Vashon Island news-record. [volume] (Vashon, Wash.) 1919-1954, 1920-05-20
HOW EUROPE CAN
ESCAPE COLLAPSE
We Must Aid BY Extending
Credits, Says DAWSON.
GRAVE MENACE TO U. S. A.
European Ruin Would Involve
America. Starvation and
Disease Rampant.
GRAVE MENACE TO U. S. A.

sen, chairman OF the Board OF GOV
errors of the League of Red Cross So
cieties, said: las chairman of the
convention of Red Cross societies COM
posed OF representatives Of twenty
seven nations that met recently in
Geneva, | am custodian of authorita-
tive reports recording appalling con
ditions among millions of people liv-
ng in eastern Europe.
"One of the most terrible tragedies
of the history of the human race is be-
ing enacted within the broad belt OF
territory lying between the Baltic and
the Black and Adriatic seas.
This area includes the new Baltic
states-Poland, -Slovakia, The
Ukraine, Austria, Hungary, Roumania,
Montenegro, Albania and Serbia.
The reports which come to us
make it clear that in these war-ravaged
lands civilization has broken down.
Disease, bereavement and suffering
are present in practically every house
hold, while food and clothing are in
sufficient to make life tolerable.
Men, women and children are dy-
ing by thousands, and over vast once
civilized areas there are to be found
neither medicinal appliances nor medi-
al skill sufficient TO cope with the
DEVASTATING plaques.
Wholesale starvation is threatened
n Poland this summer unless she can
ocure food supplies in large qaanti-
Us. There are now approximately
100000 cases of typhus in Poland and
IL the area occupied by Polish troops
Worst Typhus Epidemic in History.
This is already one of the worst
typhus epidemics in the worlds his
tory. In Galicia whole towns are
crippled and business suspended In
some districts there is but enc doctor
to each 100000 people.
In the Ukraine, we were told, ty-
plus aud influenza have affected most
of the population.
airy IL, said: There are rations for
hree weeks. Death stalks through
he streets of Vienna and takes IN
t.indered toll
Budapest, according to our informa-
ton, is one vast city of misery and
suffering. The number OF deaths is
double that of births.
"Typhus and smallpox have invaded
the four countries composing Czecho
Sovakia, and there is lack of medi
cines, soap and physicians
I'm Serbia typhus has broken out
again and there are but 200 physicians
to minister to the needs of that entire
country,
Returning to the United States
few weeks ago with all these horrors
ringing III my ears. found myself
once moro in land whose graparies
were overflowing, where health and
plenty abounded and where life and
activity and eager enterprise were in
the full flood
81 asked myself; What ii this plague
and famine were he.e in the great
territory between the Atlantic sea
board and the Mississippi valley, which
roughly parallels the extent of these
ravaged countries and that 65o00,00e
of our own people condemned to idle
ness by lack of raw material am
whose fields had been devastated by
invasion and rapine We're racked by
starvation and pestilence 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.
Only Three Ways to Help Europe.
There are only three ways by which
these stricken lands can secure sup
plies 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 present
market value of their currencies
Austria would have to pay forty times
the original cost, Germany thirteen
times Greece just double, Czecho
Slovakia fourteen and Poland fifty
times. These figures are official and
are a true index of the economic plight
Of these countries.
1T is clear, therefore that they can
not give us gold for the things they
must have. nor have they either pro.
ducts or securities to offer in return,
for credit, If only they could obtain
raw material which these idle millions
Of theirs could convert into manufact-
ured products they would have some.
thing to tender the world in return for
its raw material, food and medicine.
But II they have neither money 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 do you
believe the plague of typhus that is
taking hideous death toll In Esthonia
and Poland and the Ukraine and cat.
Ing along the fringes OF Germany and
Czecho-Slovakla will confine itself to
these remote lands?
"only last Saturday our health com
missioner of New York, DR.. Copeland.