Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1921-08-05
YANK PRISONERS
FREED BY RUSSIA
Riga Report Says Americans Are
Already Released.
FOOD SHIPS AT PETRoGRAD
BolsheVist Minister of Foreign Affairs
Says Famine Conditions Are Seri-
Gus, but Declares Facts Are
Exaggerated.

Riga, Latvia, Aug. 4.-American
prisoners in Russia already have been
released from confinement. according
TO unofficial reports at the Bolshevist
legation press bureau here, but there
is no word as TO the number released
or when, how or where they will be
delivered across the border.
Serious, Tch;teherin Admits.
London, Aug. 4-Fam;ne conditions
in the Volga provinces of Russia are
very serious, George Tchiteherin Boil
shevist minister of foreign affairs,
states in a wireless dispatch to Wen
ma, says the Daily Herald NJ Tchit-
cherin, however, is said TO have de-
clared that the foreign capitalistic
press is wildly exaggerating the facts
TO suit its own purpose
There is great misery in the strick-
en- districts" the newspaper quotes
the message as saying, but some of
the frightful tales circulated through
out western Europe emanate from the
imagination OF Journalists aud should
be received with reserve"
The Petrograd region is declared
not to have been seriously affected
by the famine, as its northern situation
saved crops from the ruin which oyer-
took farm products in the southern
parts of the country.
Food Reaches Petrograd.
Several ships are unloading food at
Petrograd, says dispatch to the Daily
Mail from Bjornebourg, a town in Fin
land, sixty miles northwest of ADo,
and more food Is arriving in the city
of Reval, Esthonia.
1t is reported that Russians who
visit ships in the harbor of Petrograd
are begging sailors to sell their ra-
lions and one captain is said TO have
recently bartered two bags of flour for
a pianoforte
An appeal sent out by the executive
committee of the third internationale
10 the world proetariat that plots
against Russia be frustrated and that
foreign governments be not permitted
to make conditions for granting aid
declares that 20,000000 people in Rus
oAt dAf TN dAtutd with lAnSHI dii
death this year and next and that FAM
irs. inevitably accompanied by dis.
ease, has already weakened the pop
ulatiCn.
Russia Falls off 90 Per Cent.
Washington, Aug 4-General deca-
dence Of agriculture, decay of trans
portation and a decrease of industry
in general over 80 per cent of the
pre-war output is held responsible by
Secretary Hoover Of the department,
Of commerce for the food shortage
in Russia In "A formal statement Mr..
Hoover paints picture Of virtual col
lapse of the productive activities of
the farmers and urban population un-
der the soviet government.
The most acute famine area, he
states. covers the Volga valley from the
Caspian sea northward. The drought
there, he adds, would not be SO fatal
were it not for the reduction in the
surplus crops in other regions and
the difficulties, due to transportation,
of moving such SURPRISES as do exist.
Mr.. Hoover cites reports showing re-
duction of acreage under cultivation,
varying from 100 per cent reduction
iii the province Of Kazan TO only 50
per cent in Samara of the acreage
cultivated last spring