Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1921-01-29

Drop by the WaySlde ana PeriSn OF
Cold and Hunger-Thousands of
Others Take Service With the Boil
sheviki.
There is a new army of cramps"
in the world. 1t is doubtful if there
ever was one before as big or as
wretched. Its members cover distances
which would make "tramps" in Ameri-
ca open their eyes in amaZement.
They face worse hardships than our
Weary Willies and far greater perils.
To freeze or starve to death is COM
mOn-place among them. Sometimes
they are stood up against wall and
shot.
These new "tramps" are the Ger
man and Austrian prisoners of war in
Siberia, who are trying to get back
to their homes, II. r. Ybarra writes
from Vienna to the New York Evening
Post. 1t is just short of two years
since the armiStice, considerably more
than two years since the central pow
ers made peace with the Russian Boil
sheviki, but tens of thousands of Ger
mans and Austrians are still In ST.
IBERIA, thrown upon their own re-
sources for repatriation. Relief aSS0-
Citations in their own and other coun-
tries do what they can to get the men
home, but such efforts are drop in
the bucket. Usually all they can do
is to put the men on ships at some
Baltic port where they have arrived
after tramping and stealing rides on
trains for thousands of miles.
Death Takes Its Toll.
Many who start on the journey have
not the fortitude to finish it. They
find some job on the way and stick to
it. or they take service with the Boil
shevki. Many others suddenly drop
by the side of some bleak Siberian
or Russian road, dead from cold or
hunger or sheer WEAKNESS. Thousands
have died thus-doubtless thousands
more will so debut the thought of
getting home some day, somehow,
keeps thousands of others alive on the
long westward tramp.
Central Europe is full of stories of
these strange nomads. They are a
regular part of everyday life in 81
IBERIA and Russia. They are to be met
on any road; everywhere are the
crosses marking the graves Of those
who have not been able to end the
journey.
They travel alone and in pairs and
In parties. They work for day or
a week or a month and then the crav-
ing for home sweeps over them again,
and again they turn their faces west
ward. They stand at crossroads and
street corners, begging for aims. Boil
shevik soldiers sometimes take pity on
them; sentries pretend not to see
when they slip past some military
post. Peasants take them in over
night and feed them and give them
shelter.
All over Siberia and Russia strange
hieroglyphics may be seen on trees
and fences near the houses of peas
ants, which have meaning for these
westward bound "tramps," for they,
like other knights of the road, have
established among themselves
strange freemasonry.
"The people here are a good sort
they will shelter you," is the meaning
of one sign. And another, to the
initiated reads: keep on your way.
These people will do nothing for you I"
Help Each Other.
When one of the "pleni-that is
the name for the new "tramps" In
Russia-meets another on the road he
promptly gives all the help he can,
for these men are closely bound to-
gether by their suffering. He tells
where the frontiers are said to be
least carefully watched, where the
sentries are kindly disposed accord
ing to most recent rumor, where the
danger of being shot as spy is small
est-or greatest. 1t Is an ordinary
thing for a man who has tramped sew
eral thousand miles across Siberia and
q thousand or so more, say, to the
Caucasus frontier of Russia and Per
STA, to be told casually by another
tramp moving northward that there is
absolutely no chance of escape through
Persian territory. Whereupon the
wanderer, with the hope cherished for
weeks suddenly struck dead, will turn
about and tramp 500 miles more, say
to Odessa.
"Can I get a ship here to some
placer he asks ragged Austrian or
German whom he has met sleeping I'M
der bridge or freight car.
"No ship has left Odessa for over a
year." is the answer. So he begs q
piece of bread and hides In brake
mans box or under the buffer of a
freight car and sets off to some 9TH
err frontier. An American tramp
would probably think journey on
freight cars and his own legs from
San Francisco to New York the event
of a lifetime, but there are hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of members of the
army af nav "tramns" who have cny-