An infantry patrol. Warsaw
Three soldiers to guard each policeman. Warsaw
of Finland have been submerged much as the people of Poland have been, but with a very different effect. The population of Finland is rapidly decreasing. All of her young men are going abroad—to England, to America. Not so in Poland. In spite of an emigration to America of nearly 50,000 in one year, Poland’s population is on the increase. Poland’s young men stay—to fight, to starve, to suffer inquisitorial tortures in Russian prisons.
One striking example of the warfare waged in Poland against the Russian administration was the campaign of extermination inaugurated against the police of Warsaw while I was in the city. Thirty-four officers and one hundred and forty policemen were killed within a few weeks—all in broad daylight on the public streets. Twenty-seven were shot within three days. In the proletariat suburb of Wola there were, originally, thirty-seven policemen. Twenty-seven of these were shot to death and ten seriously wounded. The most extraordinary part of this unusual campaign is that not one culprit was caught.
In America the police would long ago have taken shelter from such deadly attacks. It is only natural that panic should possess the remaining members of the police force in Poland’s olden capital. Some did escape, but most found themselves in a veritable trap, from which they could not escape. Without a passport no traveler may find a place to rest his head at night in Russia—much less a refugee policeman. Without a passport the frontier looms like a great, impassable Chinese wall. A single man might escape by stealth in the night, but even policemen sometimes have scruples about deserting their wives and families. And so these unwilling martyrs continued their nerve-racking but senseless patrol of Warsaw streets. Senseless because troops possessed each avenue and alley. According to the most reliable estimates there were at least 75,000 troops quartered in the city at that time. In justice to the military it should be said that they did their utmost for the long suffering police, for each and every policeman who was then left had a military guard of three infantrymen. One of the grim humors of the revolution was to see an ordinary policeman going to his post of duty with two soldiers following at ten paces to the rear with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. Then, when he took up his position of duty in the center of the two intersecting streets, two soldiers remained at one corner and a third at an opposite corner. For this inglorious service the Russian government generously paid these luckless men six dollars a month!
This reign of terror directed against the police department was by no means the only evidence of turmoil and unrest in Warsaw. On every hand were indications of a terrible blight. Beggardom here was at its worst. Not beggardom as we know it, but infinitely worse. Public charities, private philanthropies, day nurseries, diet kitchens, and settlements are not known in Poland. The streets were literally lined with the lame, the halt, the blind, the sick, the starving. I was accosted by twenty odd during the course of a short walk from a boulevard café to my hotel one night. Once I came upon a woman who had sunk to the pavement from weariness—or hunger. She pressed a rude bundle under her shawl. A dwornik (janitor) was sternly though not unkindly bidding her rise up and move on. Her dress was in rags. Her feet were bare. The old gray shawl round her shoulders was the only trace of comfort. A passerby extended a hand and helped her to her feet. She staggered on and we saw that the bundle she held was a very young baby, and as the electric light fell upon her face we realized her youth. Seventeen, perhaps, or eighteen at most. This at past eleven o’clock. At that moment from the café on the corner came the lively strains of “The Belle of New York.” Up and down the boulevard as far as eye could reach were women—girls of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, girls not beyond their teens yet old in features, mature women, oldish, faded women—women, women, women. An endless, ceaseless procession. It swells at twilight and diminishes toward dawn, but ends never. But these are not like the beggar-women—yet. Pure statistical tables arranged like a page from a census report of the sights and scenes of one night in Warsaw would appear absolutely incredible to unfamiliar eyes. It is almost melodramatic in its seeming unreality. For in spite of the squalor and the misery and the scenes, both revolting and pitiful, there is a fascination about Warsaw, a laughing, careless air that is ever present. Sunshine and shadow chase each other through Warsaw streets; and sunshine and shadow have entered into the temperament of the people. This duality is characteristic of both.
On first acquaintance Warsaw seems not unlike Paris. A smiling city of long avenues and pleasant streets and shaded boulevards brightened at night by brilliant cafés. The warm summer nights are none the less delightful because martial law prevails. Music is everywhere; these fiery, temperamental people, how they play! The very abandon and nonchalance of the Warsovians is in itself an added charm.