The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-09-09
MOSCOW REFUGEES
REACH STOCKHOLM
Americans Report Starving
Conditions Prevailing in
Bolshevik Capital.
JOURNEY TAKES - DAYS
Russia's Grain Crops Not Bad,
but Peasants Refuse to
Feed the Cities.
BY fAe Associated Press.

STOCKHOLM. Sept. (delayed).-Th
American refugees from Moscow reached
Stockholm to-day-twelve days after
their departure from the Bolshevik cap
ital. They were met by Sheldon White
house, the American Charge d'Afraires.
and party of Americans and Euro
peans who were anxious to learn the lot
OF friends and relatives In Russia.
Immediately after crossing into Fin
land the Americans were Impressed by
the orderly conditions prevailing. There
was no shooting at the railway stations |;
the trains were clean and the car win
dows not broken, and hoodlums were not
causing the breaking down OF passenger
and freight trains by overlooking them.
The Films near the border had SUFFICIENT
food. except flour ana sugar.
Conditions improved as the special
train approached Tornea, opposite the
Swedish border, and on the Swedish side
they were almost unbelievable. for there
they found many refugees from Soviet
Russia, which is staggering on, hungry
and miserable. toward a hopeless win
ter.
Flour Il e1.2b, Sugar % q Pound.
When the Americans left Russia they
| say -four sold at $1.2b a pound and that
II was seldom obtainable at any price.
The price OF sugar was So pound-and
the staple was scarce at that
The refugees say that starvation had
become SO prevalent in Moscow that late
. In. Ana
| forced to remove all regulations on citi-
Gems and permitted them to enter the
! city with sixty pounds Of food each.
| This step, 1t was asserted. was an ad-
mission of the absolute failure of the
Food Commission. which had no bread
and was forced. through the pressure
Of the rebelling citizens, to let the peo-
pie take the food supply into their own
\ hands
Wheat and other grains were not
available. as the peasants in the grain
sections still under Soviet control re-
fused to feed the cities. Potatoes and
other vegetables were selling at IS
cents a pound. They are the chief food
supply Of Moscow and Petrograd.
| Advised to Shoulder Rifles.
The workmen Of Moscow and Petro-
, grad factories cannot obtain food from
the commissions which have advised
them to shoulder rifles and take the
grain away from the peasants. This
advice has seldom been needed. as a
majority OF the workmen regard the
| peasants as brothers
Wholesale charges Of the Bolshevik
newspapers that the bourgeoisie are
wholly responsible for the food shortage
no longer quiet the hungry laborers,
whose faith in the Bolsheviki il waning
| appreciably.. The promises of Leon
Trotzky. the Bolshsvik War Minister, to
queil the Czecho-Slovak rising and tap
| the supply of wheat no longer are gen-
orally credited.
| Russia. the refugees say, has bum
per wheat and rye crop in virtually all
the grain sections Much Of the grain
has already been harvested, but the
Bolsheviki have neither the organiza-
tIcn nor the transportation facilities to
obtain bread for the starving cities,
| which scarcely can be expected to drag
through a breadless winter without
turning against a Government whose
policy has lost the wheat districts.