The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1921-01-12
Redwood County
to Help in Work
COUNTY TO BE ORGANIZED FOR
EUROPEAN RELIEF WORK
THIS WEEK.


EUROPEAN RELIEF WORK
THIS WEEK.
Seventy one of Minnesota's eighty
six counties have already started mp
on the work of obtaining relief for the
starving children Of Europe, this re-
lief work being done under the ma
tional leadership Of Herbert Hoover
and the state leadership of John Les
lie of Minneapolis. Redwood County
has taken the initial steps in such an
organization and by next week the
plans will be ready to put in opera
ton. Several churches have taken up
collections for this purpose and many
individuals throughout the county
have contributed to the fund through
the campaign made by the Literary
Digest. However there still remains
much for the County to do. The Civ
ing Of funds direct to the Minneapolis
headquarters has been started howevs
er, word arriving from there Tuesday
that Mrs. Ella Walters of Redwood
Falls had sent in a check of ten dol
lars which will keep one European
child alive until the next harvest sea
son. 1t is hoped that every property
holder in the County may feel it his
or her duty to follow, Mrs. Walters
example.
A tremendous emergency exists in
Central and Eastern Europe. 1t is due
to no new or sudden causes, but is the
persistent result of the chaos conse-
quent upon the War. @
The expectancy on the part of Am
erican Relief Organization that the
present autumn would end the demand
for their aid has been disappointed
Continued fighting and revolution
have sapped the beginnings of recon
structed strength. The smouldering
embers of war flame up again and
again with devastating energy. The
hope that widely planted crops would
yield bountiful and adequate harvest
has not been realized. Poverty, priva-
tion, suffering and death still march
unchallenged and unchecked. Econom-
ically and politically the ruined world
must wait. There is not dynamic
energy left in the world to face the
task of speedy reconstruction.
But there is one cry that cannot be
hushed and there is one challenge that
can not be disregarded.
A temporarily irreducible minimum
Of THREE AND A HALF MILLION
CHILDREN in Central and Eastern
Europe are face to face with disaster
and death. Already they are in the
grip of winter, half-clothed and UNI
sheltered Famine and pestilence have
added their menace to already existing
horror Unless aid is rendered at once,
there will follow tragedy so vast as
to be unspeakable.
Splendid as it would. be if it could
be accomplished, there is no sugges-
tion that these children be made COM
Portable. That is physical and a
financial impossibility.
It is merely proposed that as many
of them as possible be saved from
starvation by receiving one meal
day, and that that shall be given only
to the neediest One meal day isn't
much, but in many parts of this
desolated world of misery it is all that
stands between these children and
death
1t is not difficult to pick the needy.
It is melancholy task to pick the
neediest so great is their number, that
only those who are below a certain
stage, of necessity, can be fed. Al
soon as they have reached certain
grade of improvement they must step
to one side and make way for those
more miserable than themselves. One
scarcely dreams that such a crisis can
be possible in our twentieth century
life.
Pestilence and famine haye always
stalked side by side. Undernourish-
ment produces diseases particularly
its own. Starved and puny bodies
make quick fuel for disease. Tubercu-
losis and typhus merely touch them
and they are gone
OF the children who are coming in
to the world in the midst of this en-
vironment and misery, thousands
haven't single chance Of life. From
maternity hospitals, over-crowded and
ill-supplied, newly born babies are
sent away wrapped in old newspapers
because there is nothing with which
to clothe them. Hundreds of thou
sands of children in Europe have never
tasted milk, either animal or human,
in their lives. Mothers unnourisheei
and ill-provided bring into the world
babies doomed before they see the
light of day.
Medical aid must be furnished, TO-
gether with clothing and at least some
kind of care, If there is to be a to-
morrow to follow the horror and the
desolation Of today.