The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-09-23
Government
BY FRANK G. CARPENTER

| anu OlLtH the ITdInGWOFk torn from i the windows. all the machinery talk en away, and the walls, once covered | with electrical appliances, steam pipes or asbestos. stripped as bare as a board? Can you imagine the floors torn up or great holes cut in them
 to facilitate the easy removal of the l machinery, and in some cases the
 walls blown out for that purpose |? You must add the absence of the Workmen. Let every foreman and hand In the rolling mills. glass works and other industrial establishments De wiped out, a labor army of | quarter of a million taken away.
 and all the other surroundings made as desolate, almost. as was Sodom when birthstone rained from the skies and Lot and his wife fled the city. If you can imagine all this, you may have a fair picture of the industrial Riga which lies ali around me.
 Destroyed Fly The Russians
 Ten years ago that city was as big
 as Pittsburg. It had about 500. 900 people and 1t manufactured for Rus sta. Situated on the Dvina river with deep water out to the Baltic, it was | the chief western port of the em- | pire, having about the same relation as that of Hamburg to Germany. It's excellent harbor made it a manufar- tuEng center. and it was the cheap ese place to handle the raw materials and save freight into the interior. The town had more than three hum dred factorieS. ranging in size from the Provodnik, which employed 20 900 hands, down to machine shops. These factories were practically ruined during / the war Many of
 them were battered to pieces but the walls of most were left standing, the machinery in whole or part being carried away. For instance, I went through textile mill today which, prior to the war, had 25,000 spindles and kept 10000 hands working two
 shifts day. It had three floors and
 its hundreds of windows blazed forth at night, while during the day it's white skoke-stacks could be seen far
 and wide over the country. When
 the World war began the Car, fear
 ing the Germans would take Rft<.
 so injured that they would be of no use to the invaders. The orders
 were that experts should go through
 the various establishments and dis
 able every bit of machinery. They
 took out nut here and cylinder there and shipped these parts off to
 Russia, crippling the mills so that none was able to run. This textile mill was so treated that every one of It's 25.000 spindles seems in per feet order. but they are dead as far 7s any active use is concerned, and this is so throughout the mill. l could see nothing wrong as I went Trough the plant The machinery is in place, the brass fittings are shining, everything is oiled and well cleaned. and the whole appears to have only stopped for the day and to be ready for running tomorrow. There are three floors of such machinery, every piece of which lacks the one or two parts needed to make it fit for spin ming and weaving. The lost parts are scattered over Russia and to make new ones will take special me- chanics with special tools for the purpose. The engineer who took me through the works told me it would take $40,00o to replace the parts missing. He said they were still
 hunting Russia for them, going from town to town and warehouse to
 warehouse In their efforts to trace them.
 The same conditions prevail in all Of the mills and factories. save that in some whole machines have been taken away and the buildings prac- tically ruined.
 Rising From the Ashes.
 Nevertheless, Riga is beginning to come back and some of the factories will soon resume operations LatVia is rising from the ashes, and Is now far better off than at the close of the war. It's people have always been famous as workers Their chemical, textile, and metallurgical industries were profitable. They not only paid their own government ex-
 penses before the revolutions. but contributed an annual surplus to the Russian treatsury. They showed their ability during the war when the farmers and peasants. led by the students. drove out the Germans and bClsheviks. Today the country Is slowly improving and It's money Is becoming stabilized. I drew S200 on my letter of credit the other day and received 50,000 rubles In exchange. The rate was 250 per dollar and I received notes of 500 rubles, the de- nomination being printed In Lettish, German and Russian. The value of the Latvian ruble Is advancing, the exports and imports are now almost balanced, and the republic is in a healthy condition.
 As to Riga, 1t will probably regain It's old place as commercial and manufacturing center. During the war it was ground between the upper and neither millstones of Russia and Germany. For three years it was hemmed in by two great armies, each bent on having the country as part of its political possessions. Germany had come from the south, goose stepping along with its machine guns gas cylinders. and other weap- ons of war. until 1t was at the' very gates of the city. At the asme time the bolshevil1s, who had held Riga for six months and stripped it bare, were in the eastern half of the coun- try, fighting the Let's at every step S they were being driven back into
 Russia. The Let's fought off the Germans and held their own with the Russians, although there were no goods in the stores and the people were practically starving. These conditions. continued until our relief ships brought in their American flour and gave them the first white bread they had had for years.
 The Riga of Today.
 Today there is plenty of food in Latvia. There is no hunger in Riga, and the city is again on the road to prosperity. It is one of the finest of all eastern Europe. Lying on sandy plane, nine miles from the great gulf into which one comes from the Baltic, with the wide Dvina river winding through it. it's towers and domes may be seen far out at sea and long before one comes in by rail. The city consists of the old town which hugs the right bank of the DVina. the St. Petersburg suburb with It's fashionable dwellings. the Moscow suburb where the Jews live, and the Mitau suburb on the left bank of the river. l am living in the old town, in a hotel facing the opera house and looking out on the wide park that runs through the city. The park has the place of the old walls of the Middle Ages The city was born several hundred years be- fore Columbus discovered America. It had an existence when Genghis Khan captured Peking. and 400 or 800 years before Shakespeare acted his plays for Queen Elizabeth. It has risen and fallen, passing through Nuar a ffar NN ar hnt a tha end if has