas and beans oeputa
tion has arrived from Terhaegen and
states that for three weeks they nave
had only potatoes to eat
From members of the town council at
Namur and Liege:
I'VE are now threatened by FAMINE:
. . We have suffered enough, at
least let this misfortune be spared US.
To sum up the sltuataol;, an
industrial population OF high eniciencs
90 entirely out of work and cannot earn
tts food. 1t has no reserves any more
IN food or savings. and a rescue is im-
,nediately and urgently needeo.
You may rest assured that IN sP,tH f1 of of
circumstances our population is tuli OIL
courage and worthy OF all the sym
nstby that the Americans and other
nations can show.
From the account OF an Aiherloa.
.u.witness, Jarvis Bell. who went
ouoh from London to Brussels with
the first shipload of food: II you couio
only see the gruesome surrounoihss III
hjch they are struggling for exist
Give each Belgian peas
ant $4,000 and ten acres OF land aha 70
~, he could do little to keep hlmself
n;,a ne has, in many districts, no
bnue in which TO sleep no seed 70 SOW,
ritb no implements to work WITH no
transport with which to reach a mar
LET and no heart to struggle aSalnst
,ha inpossible. No war ever produced
such complete and tragic paralysis as
we saw in many parts OF belgium;
- We met few Belgian men; eu
per cent of the people in these coun-
fry districts are women and chlidren
we saw them eating green vegetables
beets and apples; they have little else
There were thousands of children, all
afraid to laugh"
From the account of another Ameri-
can eyewitness. Millard Shaler. who
went from London to Brussels on be-
half o. the commission for RELIEF In
belgium: Between Antwerp and Ma
lines the destruction of habitation In
Universal Families were living in par
tally burned buildings, or in impro-
yised structures. The suffering is in
tense and food supplies do not exist
From the letter of an Englishw oman
living in Brussels: There is a ter
ribIe amount of poverty, sadness and
distress here; people without any re-
sources, and thankful even to any one
who will give them a meal. AL
together II is the saddest place you
can imagine. Shops closed. every one
out of work and nothing but beggars
and distress on all sides. Coal Is not
to be had for love or money.
Amount of Food Needed.
FooJ raouirad to .3aoJ