Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-04-03
PEASANTS Line
ROADS IN POLAND
BEGGING FOOD.
Red Cross Mission Finds
People. Without Necessities
Of Life and Disease Preva-
lent, Everywhere.

Washington. April 2,-Widespread
suffering and distress throughout
eastern and southeastern Poland are
described in q cablegram from War
saw received today by the American
Red Cross headquarters here from a
Red Cross mission which had just
returned from a eight-day tour Of
inspection, during which it had COW
cred $500 miles and distributed food,
clothing and medicines in 20 cities
and numerous villages.
The members of the mission were
said to have found the population
practically without any of the neces-
sites of life and disease prevalent
everywhere. Thousands were sick
and dying from epidemics of typhus,
smallpox and trachoma, while whole
towns were reported to have been
practically wiped out by the diseases.
Beg For Food.
In many of the isolated villages
starving peasants lined the roadside
and begged for food,'' the cablegram
stated. For weeks they had been
living on an imitation bread made
from potato Feelings, dirty rye and
the bark of trees, but when the Red
Cross arrived the supply of these in
gradients had been exhausted.
The greatest suffering and desh-
tuition was encountered in Pinsk
situated in the unhealthy Pripet
marshes 200 miles east OF Warsaw
In four years the population OF
Pinsk has been reduced from $4,000
to $4,000, and of the latter, 500 are
! down with typhus, lacking medical
attendance and proper nourishing
care. Disease and hunger were
found in every house visited. An
inspection of the orphan asylum dis
closed 90 children afflicted with ty-
plus. So
THE direst poverty was located
in a little village in the kowel dis
trict about eight miles behind the
Polish lines. Practically every one
of the 40 persons remaining OF the
original population Of 1000 were dy-
ing Of Starvation or disease"
As the members of the mission
were the first Americans seen in
those cities and villages since the
beginning of the war, they weie be-
sicged by the natives for news IT
relatives in the United States, the
cablsgram stated. The workers Of
tered to forward letters to the
United States and about 1000 were
presented.
Tchitchefin Repudiates Message.
The wireless correspondence
which has been going on for some
line between Tchitcherin, the Rus
sian bolshevik foreign minister. and
Bella Kun, foreign minister of the
new Hungarian government today
developed denial from Tchitcherin
OF recent communication picked up
by the French government wireless
operators and made public by the
Freneh government.
The message was sent last Sat
urday and dealt with the alleged
spread Of bolshevism in the United
States, especially in Pennsylvania,
New York, Indiana, Illinois and
Michigan. 1t referred also to a riot
in Philadelphia which, the message
said, must be attributed to boil
shevist influence. ~.
In his message, Tchitcherin re-
fers to the Saturday dispatch as
having been published in the United
States.
Y I'm reality,Y says Tchitcherin, II
never sent you such a message. 1t
was French invention for the
purpose of preventing America from
adopting moderate policy toward
us, The invention merits being un-