The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1920-05-20
HOW EUROPE CAN
ESCAPE COLLAPSE
We kpSt Aid BY Extending
Credits. Says DayiSOn.
GRAVE MENACE TO U. S. A..
European Ruin Would Involve
America Starvation and
Disease Rampant.

Des Moines. Ia-Speaking before
the general conference OF the Metho-
ais, Episcopal Church, Henry 2 payi-
son chairman Of the Board Of Gov
erHurs Of the League Of Red Cross So
clttIes said AS chairman Of the
convention Of Red Cross societies com
posed of representatives Cf twenty
seven nations that met recently in
Geneva, / am custodian Of autho-ita-
tive reports recording appalling con
ditons among millions Of people liy-
ing in eastern Europe.
One OF the most terrible tragedies
Of he history OF the human race is be
ing enacted within the bread belt Of
territory lying between the Baltic and
the Black and Adriatic seas.
This area includes the new Baltic
states-Poland. CzechoSiovakia, The
Ukraine. Austria. Hungary, R0umania,
Montenegro Albania and Sc bia
The reports which come to US
make it clear that in these war-rayaged
lands civilization has broken down.
Disease. bereavement anC suffering
are present in practically eve.y house
hold, while focd 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-
cal skill sufficient TO cope with the
devastating plaques.
Wholesale starvation is threatened
in Poland this summer unless she can
procure food supplies in large quanti-
ties. There are now approximately
250.000 cases of typhus in Poland and
in 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 one doctor
to each 10000 people,
In the Ukraine We were told, ty-
phus and influenza have affected most
of the population.
"A report from Vienna, dated Febru-
airy L. said: There are ratons for
three weeks Death stalks through
the streets of Vienna and takes un-
hindered toll
Budapest. according TO our informa-
tion, 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-
Slovakia. 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
Returning to the United States a
few weeks ago with all these horrors
ringing i'll my ears, found myself
once moro in land whose granarles
were overflowing, where health and
plenty abounded and where life and
activity and eager enterprise were in
the full flood.
Il asked myself; What if this plague
and famine were here in the great
territory between the Atlantic sea
board and the Mississippi valley which
roughly parallels the extent of these
ravaged countries and that 65,O00,000
Of our own people condemned to idle
ness by lack of raw material and
whose fields had been devastated by
invasion and rapine were 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