Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1920-05-28
WE MUST AID BY EXTEND
ING CREDITS, SAYS
DAWSON.
GRAVE MENACE TO U. S. A.
European Ruin Would Involve
America - Starvation and
Disease Rampant.

errors of the League of Red Cross So
cieties, said: CAS- chairman of the con-
vention of Red Cross societies, COM
posed of representatives of q nations
that met recently in Geneva, | am GUS
todian of authoritative reports record
ing appalling conditions among mil
lions of people living in eastern Eu-
rope.
Zone of the most terrible tragedies
in the history of the human race is be-
ing enacted within the broad of terri
tory lying between the Baltic and the
Black and Adriatic seas.
This area includes the new Baltic
Holland, Czecho Slovaki, the
Ukraine, Austria, Hungary, Roumania,
Montenegro Albania and Serbia.
''The reports which come to us
make it clear that in these war-rav-
aged lands civilization has broken
down. Disease, bereavement and suf-
fering are present in practically every
household, while food and clothing
are insufficient to make life tolerable.
Men, women and children are dying
by thousands, and over vast once civ
ilized areas there are to be found
neither medicinal appliances nor med
ical skill sufficient to cope with the
devastating plaques.
Wholesale starving is threatened in
Poland this summer unless she can
procure food supplies in large guam
titles. There are now approximately
100000 cases of typhus in Holland and
In the area occupied by Polish troops.
''This is already one of the worst
typhus epidemics in the worlds his
tory. In Galicia whole towns are Grip
pied and business suspended. In some
districts there is but one doctor to
each 100000 people.
I'm the Ukraine, we are told, typhus
and influenza have affected most of
the people.
"a report from Vienna, dated Feb.
IL, states: There are rations for three
weeks. Death stalks through the
streets Of Vienna and takes unhin-
dered TOLL
Budapest, according to our infor-
nation, is one vast city of misery and
suffering The number of deaths is
double that of births. Of the 100000
children in the schools, 100000 are de-
pendent on public charity. There are
10000 workers idle.
"Typhus and smallpox have invaded
the four countries composing Czecho-
Slovaki, and there is lack of medi-
cines, soap and physicians.
''In Serbia typhus has broken out
again and there are but 200 physicians
to minister to the needs of that entire
country
I'm Montenegro, where food is run
ming short, there are but five physi-
clans for population of 100000.
Returning to the United States a
few weeks ago with all these horrors
ringing in my ears, found myself
once more in land where granaries
were overlooking, where health and
plenty abounded and where life and
activities and eager enterprise were
in the full flood.
81 asked myself, What if this
plague and famine were here and the
great territory between the Atlantic
seaboard and the Mississippi valley,
which roughly parallels the extent of
these ravaged countries, and that 65,-
100000 of our people, condemned to
idleness by lack of raw material and
whose fields had been devastated by
invasion and rapidly were racked by
starvation, and if we had lifted up our
voices and invoked the attention of
our brothers in happier Europe to our
own deep miseries and our cries had
fallen on deaf ears, would we not in
our despair exclaim against their
heartlessness?
There are only three ways by
which these stricken lands can secure
supplies from the outside world One
is by payment, one by credit, and the
third is by exchange of commodities.
II these peoples tried to buy materials
and supplies in America at the pres
ent market value of their currencies,
Austria would have to pay forty times
the original cost, Germany thirteen
times, Greece just double, Czecho
Slovaki fourteen and Poland fifty
times.
at is clear, therefore, that they can
not give us gold for the things they
must have, nor have they either prod
ucts or sources to offer in return for
credit If only they could obtain raw
material which these idle millions of
theirs could convert into manufacture
ing products, they would have some
thing to tend the world in return for
it's raw material, food and medicine.
But if they have neither moEey nor
credit, how are they to take this first
great step towards redemption?
"One-half the world may not eat
while the other half starves. How
long 40 you believe the plague and
typhus that is taking a hideous death
toll in Estonia and Poland and the
Ukraine, and eating along the fringes
of Germany and Czecho Slovaki, will
confpe itself to these remote lands?
"OAly last Saturday our health com.
missioner of New York, Dr. Copeland.
said for the other side just to measure
the danger and take precaution
against such an invasion.
This is one menace at our thres-
hold, the other more threatening,
more terrible - the menace of the
worlds i'll will. We can afford to die.
but to be despised forever as a greedy
and Pharisaical nation is a fate that
we must not incur.