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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 20, 1914)
12 TTTT5 BUND AT OREGOXIAN, PORTLAND, DECEMBER" SO. 19t4. BELGIUM, ITS INDUSTRY SHATTERED AND HOMES GONE, NOW HAS FAMINE Will Irwin, Writing of Pitiful Plight of War-Stricken People, Says Nation's Own Valor Has Starved It Market Garden of Western Enrope Made Desolate by Armies. Crashed and C t? 1 i&Zi - yt- ( 1 . : : my A -: - . j . Ml wi.7e's's 111 - " - ' c-.. , . i V T.r&t'' III ' ' ' ' "" & w " ?t f""' V v v v 3 w A 5 1 BY WILL IRWIN'. WHEN the German army was pass ing through Belgium last Aug ust, the month of harvests, we used to remark, casually, now and then: "Well, there's one thing; It looks like starvation in this country this "Win ter." This was in the beginning. We eatd it rather carelessly; we had enough of the horror of war on every hand to keep us from bothering: very much about a far-away, imaginary danger. But the situation, when we stopped to think about it, admitted of only one Interpretation. Belgium is the most thickly populated country in Europe; It is almost like one great town, inter spersed with fields. As a matter of cold statistics, we know that it raised less than 40 per cent of its own food. The war . struck it in the midst of the harvest. Unlike Germany and France, Belgium had made no provision to feed itself in time of trouble. Its bigger, more warlike neighbors had reckoned with the harvest as part of the plan of war. Germany, across the eastern boun dary, was putting the landsturm, not in the trenches, but into the fields, that they might garner the last grain of wheat. To the south, France concerned herself almost as much with the har vest as with the mobilization. Fields nobbed of Men. But the war struck Belgium unpre pared in an industrial, if not in a mili tary, sense. The hasty mobilization took many of the farmers and field hands away, and the government had no time, in the sudden, pressing duty of resisting invasion, to set aside other laborers for this work. Here and there fields went ungarnered for lack of men. And before any one could touch the late crops the Germans were upon them. fighting skirmishes and pitched battles all over the east and north. The rural population fled in great numbers from the advance, as they have been fleeing everywhere. Through all the strip which Germany used as a route to France I saw ruined harvests. The wheat was falling from the stalks; the cabbages were growing untended. In the region lo the west of Brussels cluuul uncni, Bruges ana usiena tne peasants had more time, since the Ger mans did not take possession of that part of Belgium until late. In the Au tumn. Here, alone In all Belgium, was there anything like a full crop this year. Good Old Days Gone. The German army, in this war.has gone back to some, of the ways of ancient warfare. The custom of taking hostages, for example, was supposed to be a dead issue by modern armies one thought of the days of Julius Caesar when he reau on the walls of every town that Burgomeister So-and-So and Echivina Thfe-and-That had been seized as hostages to answer with their lives for the good behavior of the pop ulace. One thought of Alexander when you learned that in every large city they occupied they demanded a ' cash - tribute. Again, it carried you back to those 'good old days when you learned that in every town occupied by the Germans a food supply equiv alent to several days' provision for either the garrison or the main force had been commandeered Immediately upon occupancy. Brussels, for example, had to lay down at once 60,000 pounds of flour, besides proportionate supplies of meat, salt and other rough provisions. Mons, when I saw it on the day after the battle with the English, bore a sign commandeering not only certain sup plies of food, but all the gray cloth the brown leather, the Uien's shoes and the socks In the shops. And in all the path of the German armies you missed the sight of cattle in the fields. The Germans had seized them, steers and cows alike, for beef. Of course, tne custom of living off the country is not unknown to modern warfare, as - old Southerners who lived in the path of Sherman's Army can testUy. It re mained, however, for tia methodical . ' V i German to reduce the matter to an ex act science. . Industry la Killed. Mind, I. am stating facts, not writing. criticism. War is war. Perhaps we have waged it too politely in the last century; perhaps it is better to make it severe that it may be the sooner over. I am obliged to 'say so, also, that for many of the supplies taken from private citizens such as beef animals the conquerors did pay, either in cash, ' in "chits," or in orders on the Bank of France orders whose validity looked better in middle August than it did in early September. One must see Belgium to understand what conquest means to a subject peo ple. I can scarcely express it in mere words, any more than I can convey what war means as a whole. Here was manufacturing nation, producing little raw material, depending for the materials of industry, as well as for food, upon imports; for money, upon exports. Most of these - industries stopped suddenly and abruptly when the war came, because the young men had gone to the front. That was a phenomenon common to all the Conti nental countries Involved in this un paralleled mesa Even in Germany. with her admirable government-con trolled system, the wheels generally rested during the period of mobiliza tion. But the rest, even France, pulled their industries together a little. Fac tories manufacturing articles of do mestic consumption found ways tov re place their soldier operatives or man agers by men immune from military service, by men past the age for serv ice or by women, Germany Gets Supplies. Even Germany found ways and. means to get some supply of raw materials. Manufacturing was resumed in France at about quarter of the normal produc tion, in Germany at perhaps