Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1922-06-23
$50 Americans
Feed Millions In
Snite Of Handicaps

New York, June 22.-How band
of $50 Americans is able 10 dlrect
the feeding of nearly 10.000,00o starry
ing Russians is depicted in adVlces
received from Moscow by the Ameri-
can Relief Administration.
The organization is similar to the
Army supply system. Headquarters
are in Moscow, which corresponds
geographically to Chicago. Ten d.
visions, executive, administrative.
supply, traffic, liaison, communica-
tions, medical, finance, motor trans
port, and special investigation, oprr-
ate from this point, Al Americans
comprising the staffs.
The entire American personnel is
distributed into II districts, each dis
trict, save four railroad centers, being
in charge of supervisor responsible
to headquarters at Moscow. These
groups serve an area of nearly 4,000,-
900 square miles, larger than the
United States.
Districts adjacent to the Nolga VAL
ley, the heart of the famine region,
receive the greatest attention. From
kazan, the seat of the government
of the Tartar Republic, south to
Astrakhan at the mouth of the river
on the Caspian Sea, every rail head
on the NolSa is manned by American
units. Here 80 men supervise the
feeding of more than 100000 people.
In the Ukraine and the Crimea,
the five strategic points of kiev.
khartov, Odessa, Ekaterinoslav and
Theodosia are the bases of supplies
from which 81 Americans direct
child-feeding and food remittance
deliveries.
Refugee kitchens and stations for
food remittance are operating at
Nitebsk Minsk and Gomel, providing
for the district west of Moscow to the
Polish border. Beyond the famine
zone on the upper Nolga, Americans
are in charge of transfer warehouses
at two points, and also at two inter
mediate points between Moscow and
the Nolga. Corn is shipped directly
through these centers for transship-
ment to famine ccnters.
Thus every thickly- populated CEN
ter of Russia is covered. Moscow
and Petrograd have independent su-
pervlsion of child feeding and food
remittance. In each about $4,000
children are fed.
This gigantic task is being accom-
pllshed in a land-where kilograms
take two or three days in transmits
SOMEWHERE messages must be trans
lated, transmitted. then re-translated
TO Engllsh-vhere, through misun-
derstandngs in punctuation, mes
sages like this are received. cars
numbered 60132S709134Ss9 NPX have
left today for Samara"-Nhere one is
ADVISED to take train on Tuesday
and therefore prepares to go to the
station along about the following
Thursday-Vhere journeys of ordi-
nary length, thousand miles or so,
are spoken of as five or six days
away" (The Twentieth Century
Limited does it in Il hours)-where
the traveller covering 1000 miles
must cook his own food and wash
his own clothes while he rides.
Yet, with such handicaps. the Ad-
ministration has succeeded in moving
nearly 100000 tons of corn from sea-
ports to interior districts, in shipping
daily 5000 tons of food from Moscow;
in sending out $500 food packages
daily to the districts; and in equip
ping 1,4U0 hospitals with all the
necessities of such institutions in
Guiding 100000 sheets and an equal
number of blankets.