Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-03-17
STARVING MILLIONS
VoIga Valley Presents a Nightmare
Picture.
HUNGRY DOGS SAVE MANY BURIALS
Distressing Tasks of American Relief
Workers Told in Letters-Typhus
Fever Victims Run Into the Millions.

/
Workers Told in Letters-Typhus
Fever Victims Run Into the Millions.
Tangled heaps of frozen bodies,
some attacked by starved dogs; sick
ness, dirt and cold in the Volga Valley
are described to Secretary Hoover in
a nightmare picture Of the famine dis
tricts of Soviet Russia drawn by DIR.
Thomas H. Dickinson Of the American
| Relief Administration in a special re-
port on conditions there, says Wash
| ington letter.
DIR. Dickinson made a months tour
of the Volga Valley and the foothills
of the Urals, travelling 1000 miles by
rail, automobile and sledge, inspecting
$50 villages on the snow covered step
pes. In his report to Mr.. Hoover, DR..
Dickinson gave the bare and gruesome
details of his observations.
Losses from famine in Soviet Rus
sia," he said, come under the heads
of emigration, disease and death.
Emigration from the villages. now
rises to about 80 per cent. Houses are
deserted, not q dog, cat or pig left,
with snow breaking through the roofs
and windows. Smoke comes from the
chimneys of not more than half the
homes. Travelling on the roads one
comes across pathetic caravans, faith
er, mother, grandparents and samovar.
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.
"On 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.
Disease is general. Swollen bellies
of children are SO common as to no
longer excite remark. The character
istic expression Of childhood in Rus
sia is that of a person sore at life
II have learned to dread going into
room full of children. They all look
at me accusingly, bitterly, as If had
done it. They are born with resent
ment in their hearts.
Diseases are well distributed be-
tween summer and winter. Last sum-
mer cholera, this winter typhus. Rus
sia lost 100000 dead of typhus in
1919. One city Of 100000 lost $4,000.
This year will be as bad. It
$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 cemetery.
There twice a week they are thrown
into great; holes, crosswise, packed
closely. Dogs have become o 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 DR.. Dickinson de-
scribed burying ground near Samara,
where the dead, gnawed by dogs, were
piled in frozen mounds until thrown
into great excavations.
There were three great holes" he
continued, "ten by twenty feet, and
eighteen feet deep. Around these were
piles Of frozen naked bodies, men wo-
men and children. who had died of ty-
phus and hunger. Dogs had been at
some Of the bodies and these were
bloody. The dogs were driven away
all terribly emaciated and contorted
into all shapes Of grotccque agony.
Bodies in Tangled Piles. -
CAS- one sees the lopsided houses OF
the Russian villages, the gnarled, skin
clad bones of the famine corpses, one
seizes the dominant motifs Of the new
Russian act. There was an unreality
about these corpses that made it seem
appropriate to discuss anything in
their presence, cabarets, soda water
futlrist verse.
IN pies tney Wele DthuiS IahSiSo oP'
and had to be released like stiff puz-
zles. Dropped into the graves they
made noises like wooden things of the
same weight and shape. They had
been men, women and children. About
fifty come every day."
The psychological factor of relief
work among these distressing condi-
tions, DR.. Dickinson declared, was
factor to be considered. AS rule, he
explained, the relief agents work alone
and the psychological effect of condi-
tions around them is worth as serious
consideration rs in Arctic exploration
or in jungle travel.