There is no work. The factories are closed because they have not raw material, coal, or petrol, because they have no markets.
And yet war taxes are falling with hideous pressure upon a people whose hands are empty, whose workshops are closed, whose fields are idle, whose cattle have been taken, or compulsorily purchased without value received.
In Belgium itself the misery of the populace is greater than the misery of the Belgian fugitives in other countries, such as Holland, where there have come since the fall of Liege one and a half million of fugitives. To gauge what that misery in Belgium is, think of what even the fugitives suffer. I have seen in a room without fire, the walls damp, the floor without covering, not even straw, a family of nine women and eight children, one on an improvised bunk seriously ill. Their home in Belgium was leveled with the ground, the father killed in battle.
Their food is coffee and bread for breakfast, potatoes for dinner, with salt--and in having the salt they were lucky--bread and coffee for supper. Insufficiently clothed, there by the North Sea, they watched the bleak hours pa.s.s, with nothing to do except cling together in a vain attempt to keep warm.
Multiply this case by hundreds of thousands and you will have some hint of the people"s sufferings.
In a lighter on the River Maas at Rotterdam, without windows, without doors, with only an open hatchway from which a ladder descends, several hundred fugitives spend their nights and the best parts of their days in the iron hold, forever covered with moisture, leaky when rain comes, with the floor never dry, and pervasive with a perpetual smell like the smell of a cave which never gets the light of day. Here men, women, and children were huddled together in a promiscuous communion of misery, made infinitely more pathetic and heartrending because none complained.
At Rosendaal, at Scheveningen, Eysden, and Flushing, at a dozen other places, these ghastly things are repeated in one form or another.
Holland has sheltered hundreds of thousands, but she could not in a moment organize even adequate shelter, much less comforts.
In Bergen-op-Zoom, where I write these words, there have come since the fall of Antwerp 300,000 hungry marchers, with no resources except what they carry with them. This little town of 15,000 people did its best to meet the terrible pressure, and its citizens went without bread themselves to feed the refugees. How can a small munic.i.p.ality suddenly deal with so vast a catastrophe? Yet slowly some sort of order was organized out of chaos, and when the Government was able to establish refugee camps through the military the worst conditions were moderated, and now, in tents and in vans on a fortunately situated piece of land, over 3,000 people live, so far as comforts are concerned, like Kaffirs in Karoo or aborigines in a camp in the back blocks of Australia. The tents are crammed with people, and life is reduced to its barest elements. Straw, boards, and a few blankets and dishes for rations--that const.i.tutes the menage.
Children are born in the hugger mugger of such conditions, but the good Holland citizens see that the children are cared for and that the babies have milk. Devoted priests teach the children, and the value of military organization illuminates the whole panoply of misery. Yet the best of the refugee camps would seem to American citizens like the dark and dreadful life of an underworld, in which is neither work, purpose, nor opportunity. It is a sight repugnant to civilization.
The saddest, most heartrending thing I have ever seen has been the patience of every Belgian, whatever his state, I have met. Among the thousands of refugees I have seen in Holland, in the long stream that crossed the frontier at Maastricht and besieged the doors of the Belgian Consul while I was there, no man, no woman railed or declaimed against the horror of their situation. The pathos of lonely, staring, apathetic endurance is tragic beyond words. So grateful, so simply grateful, are they, every one, for whatever is done for them.
None of the Refugees Begs.
None begs, none asks for money, and yet on the faces of these frontier refugees I saw stark hunger, the weakness come of long weeks of famine.
One man, one fortunate man from Verviers, told me he could purchase as much as 2s. 8d. worth of food for himself, his wife, and child for a week.
Think of it, American citizens! Sixty-six cents" worth of food for a man, his wife, and child for a whole week, if he were permitted to purchase that much! Sixty-six cents! That is what an average American citizen pays for his dinner in his own home. He cannot get breakfast, he can only get half a breakfast, for that at the Waldorf or the Plaza in New York.
This man was only allowed to purchase that much food if he could, because if he purchased more he would be taking from some one else, and they were living on rations for the week which would represent the food of an ordinary man for a day. A rich man can have no more than a poor man. It is a democracy of famine.
There is enough food wasted in the average American household in one day to keep a Belgian for a fortnight in health and strength. They want in Belgium 300,000 tons of food a month. That is their normal requirement.
