The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-07-25

bounded on four sides by ramshackle
bling walls. Off the courtyard we tried
broken. staircase. we paused on the
first landing. A chorus OF our guides
shouted. Here is not yet the greatest
poverty We climbed again another
flight and paused again. The odor of
massed and packed humanity, of twelve
human beings wedged into one room,
made us gasp.
I'VE paused. Again a chorus greeted
us. Here was not yet the greatest
'armkeit'. We scrambled up a ladder.
garnet so low that our American cap
tain almost had to bend double. One
of our volunteer guides triumphantly
threw open a door already off its hinges
and pointed into little hole of a room,
bare of all furniture except a bed COW
cred by a ragged quilt and a stove with
crazy, twisted pipe. This stove had,
as we learned, not been lighted for
months. How could 1t be when there
was no food or fuel?
"A woman who appeared to be more
than 70, but who turnd out to be not
much more than half that age. was
standing at a little opening of win
dow. She spoke to us in a whisper, her
hand clenched against her breast to
keep down the fits of coughing. She
had five children. The Oldest one was
at a neighbours house.
"She moved aside from the window
and allowed us to see the other four
the simile of the witnering flower &C.
CURED to me. AS. l have sometimes
seen in the poorer tenements of our
cities a potful of flowers trying to BIOS
som in the smoky air, so here were four
blossoms trying to be real babies despite
tho fatid air Ia inn and disease
But they were not succeeding very we'll
Two of them looked to be about year
old. Between coughing fits the mother
told us that the children were, respec-
lively. 7 and 8. OF course. they could
not walk. Our captain lifted up the
elder and tried to set 1t on its feet.
The child made no effort. took no ini-
tiative, did not try to walk. It's limbs
were as though they had been para
lyzed. They collapsed under the weight
of the frail body.
years old. He was sallow and hollow
eyed, like an old man. 1t was not
necessary to ask If he could walk. One
asked how he managed to keep alive
at all. There was no milk for him to
drink, and no cereal to eat, not even
bread. The body that should have been
plump and a delight to the eye was
angular and bony through the ragged
little dress. The head seemed enormous
by contrast to the body. The child ap-
parently understood nothing that was
said to him. But in his large, liquid
eyes there was a look of terrible re-
proach and appeal, too terrible to con-
template for more than a moment. And
then he tried to blossom forth and be
a real baby and do what babies should.
He put his head on one side, looked up
at us with heart-rending coquetry, and
tried to smile. And that smile was
more terrible than any reproach.
But are there no bright spots In
Warsaw to set over against Krochmal-
ma? You get your answer right off by
walking down this narrow lane and
debouching out of it's lower opening into
a wider thoroughfare. Quite suddenly
you come face to face with a large
shop painted white on the outside and
clean as wax. Flowing into its wide
of tiny youngsters. with here and there
a mother carrying a baby. No noise.
no hours of delay. as at the city bread
lines. A young boy stands at the door
helping and lifting the youngsters. Over
the entrance is a sign which reads.
Distribution Committee Go inside and
you find large white room as sweet
and clean as a nursery. At long white
tables sit some hundred children con-
tentedly sopping up milk out of large
enamel mugs with pieces of bread. On
sit the mothers with their babies. Wom-
en- in white move in and out, giving
each child that comes in mug of milk,
against the payment Of 10 pfennigs, at
present value about half a cent. In the
ordinary stores a cup of milk like this
is worth at least a mark, 100 pfennigs.
The half-cent saves the community's
self-respect.
"One of the mothers said: My boy
wakes up in the morning asking for 10
pfennings for milk, and he makes life
miserable for me until he gets the
money
"Of these stations, modelled on the
Nathan Straus milk station plan, there
are now ten in Warsaw, conducted by
Dr. Boris Bogen for the Jewish Relief
committee. About 10000 children re-
ceive a glass OF milk daily at 'the sta
tons. The milk is made from evapo-
rated cream and sterilized water. Trans
planting to Warsaw the methods of
Mr.. Strauss, DR.. Bogen has attained
great success in the work"