The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-11-11
SOME REPORTS
 ABOUT FAMINE
 FAR-FETCHED

Samara, Nov 11-(By Q Staff Cor respondent of The Associated PresS)- . The whole truth about the famine becomes readily apparent after obser- vation here. Reports Of millions or people eating grass or lying in dy- ing condition on the banks Of the vol ga 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 reasonable prices.
 People do not die of hunger in one week. It takes months of underfeed- ing. Then they reach the point where Their hands. feet and stomachs be- gin 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, snoWs, and rains which have been setting in for the past two weeks, with each hour taking a toll of hundreds
 The people of the provinces of Sa- mara, Kazan and Simbirsk are in a starving condition. In these thIee !. provinces there are probably 5oo,Ooo ! children and 1,O00,OO0 adults, who must die before Christmas.
 The American Relief Administra- ton is feeding barely 200, 900 children , but is giving no food to the adults. One of the best effects of It's food distribution will be to cheapen prices and check the hoarding of food stufrs. The Moscow governments appears to be unable to send food into this district, owing to lack of money ana poor organization. Also the typical Russian indifference to misery Is eV- i ident.
 The correspondent while sitting on the platform of a railway station throughout a long, cold night, Wa!t- ing for a train, saw a barefooted, it- tie insane girl tripping along, but the train hands and other refugees let her wander unaided until she drliteo past the Red sentry into Walting ! room already filled to overdowlng with several thousands of persons ly- img asleep on the floor.
 A member of the local Soviet, who lived in the United StataeS for seven years, showed no pity but said: ou foreiguers do not realize how much
 our peasants can stand. Iney are used to starvauon.
 The famine area does not present ! forbidding aspect, except in the fields i from which no harVestS were obtain ed. The meadows and grazing Iands 1 showed many herds of horses and cat i tie. The villages seemed aonorLnallyy '
 quiet, yet their workers were aoroad i putting in winter rye and WheaI' 10 the visitor they made the customary ! charge that if it had not been for the ! Soviet acquisitions their crops Woulo have been sufficient
 '.Now our only hope. for bread is i America" they say; yet 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 or | them retort when asked why they do
 not desert their land.
 Medical conditions are distress1ns' The country doctors are unable to ; practice as they are without medl- cines and the situation Is almost the
 same in the 15 hospitals of Samara: pr. Glasson, the surgeon In one of I these hospitals, having 1SO patients i said: '@We have no quintne, no band ages, no aspirin. no chloroform. noth-
 ing" u,
 The same condition exists in the
 children's hospitals and also In the
 dozens of homes open for the care ol |, refugees, for there are no sanitary ! arrangements. 1n one such home
 800 children are crowded in two
 rooms, without blankets. fires or mat i tresses and without little or no cloth ing. Their only advantage is thai 4bev have a real roof over them and
 receive hot soup daily.