The Red Cross in Peace and War

by Clara Barton

Sitting at the hotel table Count George told how his conscience would protest against a good dinner after he had returned from his investigating tours in the famine district to learn the situation, as a member of the Grand Duke’s Committee, for, “the ruble spent for wine and coffee would keep a peasant child or mother a whole month.” But he says when he got back to St. Petersburg a few days away from the distressing scenes, his mind occupied with other business, it did not trouble him at all to eat a good full meal just as he had done before.

On another hand to show how suffering continues in any place from lack of competent oversight this incident will show.

When going over the ground to see how the relief work had been done for his committee, he came to a village that was in a very bad condition. Many sick and dying for want of food, he asked the Zemstov if a kitchen could not be established. The reply was no; there was no one to manage it. “But,” he said, “you have a school here; the teacher can take charge of the kitchen.” “No; he is not capable; he is too slow and of no account, and we intend to get rid of him as soon as we can get someone to take his place. There is not a person in the village that could conduct a kitchen.” The count in his rounds came to the school house and found, as he had been told, that the school-master did look miserable enough in an old, worn and even ragged coat, and learned that he had not received his wages for some months; there was no money to pay him. His roll showed a list of sixty pupils; there were but fifteen present. When asked where the others were, he replied that it was so near the holiday time—only ten days—that he had let them go home. The count turned to one of the boys and asked if he had had anything to eat to-day, expecting him to say no; but he said yes; “he had a warm soup this morning.” The same question to the second boy, with the same reply; and so on with all the fifteen. When asked where they got their soup, they said the master had given it to them, and had been doing so for some weeks.

The master stood in the corner with his face very red, looking very much ashamed. It was then learned that when the school-master found his pupils coming to school without food, he began to use the savings he had laid by, to feed them, until his purse would not allow him to continue with so large a number; and he had let all but the fifteen go, and he was feeding and teaching them from the savings of other years. The count said he could not pay him his wages due, but he furnished the village with the means for a soup kitchen, and the master was put in charge and conducted it in such a manner that no one thought of his being an incompetent manager.

The shipping of the cargo of corn in the “Tynehead” to the Baltic in a voyage of twenty-eight days and its distribution through Russia answers a number of questions that were raised when the proposition to send corn to Russia was contemplated. These questionings came from business men, shippers, boards of trade, the produce exchange and philanthropists, and by some it was stoutly asserted that corn could not bear ocean transportation that distance without spoiling.

And if it should pass without spoiling, it was affirmed they had no mills to grind it in Russia, that the peasant knew nothing about corn, that they could not change their habit of living, and therefore would be unable to make use of it, if received. One of the leading business men of the country went so far as to write that we might as well ship a cargo of pebbles as a cargo of unground corn. Hence there was a degree of satisfaction to see the entire cargo, with the exception of a small quantity referred to loaded in the rain, come out of the ship in as good condition as when it was put in the hold, and to find in our journey in the interior that the peasants even needed no suggestion about grinding it in their windmills, which were amply sufficient.

But when the little corn that had heated was sent to Samara with the suggestion that it be used to feed the cattle, with four additional days in the hot state in the cars, and this was still used by the peasants and called good, it removed any doubt that might be forced into one’s mind that a starving peasant would die rather than eat a food that he was not accustomed to.

Referring back to St. Petersburg, after our list had been made up for the general distribution of the cargo, Mr. Hilton carefully went over it and said, from his personal knowledge of the people to whom the consignments were to be made, he would be willing to personally guarantee that 80 per cent of everything sent according to the list would be honestly and faithfully distributed, just as the donors wished, and he further believed that the remaining 20 per cent would be as faithfully handled.

My trip to the various places of distribution, widely separated and at unexpected times, confirmed Mr. Hilton’s belief that the entire cargo could not have gone through better hands in any land.

To be able, after such observations and inquiries, to give this report is a satisfaction that repays for all the anxious care and responsibility naturally felt with such a charge.