The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-07-21

la city OF mllllOn anu d HAL PcoPAO' -
hospitals Now it has II hospitals!
The national disease of Russia is poor
transportation. Money is valueiess' So T 1Uou-
PRODUCES the medium OF exchange Inele
fore moor railroad transportation means an
UNEQUAL and inadequate distribution OF 1000
keeping urban Russia sick while rural RUSSIA
is comparatively well
the chief breeder of disease. Trains and pas
sengers are full OF lice and other Vermln.
1 saw passenger taken OH tram 10 De
deloused. His clothes were shaken INTO re-
ceptacle. The result was half tumplertul OF
lice!
-Four Great EPidemics.
In the past two years there nave peen -FOUR
great epidenics in soviet Russia mean EUR,
opean Russia, from the Ukraine TO the Ural
mountains. These scourges were typhus, chol-
era. typhoid and dysentery. TypnuS anu oys-
EMERY also scourged Siberia
Typhus is carried by lice. You get stag
gering idea of the filth that existed when you
consider that medical and sanitary records
show there were 100000 cases of typhus IN
soviet Russia during the epidemic!
Deaths totaled 100000. For the average
mortality was 10 per cent-rura1 districts suf-
fering only slightly, while the mortalty IN pig
cities and concentration camps was Az 10 5o
per cent? Better sanitation that exists now
is due to the work OF NICHOLAS A Senasnko'
minister of health.
Influenza did much less harm in Russia than
elsewhere The other terrible epidemics gave
the people a certain immunity. Hardships
PeriIs of Travelling.
Vermin- filled railroad cars are called ant
hills" You take your life in your hands when
you go travelling. Fortunately for me, mem
bers of foreign missions were permitted to
travel in special cars, called diplomatic cour-
Ter cars, the kind Lenin and Trotzky use.
These official trains clean and luxurious.
And you can get drink on them
Russia has hau prohibition since 1916. But
it is no more effective than in America. No,
you can't buy it from bootleggers. But physi-
clans prescribe vodka and other liquors
1 am not partial to sovietism. know it
has done Russia immense amount of harm
but it has also done much good.
Peasants Profit
The peasants are the chief gamers. In
health alone they have benefited much.
Before the car was deposed typhus cases
were divided So per cent among the rural popu-
Iation and Is per cent urban. Now conditions
are entirely reversed-S5 per cent OF typhus
is in the cities and Is per cent in the country.
Peasants have better food and living con-
dtiOns This, Also is a reversal. What was
intended TO be an industrial reVolution-to
emancipate the factory worker-has created an
agragrian bourgeoisie, so reversing conditions
that city industrial workers are worse OFF than
they ever were and the farmer peasants have
been emancipated. They are living in clover.
The city man used to have more and better
food. all the fruit and DELEGATES, more space,
beds and other Injuries. The peasant used to
live in dire poverty. His food comprised her
ring, vegetables and salt pork.
Now the city man gets what is left after
everybody else has had his fill No wonder he
is prey to disease and epidemics
Why Peasant Feasts.
The peasant now feasts on butter, eggs and
milk-which he never touched in the OLD days.
He can't sell his food because he can't trans
port it. So he eats it himself.
Grain rotted in the fields because of lack Of
transportation. Then there a conflict be-
tween the peasants-chesty under their newly
acquired wniphand-and the once- arrogant city
dwelIers. Peasants were hiding produce! And
the disease-ridden cities starved.
Now the peasants pay tax by turning over
a percentage Of their produce to the govern
ment The state doles this out in rations. And
the civilians-city dwelers industrial workers
get what is left after the soldiers and chill
dren have had their fill.
Child Welfare Work.
! Care of children is one Of the big things
soviet Russia has done to improve health con-
ditions. The children are considered to be lin
the first line of trenches.
Milk, butter, eggs, chocolate and white bread
go to the children. Every child gets ration
from the state. Parents draw enough from
food depots to provide their children with two
meals day for a week.
One daily meal MONDAY dinners given
the children at school, But if the child has
come to school at $50 looking as if he hasn't
had a good breakfast, he is given another
breakfast
Children in Russia were never more healthy.
And its million soldiers-well-fed, robust,
Crowded Housing.
Health conditions in cities have been worse
because cities are crowded. People hocked
there during the early days of the revolution
and. when they saw how much better off the
peasants were becoming, they couldn't get back
to the great outdoors where man could own
as much land as he and his family could work.
Petrograd is the exception. Its old popuIa-
ton OF 100000 has been cut in half 1t was
depleted of its official life-just as Washington
would be if the seat of government we're moved.
Moscow is now the capital, the center of eyery-
thing. If Moscow ever falls, soviet Russia will
go to pieces.
found Trotzky no man eater" but a force
ful, clear-headed statesman. He has improved
health and the economic situation generally nv
increasing railroad efficiency so per cent in
three months.
But nobody seems able to bring about eoual
distribution of food-the great weakness in the
soviet system
Copyright 1921, by Newspaper EnterpriseA
In tomorrow's Argus DR.. Wovschin will tell
you how vice and crime in Russia have been
reduced by new economic conditions and the
firing squad. nv