Palatka daily news. [volume] (Palatka, Fla.) 1919-1994, 1921-11-11
M|EE|0N AND HALF
DOOMED To DEATH
BEFORE CHRISTMAS
(By Associated PresSl

Samara, Nov. 10--The whole truth
about the famine becomes readily
apparent after observation here. Re-
ports of millions of people eating
grass or lying in a dying condition
on the banks of the Volga river or
migrating enmasse are rather FAR
fetched
Entering the famine area the cor
respondent had provided himself
with canned meats and hard bread
but was not compelled to use any of
it in the first two weeks of travel as
food was always available at reason
able prices.
People do not die of hunger in one
week. 1t takes months of under
feeding. Then they reach the point
where they are unable to eat food
at ALL Their hands, feet and stom-
achs begin to swell or they succumb
to an epidemic of malaria or else
the new disease described as aneuria
no cure for which is known here. Or
they may be killed by cold winds,
SHOWS, and rains which have been
setting in for the past two weeks,
with each hour taking toll of hun
dreds.
The people of the privinces of Sa-
mara, Kasan and Simbirsk are in a
starving condition. In these three
provinces, there are probably $780,
900 children and 100000 adults who
must die before Christmas.
The American Relief Administra-
tion is feeding barely 100000 child
rem but is giving no food to the adults
One of the best effects of it's food
distribution will be to cheaper prices
and check the boarding of foodstuffs
The Moscow governments appear
to, be unable to send food into this
district owing to lack of money and
poor organization. Also the typical
Russian indifference to misery is ev-
ident.
The correspondent while sitting on
tie platform of railway station
throughout a long, cold night, wait
ing for a train. saw a barefolted,
little insane girl tripping along but
the trainhands and other refugees
let her wander unaided until she
drifted past the Red sentry into a
Waiting room already filled to over
flowing with several thousands of
persons lying asleep on the floor.
A member of the local Soviet who
lived in the United States for seven
years showed no pity but said: "You
foreigners do not realize how much
bur peasants can stand. They are
used to starvation"
The famine area does not present
"a forbidding aspect except in the
fields from which no harvests were
iobtained The meadows and graz
ling lands showed many herds of hor-
SEES and cattle. The villages seemed
abnormally quiet, yet their workers
were abroad putting in winter rye
and wheat. To the visitor they
! made the customary charge that if it
had not been for the Soviet requisi-
lions their crops would have been
sufficient.
"Now our only hope for bread is
America" they say; ySt many know
they must die by winter and accept
their fate with stoicism.
"Why leave our homes and go die
on the railway stations?' many of
them retort when asked why they do
not desert their land.
Medical conditions are distressing
The country doctors are unable to
practice as they are without medi-
cines and the situation is almost the
same in the Is hospitals of Samara.
DIR. Glasson, the surgeon in one of
these hospitals, having 1870 patients
said: eve have no quinine, no band
ages, no aspirin, no chloroform, no.
thing"
The same condition exists in the
children's hospitals and also in the
dozens of homes open for the care of
refugees, for there are no sanitary
arrangements. In one such home
300 children are crowded in two
rooms, without blankets, fires or
mattresses and without little or no
clothing Their only advantage is
that they have a real roof over them
and receive hot soup daily.