Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1918-03-15

Members of the American Red
Cross Commission, sent to alleviate
as much of the Roumanians' sucerings
as was possible, imagined, when they
left America last summer that they
had true conception of all that war
could mean to a small nation caught
between the millstoaes of opposing
forces. But when they reached Rou-
mania they realized what futile
thing imagination is compared with
facts.
In Jassy, the provisional capital set
up by the indomitable Queen Marie,
they found civilians and sick and
wounded soldiers dying in the streets.
There was no room for them to die
indoors.
Wounded soldiers, that is, the for
tunate ones, were lying three in a bed
in the hospitals. The less fortunate
were piled one upon the other on the
cold floors without proper clothing or
covering. There was no means Of dis
injecting clothes or destroying YER
min. An epidemic of typhus had al
ready started.
On the streets one found the So
called "convalescent" soldiers, dis
charged prematurely from the hospi-
tails to make room for the constant
stream of incoming patients, wander
ing drearily around, mere shadows Of
men waiting for the relief of death.
With the civilians it was the same
story. Food and medicines were at a
premium. Only the strong, those who
had surplus of vitality, could ex-
pect to survive.
But even Jassy, with its normal
population of 10000 ran up almost
overnight to 100000 by the influx of
starving and exhausted refugees, did
not tell the whole tragic story of Rou-
mania. The little mountain villages
just back of the battle lines contribut-
ed their individual quotas Of sucering.
Threatened daily by shell-fre and
bombs from the raiding aeroplanes of
the enemy one would think that the
inhabitants of these places would have
fled to other places; but with hope
born of confidence in the bravery of
the Roumanian army and its ability
70 drive back the Teutons, these peas
ants continued to linger in the danger
zones, even when starvation became
an added menace.
Representatives of the Red Cross
Commission found inhabitants of two
of these villages picking in the fields
wild grass for food, kind of fodder
that the American farmer would
think twice about before feeding it to
his cattle. But that was not the worst
discovery that the Commission made.
In the little village of Seltiu, in the
district of Putna, they found squalid
shack of wood and mud occupied by
three little children. Their mother
had succumbed to typhus. Their ia
Their was a soldier at the front. The
eldest, girl of ten, was acting as
mother to little boy of four and a
sister of seven. The boy was lying
helpless on a bag on the stone floor,
his face eaten partly away by NAL
ignant skin disease. The bones stuck
out all over his tiny body. The girl
was little better off. There were
neither relatives, friends, nor any
Government agency to give relief to
these unfortunate babies
The Commission found other cases,
equally heart-rending, and buckled
down to the work of bringing relief
to the wretched little nation with an
born Of desperation. For it
was no easy thing to get relief to
Roumania. Transportation facilities
had broken down. In Roumania itself
was practically worthless, as
there was no food or medical supplies
left in the remnant of the kingdom.
Everything had to be brought via
Russia.