The New York herald., 1921-11-20

HERALD.
New York Herald Bureau.
London. Nov. 5.
1t is unlucky for twenty-five million
peasants in Southern Russia that they
have no food to eat at time when
the world is tired of tales of human
misery, sick of it's own troubles, and
busy, with passionate selfishness, in
trying to cure it's own maladies.
Those Russian peasants have been
very unlucky! First the great war
came and their sons were taken from
ploughs and fields to fight the Ger
mans. They obeyed because they
were Russian peasants, even when
thy had to advance upon German ar
tillery and machine guns, without
rifles or without ammunition, and
were slaughtered in droves like silly
sheep.
Years later, after long slaughter
and the harvests were not so rich
down on the Volga and the Don
because young labor was scarce
some of them murmured why
should we fight men against whom
We have no hatred? Why should we
fight endlessly at the command Of
men who grow rich out of war, who
do nothing for our comfort, who rob
us of our very boots? 1t
is better to make peace"
Refugees but No Refuge.
But it was not a good peace. and
the Russian peasants were again un-
lucky. Revolution broke out in the
great cities. the old regime was over
thrown. the new gospel of Bolshe-
vism was proclaimed as the hope Of
humanity. And the Russian peasant
hoped for e little while. He hoped
for peace. he hoped to get back to
the land--now free-and his little
home where all memories of war
would be blotted out by peace and
happiness. But he was unlucky again
The Red armies called for recruits
and took the last reserves of grain to
feed them. In vain the old peasants
said, There will be famine again If
our barns are emptied." Russia was
invaded by white" armies paid for
by French and British money. They
so loved Russia, these White armies.
that to save it they destroyed many
things along their line of march
houses and barns and railways and
bridges and the very standing corn.
The Russian peasants were unlucky
the old people and the women and
between the tides of Red armies and
White armies and fled if they could
from advancing terror on this side or
that-refugees without refuge.
At last, when Kolchak and Jude
mitch and Denikin and Wrangel were
finished, there was peace in Russia
But the peasants were unlucky again.
it seemed that God now had declared
war upon them after all the cruelties
of men. No rain fell to swell their
seed corn in the soil and give it life.
Month after month no rain fell. Even
from the black earth of the Volga
so rich and fruitful as a great gran
ary OF the world, there came up only
thin crops. And the sun was fierce
and pitiless and the Russian peasant
praying for rain. weeping for rain
had no luck.
Nature Is MerciIess.
Nature was merciless, il seemed
as man had been without mercy. For
hundreds of miles, east and west
north and south, from Mini Nov
sorod to Astrachan the soil was baked
hard under a binding. cruel, ruthless
sun, and twenty-five million Russian
peasants who had no luck no luck
at all, groaned over their pitiful har-
vesting and had no bread for their
children.
They had been eating grass mixed
with earth. the bark of trees, field
mice, locusts. any kind of filth. Many
have lain down and died. glad to die,
they said, because they hated TO hear
the wailing of children and to see so
many of them die too. one by one
little skeletons before death and
burial. The women weep in the viii
lagos about Samara and Saratof
when they show their empty cup
boards and the typhus stricken chill
dren lying under bundles OF rags. too
weak to walk. But that weeping is
only when strangers come with prom
ise of help or words of pity The
Russian peasants who have no luck.
and not much hope now. do not weep
many tears. They stare out with dull
eyes upon their misery and wait very
patiently for some poor chance of
rescue, or for death.
1t is difficult to get about in the
famine district. Few men who have
come back with personal evidence of
this human tragedy have touched more
than the fringe of it. the outer edge
beyond the railroads. But those who
wave gone deepest into the famine dis
tricts say that II is worse as the viii
lagos are more remote most frightful
where communication is most difficult.
At the railway stations the pictures
are always the same. crowds of quiet
peasant folk with skins drawn tight
about their. facial bones. sunken
eyes which look NJ plea, ~, while
the children who cling to gaunt men
and shrunkeo women cry out inces-