Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1923-10-11

that there is work for thousands of
helpers right there on the shore; to
know that the Japanese government
does not welcome outside aid of that
sort, that it even throws all sorts of
embarrassments around the navy
men who are at work, that it barely
tolerates the relief committee which
the foreigners here organized early
last week, all this sort of gives me
the willies. I've got EN- bad
Probably a lot OF It Is selfish.
This thing of being at the scene of
the biggest news story that has
broken since the war and yet of be-
ing unable to go near the shore and
see what is memorable-gee, amt it
fierce? | have tried various eXped-
tents. No success This morning a
crowd was going off on a small boat
and one Of the men offered me a
chance to go along Che himself be-
ing a former resident of this city
whose home has gone fluey) but
Mara had put in a decided protest
against my running into danger"
so, as there seemed to promise other
chances of going later in the day,
decided to stick and eat breakfast
and make my peace with her,-and
then the captain issued strict orders
that no passenger should leave this
boat Do you wonder that / feel
one great big damn" inside, one
which like the genii in the bottle
can hardly be kept stoppered? And
a millionaire on board here wanted
his private secretary to get ashore
to take some moving pictures of the
ruins-and he went for several
hours. One rather loves justice,
doesn't one? Yes'm, one does not.
We're getting our earsful Of stor
les from eye witnesses though, and
/ am feeling sort of waterlogged
with them. Refugees are crowdine
our ship and more coming all the
time-American, British, Czech,
Russian, polyglot groups dressed in
the most ludicrous of contributed
duds. One could get quite a laugh
out of it save for the pitiable condi-
ton of many, most, of these A
group just filed past here, sweaty
sun burned, grimy, the faces show
ing utter exhaustion. Women with
children, men both young and DID,
! business men, tourists, missionaries
though there are very few of the lat
| ter class. l have met only one, he
1 having covered several hundred
miles of nearby territory investigat-
ing the condition of their United
/ Brethren churches and now going
| with us to Kobe. He was in the Day
! ton flood and the Baltimore fire,
and he says that if you multiply
| those by twenty you can get some
| idea of the horrors here.
A woman is on board with a pre-
| cious-as gold month old puppy. She
was getting ready for dinner, but the
| dog unaccountably became whiny,
! frantic about something, so she de-
cided to take him for little walk.
While they were out in the park the
house collapsed and she would GER
| tainly have been killed. She escaped
from Russia recently with practical
, ly nothing; she escapes from here
with even less. But she values her
! pup rather highly.
a young Indian newspaperman
was in the third story of a Tokyo
/ restaurant when the crash came.
His dog had leaped in his lap, fuss
| ing a bit, and he started to repri-
m&nd it for bad manners when the
ceiling began to fall on him-so dog
and man (and kimono clad waitress)
| dropped under the table. When the
/ first shock ceased they stumbled
| downstairs, and he spent the next
! five days and nights gathering
copy" sleeping wherever he could
! find place. He's here now heading
for Kobe. | loaned him my Corona
/ so got to read his extraordinarily
graphic story of the disaster. Inci-
dentally | gained an interesting in
| teryiew from him on Ghandi-ism. I'm
sending it to p. H., and you may
read it some day.)
A Japanese who was standing il
front of one of Yokohama's biggest
| banks when the first shock came
says thar when it ended he was able
to see for blocks in every direction
without seeing more than three o
four walls standing-and this was
where the big foreign buildings of
brick and stone had stood.
And American who had been at