The evening world. Newspaper, July 17, 1922, Page 18

“written purely for propaganda pur- 2 Seeders anton ie * + How American Food Relieved the Suffering of Millions of Helpless and Dying Children Soviet Officials and People Show- ered Thanks on America for Its Splendid Work : HIS is a semi-official, unvarnished, truthful story of the famine conditions in Russia—first hand—written by a man who from September of last year to May of this gave his entire time and effort to feeding the starving children of the dis- trict of Samara, as supervisor for the American Relief Adminis- tration. What he writes in the series of articles beginning to-day is what he actually saw or what came to him in reports from his feiiow relief workers. From the bare record of starvation to the shocking reports of cannibalism that in some places followed in its train, the story is based upon official facts. The writer of the articles is an American. He is the son of the late Gov. Shafroth of Colorado, a graduate of the Universities of Michigan and California. He served during the war with the 78th Field «Artillery. He was a member of the American Relief Administration in Poland and was chosen to head the work in the Samara district. Article I. ministration in Poland. On account of the foreseen amelioration of conditions there, due to the general economic re- ay construction of the’country and the WINE MONTHS IN THE RUSSIAN) -cct of @ good crop that fall, w FAMINE AREA. were in the process of cutting down By Will Shafroth our feeding programme in Poland District Supervisor American Relief Administration in the District of Samara from Sept. 15, 1921, to May 15, 1928. Copyright, 19 by ‘Pre from 1,800,000 children, where !t had] tr: stood during the winter, to 500,000, which number we proposed to feed until Sept. 1. When the telegram came calling me to Russia, I was in picturesque Cra- cow, the oldest large city of Europe, sometimes called ‘“The Gateway to the ‘West,"’ where back in the dark ages a last stand had been made against the savage Tartar tribes from the Steppes. That day I drove 140 miles by motor, reaching Warsaw at night, and two days later was on my way to Berlin. My father and mother werp travelling in Europe and a cable from mé reached them in Switzerland and brought them to Berlin, where we spent several days together before I left for Riga. THE SOVIET’'S BARGAIN FOR RELIEF. Arriving in Riga I found that the agreement, which was later to become our Bible in dealing with the Soviet Government, had been signed by Mr. Walter Lyman Brown, Director for Europe for the American Relief Ad- ministration, and Max Litvinoff, ‘for the Russian Soviet Federated Social ist Republic, on Aug. 20, 1921. In return for our agreement to feed up to a million Russian children, re- gardless of race, religion or political filiations, the Soviet Government ad agreed: First,- to release all American citizens detained as pris- oners in Russia, to give us absolute control of the distribution of our food, to give freedom to our personnel to (New York Evening World), Publishing Company. UCH has been written about M Russia since the revolution, and especially since August last year, when the Soviet Govern- ment first gave permission for cer- tain representative American news- paper correspondents to go into that country. Some of this has been poses and a great deal to justify the previously conceived ideas of writers who spent only a few weeks in Rus- sia, and most of that time in Moscow itself. It is not my desire or intention here to draw any political or eco- nomic conclusions. I lived for nine months in the City of Samara, in the heart of the famine region on the Volga River, acting as local head of the American Relief Administration there. 1 simply wish to give a pic- ture of conditions as I saw them from Sept. 1 last year, when the greatest famine of all modern history began to show itself and to exact its awful tell of death, until the middle of last May, when it was met and effectively broken by the arrival of the corn which was sent by the American Na- tion to the starving Russian people. We organized at Sam a relief action, beginning in a small way and culminating in the feeding of more than a million people daily. My ex- perience with the famine and the or- ganization of relief work to combat it, has all been in the State of Samara or Samara Gubernia as it is called, but the sights which I saw, the ex- periences I had and the obstacles which we, had to overcome in the setting up of our organization there are more or less typical of the ex- periences of the American Rellef Ad- ministration officials in the seven , other famine- stricken states in the ' Volga Valley and east of it, and in the Ukraine and the Crimea. ONLY BLANK S8TARVATION AHEAD. A @Gescription of the famine con- @itions themselves in Samara will ome in a later part of this series, but it is enough to say here that from the moment of my arrival in | the famine area it was easy to seo ‘that foodstocks were almost com- pletely exhausted and that there was enly blank starvation ahead of a large majority of the population. Reports as to the seriousness of the situation