The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1921-08-19
Frederic Haskin's Letter
Pathetic Appeals for Austria.

Z These are all fair samples of the
begging mail coming from the posr-
al employees alone of the late enemy
territory. Another letter, this one
from a postal employe in Vienna.
gives figures which show with whsr
the poor people of the old empires
ca pital have to contend. This man
merely a clerk in the Vienna of
| flee, with a sick mother and an aged
! father dependent upon his meagre
! salary, said it was hardly possfbl1
for him to purchase provisions for
the family of three, and that buy
! ing clothing was altogether out of
the question. Old shoes patched
| up with wooden soles fashioned
roughly with a knife have to take
the place of proper footgear. Out
| worn and threadbare clothes must
| be made to suffice.
Here are some of the current
prices for necessities in Vienna, &C
cording to this letter: a kilogram
of fat, equal to 2 1-5 pounds, costs
300 crowns. normally worth about
500; a single egg is valued at 20
crowns; the price of a kilogram of
meat ranges from 200 to $50
crowns. Clothing prices are SO far
out of reach that only one is quot
ed. A shirt, the letter said, NAV
not be purchased for less than from
$40 to 7S0 crowns.
Americas Less Heavy.
America came out of the World
war with few bruises in compari-
son with many of the other beIliger-
ent nations. The death toll of Amer
lean boys is a loss which nothing
can replace, and nothing can ever
square the accounts for the hun
dreds of manned and blinded youths
who gave the best of life to halt the
Hun,
But today, though American busi-
ness is not booming as it was at the
high tide of war activity, though
there is necessarily a tax burden
TIC pay the cost of the war, the Unit
ed States is far better off ecOnom-
ically than any one of the principal
belligerents in the struggle. Jap
ans part in the war did not entaG
sufficient effort to class it with
America, England, France, Italy or
the enemy group of nations.
England, having a tremendous
foreign debt in addition TO its in
ternal obligations on war bonds
held by its subjects, is in such
financial condition that appeals
have come from London to WASH
irgton asking that the British debt
to the United States be forgiven.
British statesmen, with the Irish
crisis on their hands and deep iii
the whirlpool of after-the-war
European politics, only a few weeks
ago announced plans for great III
creases in the English navy, fur
Their addition to Britain's debt.
France is in worse shape than
England, still maintaining a great
standing army to throw into any
adjacent territory in order that the
peace terms shall be enforced
Italy is suffering tremendous finaH-
cial depression caused by its great
expenditures of wealth during the
colossal struggle.
But the plight of those nations IS
anything but dreary compared y
the plight in which the Central
Powers now are. Germany, the
leader of the enemy nations in tl9
world war, is not as DdQly Oh Is
the disintegrated parts of the Old
Hungarian empire. Austria
itself is threatened with bankrupt
cy. but the worst thing is the ter
rible aftermath facing every man,
woman and chiid-the lack of suftl-
cient food to sustain even subnOT-
NAL life.
Weakened by hunger, thousands
of the people fall easy prey to dis
ease, the starved bodies of the ED
erly and of children being partic-
ular targets for epidemics. Despite
the most heroic efforts of the
American relief organizations and
other helping hands extended from
nearly everywhere, the situation is
still an appalling one.