Perth Amboy evening news., 1921-08-18

Another, addressed to the Principal of the Post
and Telegraph Office" at Washington, set forth
first that only want and despair" drove him to
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 suf-
feed for medicines for his aged and sick mother,
this man wrote:
I'm 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 gov
eminent was not able to help him or hi swife
and baby. therefore he was turning to his col
leagues in the postal service of the United States.
my wife and my child are ILL.," he said, 1--WE
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 this letter this
young man asked that he might be
cd for any job nywhere else, just so there was
food obtainable for his ailing baby and wife.
Another cry of distress came to Washington,
addressed to the Union of Postal Employees,
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, hav-
ing sold all my furniture and articles of value
to buy food, completely exhausted by trouble,
sorrow, and want, I am plunged into the deep
est despair" she wrote. "All pensioners get as
sstance, but we get nothing. We are beggars
Llo
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, though for twenty-five years an employee
in an iron works had been struggling all of his
life to get a start as q musician. The letter
had an enclosure asking that it be forwarded to
some orchestra in Washington and asked for work
in transcribing Austrian music. 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 in
struments," his letter said, my sacred possess
sions from which only the grave should sepa-
rate, so 1 com 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 territory. Another letter, this one
from a postal employee in Vienna, gives tg-
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
. sick mother and an aged father dependent
upon his meagre salary, said it was hardly pos
sible for him to purchase provisions for the
family of three, and that buying 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 loot
gear. Outworn and threadbare clothes must be
made to suffice.
Here are some of the current prices for ne
c~essities in Vienna, according to this letter: a
kilogram of fat, equal to 2 1-5 pounds, costs
300 crowns. normally worth about $50; a single
egg is valued at 20 crowns: the price of a kllo-
gram of meat ranges from 200 to ESQ 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 620 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 replaee, anu
nothing can ever square the accounts Tor the
hundreds of MANNED and blinded youths who
gave the best of life to halt the Hun. .
But today, though American business IS not
booming as it was at the hightide of war &C
tivity, though there is necessarily a tax burden
TO nav the cost of the war, the United States is
far better off than any one or the
principal belligerents in the struggle. Japans
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 foreign debt,
in addition to its internal obligations on war
bonds held by its subjects, is in such hnanclai
condition that appeals have come from London
to Washington asking that the British dept 10
the United States be forgiven. British states
deep in the whirlpool of after-the-war European
politics, only a few weeks ago announced plans
for great increases in the English navy 4 1ur-
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 SHAH be enforced. italy is suffering ire
mendous financial depression caused by its great
expenditures of wealth during the colossal
struggle.
But the plight of these nations is anything
hut dreary compared to the plight in which the
Central Powers now are. Germany, the leader
of the enemy nations IN the World War, Is moi
as badly off as the disintegrated part of the old
Austro-Hungarian empire. Austria itself Is
threatened with bankruptcy, but the worst thing
is the terrible aftermath facing every man, wom-
an and child-the lack of sufficient food to sus-
tain even subnormal life.
Weakened by hunger, thousands of the people
fall easy prey to disease, the starved bodies OF
the elderly and of children being particular tar
gets for e~pidemics. Despite the most heroic et-
forts of the American relief organizations and
other helping hands extended from nearly every
where, the situation is still an appalling one.