had been conservative rather than exaggerated. There was no doubt of the existence of stark famine all over , this area, and there is equally no doubt that at the time I left there this famine had been checked. There has beep no diminution but rather a constant increase in the need for foodstuffs, because for monthe past there has been practically no native food in these regions of Russia, and the fact thet the famine d @olely to the importation of American supplies. Should the @etribution of these supplies be discontinued to-day, the Russian peasants of the Volga would di: by hundreds of thousands before the harvest comes in September. In August, 1921, I was a “Baby Feeder’’ with tae American Relief Ad ‘ ' ce the American people”— their parents, “Parting from you, vice. “Always cheerful, of helping the people. toward others, you were always HE kindness and charity of Americans saved count- less thousands of lives, "and the memory of this act will forever remain in the hearts and minds of the Russian people. As you, Mr. Shafroth, leave our country, we, the citizens and coming citizens of Samara, tell you of the glorifica- tion and admiration of the work of your organization and pray that you will convey our sincerest thanks to From a note accompanying a gift of flowers to Mr. @hafroth from the children of one feeding station and we must tell you that working with us you have won our deep sympathy and devotion by your gentie, unaffected and senat- tive attitude toward all in the ser- you, with your untiring energy and the desire to bring help to all who are in need, inspired courage and love for the work, making it easy to overcome alt difficulties in fulfilling the business “Stern with yourself but indulgent welcome visitor in the kitchens, since “Tree: THE EVENING WORLD, MONDAY, JULY 17, 1922. r ~The fact “Story 0 yf the Russian Famine mine From Associated Press Interview in London With Mr. Shafroth “The famine in Russia is un- equalled even by the dreadful famines of India, China or any other in history. In some dis- tricts the people have gone se- cretly at night to the warehouses where dead hodies were stored and have carried off these ca- davers and used them for food.”’ ———$$—$—_——. travel without of, and through Russia, to allow us to use our own discretion as to where and whom we should feed, to give us the necessary warehouses, transporta- tion and quathers for personnel free of cost, and had agreed to pay the over- head expenses of our Russian offices, personnel, &c. The able construction and clear wording of this document many times since have kept us from coming to an impasse with the Soviet authorities: I was surprised to find Riga such a large and modern town, Before the revolution it was the fifth largest city in Russia, and the population last fall was over 200,000. The buildings are substantially built of stone, with beau- tiful parks and drives, and the Baltic is not far, with several attractive sea- shore resorts within twenty miles of the city. There were many attractive stores, filled principally with German goods, and the low rate of exchange brought them to the same cheap price level as Americans were finding at that time in Poland, Austria and other European countries. The American Relief Administra- tion was already well known and es- tablished in Riga, for we had been feeding some 200,000 children in the Baltic States since the Armistice, and the Latvian authorities co-operated most heartily in arranging for our meetings and discussions with the Soviet authorities, as well as later of- fering every facility for the movement of our foodstuffs through that coun- y. THE TRIP FROM RIGA TO THE INTERIOR. My opportunities for sightseeing were less than those for becoming ac- quainted with the stores in Riga, however, as I was assigned to the duty of getting together the food sup- plies for our advance party, which pushed off from Riga at 10 o'clock on Thursday night, Aug. 25. Our group was made up of Philip H. Car- roll of Hood River, Ore., formerly, Chief of the American Rellef Admin- istration Mission in Serbia and later of the American Rellef Administra- tion Mission in Hamburg; John P. Gregg of Portland, Ore., formerly, ke myself, with the Polish Mission; Van Arsdale Turner, of Port Deposit, Md.; John A. Lehrs, Columba P. Murray, Washington, D. C., and Harry J. Fink of New York City. The Latvian authorities had fur- nished us with @ salon car, a wagon- lit, @ baggage car for our parapher- nalia and food supplies, and a flat car for the Ford and the Cadillac we were taking with us. After Itaving Riga at 10 at night we arrived at Sebec on the new Rus- sian frontier at 1.30 the next after- noon, and stayed there four hours, doing nothing in the customary busy Slav fashion, although our papers from the Letts and from the Soviet, Mission in Riga had exempted us from Customs exemination. Three more hours were consumed rather more speedily when we moved our watches “We have been feeding more than 10,000,000 Russians and we have revived the spiritual and moral life of untold numbers. Instead of 10,000,000 crosses or mounds of earth we can point to 10,000,000 living and = grateful hearts as evidence of America’s « effort.” interference into, oute “A distracted mother of five children killed the youngest in order to appease the hunger of the rest of the flock; but the oldest boy cried bitterly when he saw bh mother sever his little brother's head and place tho hody in a pot. He refused to eat the flesh.” “The melting snow disclosed thousand of bodies strewn ov the fields and along roadways. It was impossible to bury all these, so they were placed in warehouses like logs of kindling wood.”” ce os Bae a tes 4 bh SAMARA TEADGOARTERS AMERICAN RELIEF AOMINIS TRATION. ed saving to the last degree. While at the border we ran into a returning delegate from some organi- zation in America, just leaving Russia after a four months’ stay. We were vastly interested in his impressions of Russia, but his thoughts seemed to centre around the beefsteak dinner which he was going to get at Riga, and although he hoped to arrive there early in the morning, it was apparent from his conversation that he did not intend to wait for conventional meal- times in order to start eating. Here we also met the first of three or four réfugee trains which we saw before reaching Moscow. It consisted of up to Soviet time, which is daylight-]twenty or thirty freight cars in which Grateful Russia’s Thanks to many ragged and half-starved people were living. They had been in these rolling homes for a month and a half, having come all the way from Turke- stan on the way to Latvia, for they were Letts just being repatriated. Moving on, the country through which we passed was flat and unin- teresting. There seemed a great deal of ‘uncultivated land and we often passed large tracts of timber. The peasants seemed a little more ragged than I had grown accustomed to n Poland, and soldiers were to be seen at every station, dressed in a nonde- script and very unkempt-looking uni- form. Most of them had on the peaked aviator's helmet type of hat, the Author of These Articles oe EPR ABREL, « 4" ILLUMINATED COVER OF ADDRESS PRESENTED TO MR. SHAFROTH BY RUSSIAN EMPLOYEES OF THE AMERICAN RELIEF ADMINISTRATION. severe in judging your you were such an exemplar of the kindliness and gentleness becoming a chief. “Farewell! Please carry with you the kindest remembrances of us.” —From an address from the Inspec- tors’ Office, signed by 109 workers, “From the very beginning your in- terest and humane concern toward the victims of a famine unparalleled in Russian Mstory were as if these starving people had Deen your own countrymen, “Your untiring energy, talent for organizing, penetration and firm will led the ship of ‘Salvation from Death’ to a safe harbor. “sternly aloof from politics, you held the American standard of or ganization higher, awaking in the masses the realization of the great re- lief given by the American Nation to the Russian people in this year of, misfortune. “We hope, in remembering the time passed in Russia, you will not be too Russtan co- workers, You know the conditions of life and our feelings in the last few years. As a sensitive person you will understand our fatigue and weart- ness, which have considerably dimin- ished our ability for work.” —From an address signed by 144 Russian employees of the American Relief Administration at Semara. “There is a whole vast forest in the Samara region where the bark has been stripped from all the trees and eaten by the fam ine sufferers. The Soviet authori ties are alarmed about losing the trees, but they don't seem espe- cially exercised over saving the people.” IVOLOGDA Mr. Shafroth said thet doge and cats were almost extinct im Russia because of their continued tse as food. The new generation of rats had developed remarkable elusiveness an? were much more oult io eateh than their pro- genitors because of being c¢on- stantly hunted. Wk SHAF ROTH NUNI A : iil i si By ‘ge i CRIMEA FEANUNe ASTRAKTAN RUSSIA Net Crop of Food Grair per Person of Rralopulation sccoraing io The Central Statistical mee i 2 9 GRRE cropiess nan seed feeds Oe Sch, fmm 161 - 360 HT : |) 506 - 738 = [7] 759 and ove MAP OF ROSSIA PREPARED 1 os Ga AMERICAN REVIEF ADMINISTRATION: with tucked up ear-flaps and bearing a large red star over the visor, the design of which rumor has attributed to Trotzky. There were few cattle to be seen and the people in the fields were al- most all women. Out of a dozen fac- tory chimneys seen between Riga and Moscow, only one showed signs of activity in the factory below. At every station where we stopped there were fruit, bread and vegetables on sale. MEETING WITH SOVIET OFFI- CIALS. We arrived at the Riga station in Moscow about 6 o'clock on Saturday night, and were met by two repre- sentatives from the Foreign Office, both wearing the red five-pointed star of the Soviet Republic. They were Mr, Volodon, from the Foreign Office, formerly of New York City, and Mme. Ivamovna, a fine looking girl who could speak no English, repre- senting Mr Krameneff, President of the All-Russian Famine Committee. They informed us that there was not suffictent accommodation prepared for all of us, but that they would take care of three of our party for the night. Mr. Carroll replied that we would all stay on the train until per- manent quarters were secured for all of us, which we were told would be on Monday, and our first interview was at an end. The next day being Sunday wo started out to see Moscow. It was the most depressing sight I had met thus far, It had the appearance of having been evacuated by all the normal city dwellers and filled again by peasants from the surrounding country, with no ideas of cleanliness or sanitation. The old Moscow had been a city in which the modern note was still strug- gling with the Tartar influences of old, and new buildings on Western lines were rubbing shoulders with the mosques, the Greck churches and the Byzantine architecture of the Hast. But, as I saw it with Its dirty streets, its boarded-up shops, its ragged buildings, and its peasant Inhabitants, it seemed to have started back on the out in an old and dilapidated R drosky or carriage. We made a con- tract to be taken as far as the Bolshoi Teatre or Opera House and_ back, about two miles and a half each way, for 60,000 roubles, the equivalent of $1.75 1n our money. There were a number of people on the streets, but we had gone half a mile before I saw any one with anything as pre- tentious as a white collar. Most often the women were typical peasant types, with shawls or just plain white linen scarves over their heads, slippers or sandals on their feet and little half socks which failed to reach the bottoms of their fairly long and often brightly colored dresses, Some few wore boots and some were barefooted. Practically all had the heavy unintelligent features of the peasant type. The men wore the most nondescript outfits it is pos- sible to imagine, and among them the military note was the most prevalent Not that they wore any definite kinds of uniform, most of them; but one would have a coat with a mil another would have on breeche: puttees and‘a third would be we a soldier's The troops of the Red Army were everywhere, with uniforms as widely orted as those of the enemies against whom they had fought during the last three years. Until we ved near the centre of the town the buildings were mostly one and two-story affairs of brick and plaster, and a taller apartment house or a row of wooden houses. ONE STORE IN FIFTEEN WAS OPEN. Sauatted along the sidewalk, five or six in every block, were old women and little children with small basket- fuls of apples, pears or plums for sale and their faces seemed to wear the same hopeless expression ag the run- down buildings on every side, Even vhen we reached the heart of tho “City of the White Walls," as Mos- cow is sometimes called, we found very few shops, On Kusnetskt Most, which used to be one of the main road to the semi-clyilization of the Middle Ages. ‘At about 6 o'clock In the afternoon —with their daylight saving 6 o'clock in atill afternoon—two of us started shopping streets, only about one store In every ten or fifteen was open Of these, flower stores and barber shops, strangely enough, seemed to predominate, but we also saw a few millinery stores, one toy shop, one jeweller's establishment and a sprink- ling of other miscellaneous traders and merchants. Of course most of the trading is done in the markets, where practically anything can be bought or sold. These are bi. open places such as our own vegetable and meat mar- kets used to be, sometimes occupying two or three city blocks. ‘The streets themselves were dirty and unrepaired. Buildings which had een burned remained as they were the day after the fire, and everywhere were the signs of decay resulting from negleet. well-dre: Occasionally there were sed people to be seen, but they always excited curiosity and comment. We Americans, obviously foreigners, were even more an object of interest to the population than they were to us. We passed more than a dozen aytomobiles on our wa and numbers of people, evidently na- tives, riding in droskies.. Where they t the maney I don’t know, as sal- aries were very low. For instance, the porter in a hotel, in addition to his daily ration of a pound of black bread, a small amourit of sugar and some vegetables, received only 1,000 roubles 4 month—this when a daily newspaper cost 500 roubles a copy Among the traders who stood on the street were some who sold sugar, I saw some of these carrying a little board on which were set out, as though they were rare jewels, a dozen and a half to two dozen little blocks of lump sugar, and each of these cost a thousand roubles, The regular price for sugar was 50,000 roubles for a Russian pound, nine-tenths of an English pound. With the official rate of exchange at 34,000.roubles to the dollar, it seemed a very costly luxury. On returning to the station and de. barking from our ‘‘sea-going hacks’ our cocher held out for a ratse, as he had gone further than he had con- tracted for, We ended up by giving him 80,000, a whole pocketful of pa- per, and returned to our car after a most depressing ride, It was impos- sible not to feel Intensely sorry for the people who had to live under these conditions, (In the next artlele Mr, Bhafroth Masousses conditions in Kazan and the Vartar Sovlet Republic.) a ‘ 6