The American Relief Committee is asking for 8,000 tons a month, one-quarter of the normal requirements, one-half of a soldier"s rations for each Belgian. The American Committee needs $5,000,000 a month until next harvest. It is a huge sum, but it must be forthcoming.
Of all the great powers of the world the United States is the only one not at war or in peril of war. Of all the foremost nations of the world the United States is the only one that can save Belgium from starvation if she will. She was the only nation that Germany would allow a foothold for humanity"s and for Christ"s sake in Belgium. Such an opportunity, such responsibility, no nation ever had before in the history of the world. Spain and Italy join with her, but the initiative and resources and organization are hers.
Around Belgium is a ring of steel. Within that ring of steel are a disappearing and for ever disappearing population. Towns like Dendermonde, that were of 10,000 people, have now 4,000, and in Dendermonde 1,200 houses have fallen under the iron and fire of war.
Into that vast graveyard and camp of the desolate only the United States enters with an adequate and responsible organization upon the mission of humanity.
No such opportunity was ever given to a people, no such test ever came to a Christian people in all the records of time. Will the American Nation rise to the chance given to it to prove that its civilization is a real thing and that its acts measure up with its inherent and professed Christianity?
I am a profound believer in the great-heartedness of the United States, and there is not an American of German origin who ought not gladly and freely give to the relief of people who, unless the world feeds them, must be the remnant of a nation; and the world in this case is the United States. She can give most.
The price of one good meal a week for a family in an American home will keep a Belgian alive for a fortnight.
Probably the United States has 18,000,000 homes. How many of them will deny themselves a meal for martyred Belgium? The ma.s.s of the American people do not need to deny themselves anything to give to Belgium. The whole standard of living on the American Continent, in the United States and Canada, is so much higher than the European standard that if they lowered the scale by one-tenth just for one six months the Belgium problem would be solved.
I say to the American people that they cannot conceive what this strain upon the populations of Europe is at this moment, and, in the cruel grip of Winter, hundreds of thousands will agonize till death or relief comes. In Australia in drought times vast flocks of sheep go traveling with shepherds looking for food and water, and no flock ever comes back as it went forth. Not in flocks guided by shepherds, but lonely, hopeless units, the Belgian people take flight, looking for food and shelter, or remain paralyzed by the tragedy fallen upon them in their own land.
Their sufferings are majestic in simple heroism and uncomplaining endurance. So majestic in proportion ought the relief to be. The Belgian people are wards of the world. In the circ.u.mstances the Belgian people are special wards of the one great country that is secure in its peace and that by its natural instincts of human sympathy and love of freedom is best suited to do the work that should be done for Belgium. If every millionaire would give a thousand, if every man with $100 a month would give $10, the American Committee for the Relief of Belgium, with its splendid organization, its unrivaled efficiency, through which flows a tide of human sympathy, would be able to report at the end of the war that a small nation in misfortune had been saved from famine and despair by a great people far away, who had responded to the call, "Come over and help us!"
GILBERT PARKER.
A CORRECTION.
Under the head of "Russia"s "Little Brother,"" on Page 364 of this magazine history, in its issue of Dec. 26, 1914, appeared a statement taken from The New York Sun of Oct. 12, 1914, and attributed to George Bakhmeteff, Russian Amba.s.sador at Washington. Our attention has been called to the following editorial paragraph printed by The Sun on Oct.
14, embodying the Russian Amba.s.sador"s denial of its authenticity:
The Sun on Monday printed in good faith what it believed to be an authorized statement of the views and sentiments of Mr.
George Bakhmeteff, Russian Amba.s.sador to the United States.
Amba.s.sador Bakhmeteff telegraphs to us from Washington as follows:
"I most emphatically deny having spoken one single word to the reporter who published an interview with me in your paper. I have not even seen one, and must insist on your publishing this very categorical and direct statement."
Of course, we publish the Amba.s.sador"s denial not less in justice to our readers and to ourselves than to him, at the same time expressing our extreme regret that The Sun should have been led to believe that it was presenting the Russian case as viewed by Mr. Bakhmeteff with his full acquiescence.
We add our cordial regret to that of The Sun that this repudiated statement should have gained further circulation.--Editor.
[English Cartoon]
Certainly Not!
[Ill.u.s.tration: _--From The Sketch, London._
TURKEY, THE OFFICE BOY (to his master): Please, Sir, can I have a day off?]