The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1919-04-11
S00,0O0,00O PEOPLE
FACING DEADLY Peril
Ghost Of Starvation Walks
Amid The Alarmed
Populace
by Charles Edward russell.

Who Has Recently Returned From
EuropeD
New York, April 5.-Food or chaos
that. in plain terms. is the situa-
tion in practically all OF Europe east
of the Rhine Help, or have anar-
chy.
Come with organized relief on a
scale never known before--come with
bread and meat and clothes for mil
lions and then millions, or face the
certainty of terrible distress over vast
regions of populous territory and the
possibility Of a storm that will shake
the whole structure of modern socie-
ty-and, maybe, shake II down.
Any one who talks about things as
N6y really are in Europe today will
seem TO the uninitiated an alarmist or
an exagerator This is because the
world has never faced such a situa-
tion. and has nothing in its experience
u .ase comparison on.
! can only assure you that no one
I'm the last few weeks has been in
Paris and heard there the reports
from Eastern Europe will think this
forecast of coming trouble extrava-
giant.
Of the 400, 900 900 people in Eu-
rope IT is likely TIA; S00,O0o 600 are
now approaching the line of acute
Gestitution, or are already upon it
or over it,
In some parts Of AustTa-Hungary,
Silesia and Bohemia starvation has
either begun or Is close at hand.
If there is neithc: peace nor securi-
ty in Germany fed, what will he the
c)rditions in Germany starving
In much OF Turkey the state Of the
people is described as appalling--in
Constantinople there is acute famine
among all the poor. Reports from
the camps Of 100000 Russian ris-
oners still in Germany and Bohemia
are of nature not to be printed in
a newspaper. ! can only hint at them
by saying no such stories have been
told OF civilized men. except of par
ties OF desparing castaways in the ar
tic.
Starving men lose all reason and
restraint. We who are comfortable
and well fed always overlook this
fact; yet fact it remains Europe is
now likely TO have to deal with il in
stern fashion. For just at the time
when whole countrysides are threat
ened with death, the agitations of the
Bolsheviki and devilish energies of
the anarchists are at their worst.
Give TO desperate, starving, frantic
men, the promise of plenty that the
Bolsheviki always hold out. and what
shall we expect them to do with it.
what recently happened at Munich
ought to show us plainly enough If
we have any doubt on the subject.
Pinching bellies had a great deal
more to do with that outbreak OF
madness than the Vaccinations Of the
reactiOnaries
Suppose that a hundred million
people in Europe get into the des-
perate state of mind of the people of
Munich, and what would come of it?
OF all the Germans the Bavarians
are by tradition the least given to
violence and the most to order and
method. And here, under pressure
of this fearful thing, they, too, seem
TO eat of the insane root and TO forth
destroying, numbering and burning.
J Even at the best, even in countries
Arhere there is no starvation, men can
plainly enough the signs Of I'M
/ and profound dissatisfaction. He
list have read history with his eyes,
Nd not with his intelligence, that
does not know these things are in
fictitious.
u. =. Only Can Save.
In this great circle there is but one
nation in the world that is in any po-
bltlOn W iiich huN thdA iiNy
save the situation. That is the Unit
ed States. II alone has the food, the
textiles, the ships, the money TO save
the world from an illimitable dissas-
ter.
1t rests with us Americans whether
we shall grasp the situation and rise
to it.
There is no help in any other quar-
ter. We may as well understand
that. II is America or nothing. We
have in the United States a pleasant
and hopeful feeling that the war is
all over and done with; democracy is
safe and the world is sliding back to
the good old grooves in which 1t trav-
eled so unctiously in the years before
this thing came upon us.
As a matter of fact, the work OF
America for the world was no more
than begun when it went into the