The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1922-03-21


heaps of frozen corpses, some attack
ed by starved dogs, sickness, dirt and
cold in the Nolga valley are described
to Secretary Hoover in nightmare
picture OF the famine districts of soviet
Russia drawn by DR.. Thomas Dick
inson, OF the American relief admins
tration, in a special report on condi-
tions there.
DIR. Dickinson made months tour
of the Volga valley and the foothills
of the Urals, travelling 1000 miles by
rail, auto and sledge, inspecting $50
villages on the snow covered steppes.
In his report to Mr.. Hoover DIR. Dick
inson gave the bare and gruesome de-
tails of his observations.
Losses from famine in soviet Rus
sia" he said, come under the heads
of emigration, disease and death. En-
igration from the villages now rises to
about 80 per cent. Houses are desert
ed, not a dog, cat or pig left, with
windows. Smoke comes from the
chimneys of not more than half the
houses. Travelling on the roads one
comes across pathetic caravans, faith
Ter, mother, grandparents and samo-
var. When camel or horse falls sick
they leave him to die on the open
plain SICK persons sit on top of the
sledges and are taken to town to die.
ION sidings everywhere, from Po-
! land to the Urals, are freight cars
crowded with refugees. The govern
ment has not the locomotives to carry
them, so they are waiting.
Disease is general. Swollen bellies
of children are so common as to no
! longer excite remark. The character
istic expression of childhood in Russia
is that of person sore at life | have
learned to dread going into a room
full of children. They all look up at
me accusingly, bitterly, as if l had
done it. They are born with resent
ment i'll their hearts. a
Diseases are we'll distributed be-
tween summer and winter Last sum-
mer cholera: this winter, typhus..
! Russia lost 100000 dead of typhus
in 1919. One city of 100000 lost AS,
000 This year will be as bad.
Bury Dead in Heaps.
$50 many are already dying that
they are burying them in wagon LOADS.
They take off the clothes of the dead,
throw them into boxes, put snow on
the bodies to freeze them, then trans
port them in piles to the cemeteries.
There, twice a week, they are thrown
into great holes, crosswise, packed
closely. Dogs have become a menace
and attack piles of bodies in droves
and dig into graves Dead children,
starved to death, are left outside in
open ways in piles, covered with rags
until they can be hauled away"
From his notes DIR. Dickinson de-
scribed burying ground near Sauna
ra, where the dead, gnawed by dogs,
were piled in frozen mounds until
! thrown into great excavations.
There were three great holes" he
lcontinued, 40 by 20 feet and 18 feet
deep. Around these were piles OF froz-
en-, naked bodies, men, women and
children who had died Of typhus and
| hunger. Dogs had been at some OF the
bodies and these were bloody. The
dogs were driven away, all terribly
Iemaciated and contorted into all shapes
OF grotesque agony.
an piles they were badly tangled
Iup and had to be released like stiff
puzzles. Dropped into the graves they
made noises like wooden things OF the
same weight and shape. They had
been men, women and children. About
4 so come every day"
Are Few Rail Lines.
! When relief agent starts to convoy
/ load OF food, DR.. Dickinson report
ed, he says goodby to his friends for
10 days. takes blankets and grub lives
lin a box car and takes his luck with
bugs and bandits" Transportation
the key to relief, he declared was al
/ most lost.
There are no rail lines except
crazy narrow-guage spurs set in some
/ time past by some special interest to
reach a town or a mining camp, he
said ITO get from Samara to Kazan,
400 versts, you have to go to Moscow
and back 1000 versts. Same with 9TH
er cities in the valley. | have seen
an American boy stagger in an Amer
lean relief administration local head
quarters after four days in box car
in which he had travelled 100 versts.
For north and south transporta-
ton there are no resources but sledges.
Under some conditions these can do
up 10 twenty versts a day. Roads dis
appear under drifts. Country takes on
appearance of the arctic without land
marks. Horses can drag their loads
only three days a week. A weeks pro-
VISION Tor a horse IS worth as much az
a horse. The result is starving people
who have horses are trading them for
grain"
Russian peasants, DR.. Dickinson re-
ported are living on bread made OF
anything that can be baked and eaten.
I'm late September and October
he said, peasants began to live on
llibeda, a weed that grows in the wheat
and is thrashed with the wheat, on
clay bread, dung bread, bread from
bark and leaves and sawdust, and sun
flower seed husks."
MORE BEAUXITE HAS BEEN
rnrrAIn TR pAhrnOT TaLI