Evening star., 1924-01-13

speaker who started the cheers yelled
out ''Heep, Heep, Heep-Ooray," with
the accent on the 100" and the cry was
for washington, George"
This celebration was held July /. 1t
was to celebrate the Fourth of July,
and Sunday, the 1st, was chosen be-
cause more Hungarians could assemble
that day. The place was In front of the
great bronze statue which the Hun
garians Of America have erected in the
most prominent place OF the central
park Of Budapest to show their appre-
citation Of their adopted country. Every
one here seems to like the United
States, and no greater tribute could be
given our nation than the thousands of
all classes who assembled that Sunday
about the statue Of Washington and in
the broiling midsummer sun stood for
more than an hour with barred heads,
while the speeches were made. Among
the speakers were the mayor of the
city. some of the leading statesmen and
our consul general, George Horton, who
did such noble rescue work while he
was in charge Of American affairs at
Smyrna when the Turks were burning
and sacking the city.
am surprised at the growth of
Budapest. At the time Of the world
war 1t had less than 100000. 1t has
now more than 100000 and is in
creaAing right along. Like all of the
capitals Of this part OF the world 1t has
had large aocessions on account OF the
changes In the boundaries. The Hun
gar1ans claim that they are prosecuted
In Rumania. Cxechoslovakia and Jugo-
slavia. and such OF them az wish to re-
tain their citizenship in the mother
country are fiocking back home. Many
who owned property that was once a
part Of the kingdom have been COM
PEELED to sell at low prices, and as q
result there are more than a hundreS
thousand refugees in Budapest. Thii
is ono Of the chief reasons for the
increase Of moro than three hundred
thousand In population within two or
three years. 1t causes also a great
lack of housing facilities, and the prices
Of apartments and rooms are steadily
rising.
Not only in Budapest, but In all the
cities of Hungary. times are exceedingly
hard. The currency here has been bob
bing UP and down like that Of Germany,
and today the actual value Of the crown
is something like fifteen thousand to the
dollar. although in order to maintain
something like stabilization, the govern
ment has passed a law that the value
OF the dollar is $500 crowns. If cash
my letter OF credit at the bank they
will give mo only $500 crowns for a
New York draft which is as good as
gold. If have the American money in
bank notes, I can sell 1t on the quiet
for $4,000 crowns, or almost twice as
much. As the result am using the
spare greenbacks which carry for
such emergencies The crown used to
be worth 20 cents. 1t now takes $50
crowns to equal / cent.
On this basis tho conditions Of clerks
and all classes Of the intsllectuals is
piuful. Thousands have lost all their
property, and many are starving. l
talked yesterday with a man in book
store, who told me he was getting
10000 crowns a month, an amount
which equals IS. The man was the
manager of the store. He spoke five
languages and conversed with me in
English about his travels In England,
Siberia and Egypt. University pro-
fessors here, and Budapest has large
universities and some of the ablest
scholars of Europe. are now getting
from four to seven dollars month.
Those who can tutor in addition to their
classes do we'll II they make fifteen or
twenty dollars in the course OF year,
SO that their total annual incomes are
in the neighborhood Of 500. The
teachers in the common schools receive
about s3 a month, and those in the
technical high schools and academies
but little more.
X u \ X
AM told that the war has greatly in
! creased the number of students in
the universities Hungary has four uni
versities, including one here at Buda-
pest which has more than 10000 stu
dents. 1t has school OF economics