, 1923-08-04
By W. HOWARD RAMSEY


The American Relief Administer
ton is withdrawing from Russia.
The famine is over. Colonel Haskell
and the little group of Americans
who were working with him are re-
turning to America. They come by
ones and twos, ~unheralded and unac-
claimed, as quietly as they went,
yet, If America realized their accom-
Plishments, flags would be flying,
bands blaring forth a welcome, and
delegations of the most prominent
citizens would be waiting at the pier
TO cheer their Homecoming.
And being plain, unassuming
Americans, unaccustomed to cere-
mony and heroics, the relief workers
would be tremendously embarrassed
by the ovation, and inquire quite Sc
riously, whats the big idea?
What's all the fuss about" and
some of them would probably add.
How are the chances Of getting a
1ob!" Just the same embarrassing
question that the boys in khaki were
asking in 1871
: For almost two years now a scart
two hundred Americans, on a battle
I'M far longer than the western
front, have been fighting a foe more
pftiless than any the allied armies
faced From the Baltic to the Cas-
pan Sea, from the Crimea to the
orals they have conquered the fam
Inc, saved lives than were lost
IN the World War, healed a sorely-
suffering people of the diseases which
threatened to sweep the wbola Of
Europe, won the benedictions of n
great, but stricken, nation, achieved
the worlds greatest adventure in hu-
manityl
And because It was an adventure.
IN which all America shared, it Is
but hitting that its accomplishment
should not pass uunoticed, that the
people by whose generosity the .grea
feet of ships was fitted out the
farmers whose grain filed their
holds, the vast body Of taxpayers. the
men whose contributions ran into five
or six figures, as well as those whose
means enabled them to give only les
ser sums, should know their gifts
were not given IN vain
No one of the returning ururkara
can ten the whole story, He NAV
give interesting details. aT was at
kazan when the corn arrived. The
peasants came from distant villages
to haul It back on sledges. Thew
had no horses. The ice In the river
Volga was breaking up. The roads
were terrible Some died before com
plotting the trip"
Or, Il was in Odessa when the
famine was Mt its height There
were bodies in the streets. People
were dying SO fast they could mot be
buried. The hospital Easements were
heaped with dead" Or. Il was at
Orenburg when the starved
were being hauled to the Cemetery
ike cordwood, stark-naked, frozen
bodies, and tossed into shallow
trenches, while dogs waited to tear
open the common graves"
But their stories will all have
about the same ending, I'VE opened
up u kitchens, got the supplies TO
the villages. NV district fed so
many hundred thousand children. Is
sued corn rations to so many hun
dred thousand adults, inoculated SO
many hundred thousand, restocked
lthe hospitals, provided food ft for
h patients, cleaned up the towns.
Tho starvation was checked. The
movement of tho refugees ended.
Cholera disappeared. Typhus de-
clined. Things + looking much bet
e there now"
The men who were at the head
quarters in Moscow, keeping tho ac-
counts, directing the movement of
the food and the medical supplies,
receiving and correIating the reports,
fighting the battles for t~ransporta-
ton, for adequate warehouses;, for
freight cars and locomotives, for
river barRes and sanitary trains, will
have a different story, it will not