Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1917-11-18
Famine and Pesence May Bring Germany Knees Before Spring
the end of September showed an n
crease of $500 per cent.
Death Roll Mounts Rapidly.

the end of September showed AN IN
crease OF $500 per cent.
Death Roll Mounts Rapidly.
Thruout all Prussia there were only
fourteen deaths from the disease in
the second week in June. A month
victims; the following week the dis
ease claimed 1,l3S people; the next
week 2,400, and the week after that
3,s06. During August the authorities
took steps 10 conceal the spread of
dysentery, but letters captured and
other information indicate that the
disease, with its companions, typhus
and scurVy, cannot be checked even
by German medical science. The un-
derfeeding Of the people for more
than three years, the hundred of indi-
gestible Substitutes" for staples OF
life which they have been consuming
for many months, have so enfeebled
their bodies that nothing can prevent
the most frightful spread OF the con-
tagion. excepting wholesome diet-the
one thing that not all Germany's
mighty armies and fleets of aircraft
can obtain for her people.
a little straw to show how the wind
blows The Munich town council on
August 20 demanded an increase In
the ration OF flour and OF potatoes, on
the ground that the medical authori-
ties declared the people cannot stand
another year of food privations be-
cause in the three years that have
elapsed they have exhausted their
reserves of strength. This petition was
addressed to q government which was
about to learn from its own experts
that II could give Its people, in the
coming winter, not much more than
half the quantity of flour and of pota-
tnpS fhpV haN~a han,, ranaiNsfnar htthaptn
Letter Enlightcning.
The following letter from a member
of town council in a Westphalian
city was recently smuggled across the
Dutch frontier to the writer's brother,
who Is business man OF Amsterdam.
and | am permitted to print extracts:
You cannot imagine what we are
going thru" the respondent German
writes, even those of us who have
money and influence and can get privi-
leges and allowances denied to the
mass of the people. For them 1t has
long been hell, but now 1t is black
death. They are dying everywhere,
and really Of hunger or poison, altho
the doctors give 1t other names. When
people are forced to die of starvation
or eat horrible things that are said TO
be substitutes which slowly kill them.
II comes to the same thing. 1 learn
confidentially that the harvests have
failed. When is it going to end? And,
after 1t does end, how are we to be
fed? For, unless food is brought into
Germany Immediately after the con-
clusion of peace, the people will be
carried away by the pestilences which
even now are beginning"
1t did not seem to occur to this
worthy German that if he and his
compariots permit the German ad-
miralty to go on depicting the worlds
shipping, there may not be enough
ships left, when peace does come, TO
feed the Germans, since the allied ma
tions will badly need to replenish their
stocks of foodstuffs themselves.
Must End This Winter.
THE war must end this winter,
the writer continued, land it does not
matter what the terms are. What good
Is II II Germany holds the east and
the west, and the German people die
or hunger? Would 1t not be better
to give up everything that we have
for food, and SO keep alive, and then
set to work to build up our trade and
Germany back where she was before
She has withstood a world in arms,
but she cannot fight with nothing in
the stomachs of her people. From the
front | hear that the soldiers are fed
pretty well. That is right. for other
wise how could we win battles? But
1t all does no good, since we at home
starve, and we must have peace
quickly"
How terrible the food situation
really is, how deadly to German hopes
is the blockade of neutrals which now
with American help is for the first
time strictly enforced, is shown more
clearly still by Germany's new agree
ment TO send 100000 tons of coal a