The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-09-05
Die IN STREETS
Russians Are Dying of Hunger,
Typhus and Cholera.
Fifty Thousand Have Gathered
at City of Samara.
PEASANTS EAT GRASS SEED
Melon Kinds and SunflOwer
Seeds Also DevOured.
PitifuI Scene Described by Cor
respondent on Trip.

Samara, Russia. Sept. 5.-Hunger
and death go virtually unnoticed in
the neglected streets and alleys of
Samara. Refugees from famine dis
tricts near. this city, estimated from
thirty to fifty thousand. are huddled
together in deserted buildings, unused
factories, tattered tents and in wagons
nassed about the open space about
the railway stations and the docks
along the Volga river.
Hunger typhus. cholera and ex-
haustion are carrying off hundreds or
these miserable fugitives, young chill
dren falling victims readily TO the
famine and it's attendant scourges.
Bedraggled and ragged refugees are
constantly carrying pine coffins toward
the cemetery where implanted wooden
crosses mark hundreds of new graves
which have been dug since the flght
before the advancing famine began
From fifty to one hundred starving
children are gathered up daily from
the streets, or turned over to the cen
trail refugee, by parents who cannot
feed them. Many of these little sur
ferers have typhus fever but the hos
pitaIs are without beds and medicine.
Only One Newspaper.
gamara's only newspaper, single
sheet of brown paper, has printed an
announcement that the American Re-
lief administration workers nave
reached Moscow and that 3OO,OOO tons
of American food is enrOute to Russia
The discouraged and hungry popula-
ton. however finds it hard to believe
that aid will come, and with Russian
stoicism, the thousands of refugees
moving thru this great railway center
are camping along the highways and
endeayOring to obtain railway rides TO
anv place where food may be secured.
Vladimir Soksolsky. commander OF
the Samara soviet, said last week that
five hundred carloads of seed grain
had already arrived from Moscow and
that enough was expected to enaple
the peasants of Samara province TO
SOW approximately one million acres
OF wheat for the next harvest. Sa-
mara usually plants an area or ten
times this extent but this year the
area sown amounted to only four mil
lion acres and the crop was almost a
failure because of the drouth.
VIII Be 100000 Dependents.
AItho transportation is difficult, NJ.
Sokzolsky said the entire peasant
population of 100000 would be de-
pendent on outside food by Novem-
Der. Already 100000 peasants are
without bread, this number including
$4,000 children who have been placed
in soviet homes.
Conditions at Semayenkena, a viii
lage thirty miles from Samara and
remote from railway or river COM
munications, are typical of the mis-
cry existing thruout the province OF
Samara. The peasants there are eat
ing bread made from melon rinds.
sunfloWer seed and grass seed. One
mother killed her baby last week. say
ing she could not bear to see it starve.
Other mothers are threatening to kill
their children. One woman with six
children said to the Associated Press,
"You know, it takes children so long
to die. 1t is too horrible to watch
them shriVel up"
One old woman showed the CORE
spondent a loaf of mouldy green bread
and then. pointing to a flour mill sur
mounted by wind wheel she begged.
"Send us something to grind. 1t has