The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-01-14
BY RAY BLACK
BY United Press Stan Correspondent

Copyright. 1882. by United PressI
CHICAGO, Jan. 14-Disaster as
complete as from major food, fire
or earthquake confronts Chicago.
That is no exaggeration. Far
seeing officials have limited at the
possibility for months. They no
longer hint; they declare chaos is
inevitable unless the city can raise
money.
Starvation threatens more than
100000 men, women and children
The equivalent of the entire popu-
lation of Milwaukee. Charity has
been feeding them. Now relief funds
are dwindling, and no more are in
prospect.
More than $4,000 jobless walk the
streets. Not all have been on the
charity list. Some have borrowed.
Others have been supported by rela-
tives or friends. They, too, are al
most at the end of the rope.
Worst Outlook in History
Some 10000 Chicagoans, including
school teachers, policemen, firemen
and other city and county employees,
either are working without pay or
their pay checks are long overdue.
A Chicago newspaper carried in
italic type scattered through its news
columns today such warnings as:
PAY your taxes or there will be
no fire department"
PAY your taxes or there will be
no police department"
PAY your taxes or the county hos
pital will shut down" ~
PAY your taxes or the schools will
close"
PAY your taxes or the courts will
close"
In slogan-form, that is the pic
ture. Collapse of every agency for
protection of life, health and prop
erty, with hundreds of thousands
dying for lack of something to eat,
freezing from lack of fuel-such is
the prospect, the most dismal in
Chicago's history.
Fire Less Disastrous
There is no use denying that the
situation is desperate" said Edward
J.. Ryerson Jr.. president of the joint
emergency relief fund. Never has
Chicago had anything like the num-
Der of unemployed it has now.
"The Chicago fire was not as bad
In many ways as this situation, with
100000 persons on charity lists. Peo-
pie, rich and poor, have given until
they can hardly given any more.
The legislature holds the key to the
problem"
And the legislature, by voting
down the Kelly bill for revamping
the city's tax machinery early on
Wednesday, prolonged for no one
knows how long the anxiety of Chi
cago's 100000 inhabitants.
Fourteen relief stations, which
have been caring for $4,000 destitute
families, must close unless tax funds
are made available, Ryerson said.
The relief fund of $10500,000 that
the city raised among it's citizens
will not keep them open much
longer.
Lunch Fund Depleted
Suffering among the 100000 school
children threatens to become more
acute Immediately. Many of them
have been given free lunches at
school. In many cases, that was
their biggest meal of the day, since
larders at home we're nearly empty.
The advisory committee on school
lunches announces that its funds are
depleted. There may be drastic cuts
in the luncheon menus, or they may
have to be abolished in some schools.
Normal college students met in
a mass meeting this week to protest
against the board of education's ten
tative decision to close down the in
stitution for one year. Students
who have attended from one to three
years would be thrown on the streets
to augment the army of joblesS.
Patients in the municipal tuber-
culoSis sanitarium, aged and feeble
in home and institutions, mothers
on the pension list, all of them
helpless to help themselves, face the
gloomy prospect of being deprived
Of enough food to keep them alive
Those too i'll to realize what Chi
cago is up against perhaps are the
lucky ones.