The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-08-19

aSHlnSJou, L. ", Aus - 50
postoffice department has been the
recipient of hundreds of letters
from postal employees in Austria
and Hungary ever since the arms
tice was signed, and even before
that, begging assistance that tney
might not starve. Realizing the
futility of appealing to their own
city or national governments Ior
assistance these people have turn
ed in despair to others in the same
business, even though they nad
been engaged On opposing sides IN
the greatest clash of arms the
world has ever known.
One of the letters, addressed
main Post Officer" written in ia
borious English by an orphan girl
employed in. a Hungarian poster
flee, enclosed several stamps of
her own country, and asked the
postmaster general to buy them
and send her the few dollars the
stamps represented. Another, ad-
dressed to the Principal of the
Post and Telegraph Office" at
Washington, set forth first mat
only want and despair" drove him
to writing the appeal for aid. This
man said he had been stationed at
a point in what is now Jugo-Slavia,
and that the Serbs exiled him. He
secured position in the postal
service in Budapest eventually. His
small salary scarcely sufficed for
medicines for his aged and sick
mother, this man wrote:
tIn my great need" his letter
said, 81 know of no other way out
except America"
From German-Austria a letter
came to- the postmaster general
which after extolling the dear
fatherland" at some length, said his
government was not able to help
him or his wife and baby, there
fore he was turning to his col
lea cues in the postal service of the
United States.
My wife and my child are ill.,"
he said, I'VE have little and bad to
eat, it is wanting us on the cloth
iEgs, foods, and on the ready money
to buy those things" At the end
Of the letter this young man asked
that he mights be recommended for
any kind of job anywhere else,
just so there was food obtainable
for his ailing baby land his wife.
Another cry of distress came to
Washington addressed to the Union
of Postal Employees, from the wild
CIV of former Austrian postal EN-
ploye. Exiled from Marburg when
it was incorporated into the new
and her three children fed to Graz,
in German-Austria.
Beggars Among Beggars.
with no pension, destitute of all
means, having sold all my furniture
and articles of value to buy food.
completely exhausted by trouble,
sorrow and want, I am plunged into
the deepest despair" she wrote.
"All pensioners get assistance, but
We get nothing We are beggars
among heggars."
Another appeal, from a man too
proud to ask for outright aims,
came in letter which got into the
hands of the postmaster general.
This man, though for % years an
employe in an iron works had been
struggling all Of his life to get q
start as musician. The letter had
an enclosure asking that it be fO--
warded to some orchestra in WASH
ington, and asked for work in tran
Austrian music. The man
said that in his 25 years of work
he had managed to save up a little
but that the whole little
saving had been swept away by the
war. His children had been with
out proper clothing for months
Necessity is already claiming
my musical instruments" his let
ter said, my sacred possessions
from which only the grave should
me, so l come as a last re-
sort to strangers in a strange part
of the world. Here in this country
people are unable to help one an
other"