The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-09-05
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j, HAsKIN, Director,
Washington, D. c.
PATHETIC APPEALS FROM
AUSTRIA,

since the Armistice was signed, and
even before that, begging assistance
that they might not starve. Realiz-,
| ing the futility of appealing to their
own city or national governments for
assistance, these people have turned
in despair to others in the same bust
| ness, even tho they had been engaged
on opposing sides in the greatest clash
of arms the world has ever known.
One of these letters, addressed
| Main Post Officer" written in
labcrious English by an orphan girl
! employed in a Hungarian postoffice,
enclosed several stamps of her. own
country, and asked the postmaster
general to buy them and send her the
few dollars the stamps represented.
Another, addressed to the Principal
of the Post and Telegraph Office" at
Washington, set forth first that only
\ writing the appeal FOR aid. This man
said he had been stationed at a point
in what is now Jugo- Slavia, and that
! the Serbs exiled him. He secured a
position in the postal service in Buda-
pest eventually. His small salary
scarcely suffieed for medicines for his
aged and sick mother, this man wrote.
'In my great need" his letter said,
II know of no other way out except
| America"
From German-Austria a letter came
to the postmaster general which after
extolling the dear fatherland" at
some length, said his government was
not able to help him or his wife and
baby, therefore he was turning to his
! colleagues in the postal service of the
| United States.
MY wife and my child are i'll" he
said, I'VE have little and bad to eat,
! it Is wanting us, on the clothings
foods, and on the ready money to buy
those things" At the end of the let
| ter this young man asked that he
1 afcr1af ! dol Co. lit
of job anywhere else, just so there
was food obtainable for his ailing baby
and his vile.
Another cry of distress came to
Washington, addressed to the Union
of Postal Employees. from the widow
| of a former Austrian postal employee
Exiled from Marburg when it was in
| corporated into the new nation of
Jugo -Slavia. this woman and her three
children fled to Graz, in German
Austria.
Beggars Among Beggars.
with no pension, destitute Of all
means, having sold all my furniture
and articles of value to buy food, COM
pletely exhausted by trouble, sorrow,
est despair she wrote. "All pension
ers git assistance, but we get nothing.
We are beggars among beggars."
Another appeal, from a man too
proud to ask for outright aims. came
| in a letter which got into the hands
OF the postmaster general. This man,
tho for twenty-five years an employe
in an iron works, had been struggling
/ all of his life to get a start as musl-
clan. The letter had an enclosure ask
| Ing that it be forwarded to some
forchestra in Washington, and asked
for work in TRANSFERRING Austrian mu-
sic. The man said that in his twenty
five years of work he had managed to
save up a little money, but that the
whole little saving had been swept
away by the war. His children had
been without proper clothing for
months.
Necessity is already claiming my
musical Instruments" his letter said,
my sacred possessions from which
only the grave should separate me, so
I come as a last resort to strangers IN
a strange part of the world. Here in
this country people are unable to help
one another"
These are all fair samples OF the
begging mail coming from the postal
employees alone of the late enemy ter
ritory Another letter, this one from
a postal employe in Vienna, gives fig
ures which show with what the poor
people of the old empires capital have
to contend. This man, merely a clerk
| in the Vienna office, with q, sick
mother and an aged father dependent
upon his meagre salary, said 1t was
hardly possible for him to purchase
provisions for tho family of three, and
that buying clothing was altogether
out of the question. Old shoes patched
Iup with wooden soles fashioned
roughly with a. knive have to take the
place of proper footgear. Outworn
and threadbare clothes must be made
to suffice.
Here are some of the current prices
for Necessities in Vienna according to
this letter: A kilogram of fat, equal
to 20 pounds, costs 500 crowns,
NORMALLY worth about SEQ; a single
egg is valued at 20 crowns; the price
| of kilogram of meat ranges from 200
to $50 crowns. Clothing prices are so
far out of reach that only one is
quoted. A shirt, the letter said, may
not be purchased for less than from
$40 to $50 crowns.
America Comparatively Well Off.
America came out of the world war
with few bruises in comparison with
many of the other belligerent nations.
The death toll Of American boys is a
loss which nothing can replace, and
| for the hundreds of MANNED and
blinded youths who gave the best OF
life to halt the Hun.
But today. tho American business
is not booming as it was at the high
tide of war activity tho there is nee
eSSarlly TAX DuTuon TO pay L1iS cost
of the war, the United States is far
better off economically than any one
of the principal belligerents. in the
struggle, Japan's part in the war did
not entail sufficient effort to class It
with America, England, France, Italy,
or the enemy group of nations
England, having a tremendous for
eign debt in addition to its internal
obligations on war bonds held by its
subjects, is in such financial condition
that appeals have come from London
to Washington asking that the British
debt to the United States be forgiven.
British statesmen, with the Irish crisis
|; on their hands and deep in the whirl-
pool of aftsr-the-war European poll
tics, only aSfew weeks ago announced
3 plans for great increases in the Eng
lish navy. a further addition to Bril-
tain's debt,
France is in worse shape than Eng
land, still maintaining a great standing