Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-02-28
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
RACIAL HOUSING PROBLEM

RACIAL HOUSING PROBLEM
America is the great immigrant |
| nation of modern times, yet even
I Americans find it hard to conceive |
the sort of migration contemplated |
| by the announcement that the Rus-
] sian government is willing to throw !
| open to a large mass OF Armenians J
the fertile farming region of the Don
and Kuban rivers east of the Black
| and Azov seas" says a bulletin from
! the Washington, d. c., headquarters
of the National Geographic Society.
| "In times of our greatest foreign
influx immigrants filtered through
| our ports and attempts were made
| to assimilate them though some re-
gions almost choked in the process.
| "The racial map Of Russia is
| splotchy with such mass migrations
and the Kuban district might well
be called the king row of Russia's
| racial checkerboard. Geographically,
! the region in question is delimited by
the two seas and the two rivers men
toned on three sides and Ciscaucasia
on the east. It's population, however,
is bounded by the Circassians and
| the Georgians on the south, by the
Great Russians and the Don Cos
| sacks on the north, and the Kali
mucks on the east.
| Cowboys of the Caucasus
| "kuban, as the inter-river district
| is known, is inhabited by Cossacks
| who, aside from the manner of their
| coming, suggest two important feat
| ures of American development, the
| New England town meeting and the
rough rider days of our Far West.
| Catherine the Great deported the
| Dnieper Cossacks, or Zaporogians,
4 4. IL IL. 4.
and future wheatlands, and here
they at first strung along from the
Azov to the Caspian, as guardians of
the frontiers
| when an American automobile
manufacturer or :teel company ere
ates a city for it's employees, it fol-
lows the precedent of Catherine who
not only gave her fiercest fighters
great tracts of Russias richest soil
| but built them houses, stores and
! churches, forming the city which
| still bears her name, Ekaterinodar,
GATHERINGS gift
"These Zaporogians had a demo-
cratic custom in their old home
which they retained, for a time, in
their promised, and promising, land. |
Yearly at an assembly they elected |
from their number their hetnlan, or
back into the ranks with no more |
official status, and none of the pres |
tige, Of an American ex-president. |
Bear patiently, Cossack; you will |
one day be hetman' was a slogan of |
their discipline.
Inaugurated by Mud Singing
1.-THE Inauguration of the new het- |
man gave a premonition of what an |
ohiceholder in any democracy must |
be prepared to withstand--they pelt- |
ed him with mud, and rubbed mud |
into his beard!
''It is the marvellous horsemanship |
Of the Kuban Cossacks of old which |
brings to mind their likeness, in this |
particular, to the plainsmen of our |
own frontier days. The CO sacks of |
Russia, the gauchos of the Pampas, |
and the cowboys of the plains, are |
the favorite rough riders of the |
world.
Treatment of their babies in the |
days along the Dnieper attested the |
Spartan qualities of these Zaporogian |
| mothers, and assured the sturdy
| quality of the race which held fast
| against the Tatar and M slem I'M
pacts. Upon birth baby either was
plunged into the cnow, or ducked
| IlllO eL oOluliCLl VI GdlL du0 HdlCls
Naturally only the fit survived. These
Cossacks also might claim to have
applied an early form of aptitude, if
| not intelligence, test. Almost as soon
as a baby could walk he was taught
to ride and, at a tender age, he had
to cross a swift-fiowing stream on
horseback. The wedding out of the
inept, and their disposition, were
simultaneous.
There was no moron problem IN
Kuban.
How Fighter Turned Farmer
Before 1914 you could have seen
| the old-time Cossack in all his glory
as member of the Imperial Guard to
| the Tsar Then, as now. had you
| looked for him in the kuban you
would have found him casting a fish
net or tilling his fields. If, indeed.
his sturdy wife was not performing
| the latter task.
BLACK earth and family increase
quelled him as the Turk and Tatar
could not. + years after he
changed rivers, I'm the Dnleper to
the Don, agriculture wa punishable
by death.
after Kerensky fell Kornilov en-
| rolled few thousand I~uban volun-
| teers to fight the Bolshevist army.
| Hope ran high that the Don Cos
| sacks, north Of the river, would join
| this nucleus and become the 'saviors
| of Russia Farmer Cossacks hesi-
tated about reverting to Fighting
ICossackS.' Kaledin was so distressed
that he killed himself.
when the Cossack laid down his
sword for the ploughshare he got
| the latest American model of the
| latter. Up-to-date implements of all
kinds were used in the Kuban fields: