XI.
FOOD, CLOTHING AND SHELTER.
As all the world knows, the food situation in Russia at present is exceedingly bad. A great famine has come upon the country. Throughout the Volga Valley, ordinarily one of the banner grain growing sections, the crops have failed almost completely. The unprecedented drought literally burned them up. And what little the dry weather did not ruin were devoured by the myriads of locusts that descendd upon the land. The district affected stretches almost from the Caucasus to the Ural mountains and encompasses a territory about as large as France, Germany, and Spain put together.
At least 20,000,000 people are faced by actual starvation. Great armies of them are wandering away from their homes to more favored localities, often dying by the road. Multitudes are living upon roots, herbs, and all sorts of impossible things containing even a trace of nourishment. Where the peasants have not eaten their work animals they are feeding them the straw from the thatched roofs of their houses in a desperate effort to save them. Thousands of parents have abandoned their children to the Government in the belief that it will find food for them somehow, while they themselves wander off to they know not what fate. Grim cholera is raising its head and wiping out great numbers of the famine-stricken. Altogether it is a desperate situation and one which Russia cannot conquer alone. The assistance of the civilized world is necessary. If it is not forthcoming the famine will surely develop into one of the greatest calamities of modern times. Plagues, always the companion of famine, will sweep over Europe, probably destroying millions.
An unfortunate feature of the situation is that the food question in Russia was already acute before this famine developed. There were little or no food reserves on hand to meet such a crisis. This shortage was caused by the general breakdown of industry, which reacted unfavorably upon agriculture, and especially because of
73
