The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-09-01
American Red Cross Feeding
Sammies in German Camps.
Following in Lead of Great
Britain and France.
GERMANS PROVIDE POOR FOOD
Stories of Suffering Among
Prisoners Are Many.
Teutons Permit Belligerents To
Feed Their Countrymen.

The American Red Cross has per-
fected- plans to care for Americans
who may be captured and held in Ger
man prison camps, according to word
received by the local Red Cross COM
mittee. A prisoners relief committee
has been organized at Berne, Switzer-
land, under the supervision. of Ellis l..
Dresel. of the American legation. Mr..
Dresel served from the outbreak of
the war in 1914 up to our breaking off
diplomatic relations as an attache of
the American embassy at Berlin,
where his duties included relief work
for men of the entente nat;onalities in
German prison camps.
Today only about one hundred
American prisoners are held in Ger
many. Most of these are civilians
taken off American. merchantmen
that have been sunk by Teuton sub
marines. More recent arrivals in the
prison camps had served g gun crews,
since the arming of our merchant
ships. :.
Poor Food in Germany.
Speedy provisions for their relief
and for those who may be taken pris-
oner is necessitated by ice German
policy of giving their prisoners of war
food totally inadequate co keep men
in good health. The extremely high
death rate among Russian, Serbian
and Rumanian prisoners tr Germany
of the Rumanians has peen largely
due to the inability of Russia and the
Balkan states to organize the ration
ing of prisoners of their .nationalities
from their home countries.
A recent cable dispatch from Paris
tells of French soldier just back
from a German prison camp and in
the last ytage of tuberculosis, This
soldier was one of a battalion of a
| thousand young and healthy men cap
tured in a body, early in the war.
More than so per cent of the number
are now dead, or have been returned
| to France, via Switzerland, as incur
ables.
Depended on Home Folks.
Malnutrition. no less than unsanf-
tary conditions, produces these re-
suits. British, Canadian and Austria
| liam prisoners of war in Germany now
| depend exclusively upon food shipped
| to them from London, and generally
give the prison camp ration to pris-
oners of other countries, who are, as
a rule, less well provided. Bread is
already being dispatched from Berne
to the Americans in Germany and ar
| engagements have also been made for
| transmitting letters and money from
their families and friends in this
country.
| Thus far only bread has been sup
| piled by the Berne committee of the
| American Red Cross. Assorted food
parcels and clothing will also be for
| warded soon. In the meantime the
| central prisoners of war committee OF
| London is acting on behalf of Ameri-
can prisoners in Germany, sending
them such foods as the COMMITTEES
regularly dispatches to British and
colonial prisoners.
| Germany Permits Shipments.
BY Arrangement with Germany
| these food parcels are sent to the
prisoner three times a fortnight. The
parcels supplement the bread which
is also regularly supplied, and each
| of them contains ten pounds of meat
butter. sugar. jam, coffee or tea, salt
rice and dried fruit. The American
Red Cross is forwarding to Berne
stocks of the same foodstuffs. as well
as cheese, evaporated milk, Goldfish
and mixed biscuit. Timed goods
cannot be sent to prisoners, for Ger
many has made over the tin contain
ers as hand grenades.
| Ninety-five per cent of the British
packages sent into Germany, with
postal card receipts to be mailed back
| by the prisoner, have been duly re-
ceipted for. The American Red Cross
also will enclose postal cards, as a
means of making sure that American
prisoners do actually receive the food
| parcels.