one-third. These, by the way, are only guessea Just now the French government is too busy to gather statistics on production, and the German government ,is keep ing Its secrets to itself. Humanity ad justs itself to any condition, and even in sound of the guns the people made a show at least of keeping the wheels running. It was different with conquered Bel glum. Some of her towns, factories and all. had been battered to pieces. This kind of damage has probably been ex aggerated. I know now. what I did not realize when I saw that city in flames, that only 20 per cent of Louvain was dastroyed by the conquerors. But there remain such cities as Tirlemont and Tiremonde, which lie almost flat, as a result, not of reprisals, but of battles. For the TeBt, there was no possible or practical way - of keeping - industry going. inaaders. In modern, times as In me dieval. is a great weaving center.- You cannot weave without yarn. The Flem ish weavers had small stock ahead, and much of that went up in the smoke of war. They had been depending on im ports, and, with all their harbors cut off in the second week of the war, they could import no more. Even at that, there were no markets, domestic or for eign, and there was no means of trans portatlon. since the Germans, fighting a life-and-death struggle on their right wing, needed the railroads for military purposes. Finally, there was no coal. For this necessity of manufacturing the Belgians depended on their own coal mines' along the southern border notably on the line which runs through Charleroi and Mons. Now, that line was by the end of August a dark and bloody ground of the war. It was there that the allies made their first stand, It was only a few miles away that the Germans made their own stand when Joffre drove them back from Paris. Finally, you come to. the railroads again. Coal is bulky. It takes much railroad service to move it. And for the purposes of industry there was practically no railroad service. The manfacturer could not get his goods to market, and equally he could not get power to his goods. Killing Only Business. Scarcely a. chimney was smoking in all Flanders during August and Sep tember. Then the Germans took Antwerp and cleaned up the coast strip about Ghent, Bruges and the harbor cities of Ostend. In them, also, the fires of industry went out. In that .southwest strip of Belgium, hitherto one of the most thickly settled and productive parts of the little, busy kingdom, the two armies are fighting yet, and may be fighting all winter. And, of course, in such a district there is no business at all except the business of killing. Belgium had been not only a manu facturing nation; she had also done a heavy business in importing through her excellent harbors, and especially Antwerp, which was an important point of transmission for goods to Germany. Goods were not going to Germnay after August 2 not if the Belgians and the British knew it. Even so, the first military movement of the Germans as they advanced toward Brussels was to "mask"' Antwerp to cut it off from the landward side at Malines by a heavy force of troops long before Antwerp was a city besieged. She was a city isolated. Then she fell, and her im porting business was finished until such time as the allies expel the Ger mans or the Germans settle the war. Western Europe's Garden Gone. Of farming. I have spoken already. But there is another special point worthy or notice here. Belgium raised little grain few staple crops of any kind. Her land was too valuable for that. She was the market garden of western Europe. Her fields, culti vated to the last clod, produced mostly perishable - vegetables which went straight from the hands of the farmer to the train, and then to the shops of Lionaon, tseriin and Northern France. Here again comes in the paralysis of transportation. She did manage to save many or her potatoes and cabbasres. believe cabbage soup, when I last heard from Belgium, was the staple article or diet. But the lettuce, the endives. the parsley and all vegetables of this class became so much dead stock, use less for Winter food, equally useless for sale. There was some dairying. As fast as the Germans came that stopped. They bought up the cows for beef those they missed went one by one to feed the population, since Belgium could import no more meat. ' Leave out the more terrible effects of war slaughter, grief, ruined homes, tramping, hopeless refugees and con sider this wholly as a financial and in dustrial crisis. The world never saw tlve like. An industrious, crowded na tion thrown in one month into utter bankruptcy, its currency become sud denly not worth the vaper on which it waa printed, lta whole production stopped that was Belgium In early September, when the Germans settled down upon It. , Everywhere throughout the land the unemployed sat at the doors of their houses and stared dully at their conquerors, because there was nothing else to u- . Brussels, City Without Hope. Brussels was a city of aimless, futile crowds. The unemployed, men and women alike, gathered in groups on the sidewalks, talking under the breath, or drifted across the city in headless, dis organized mobs. I remember vividly one such mob, back of the Palace Hotel, In a small, sunken park. As I passed down a street near by I saw men run ning, heard the subdued clamor of a crowd. I followed. They were pushing against the rail of the park. . I. by dodging and shoving, got to the rail. There was nothing to see except three men laying a pipe. The" crowd stared at this spectacle for a while with blank eyes and drifted away. They looked like our own army of the unemployed In an industrial crisis, only with an added hopelessness in their eyes. We expected trouble then; that such trouble has been averted is due, per haps, equally to the good sense of the better Belgians, to the judicious sever ity of the Germans, and finally to the tact and devotion of our American rep resentatives, notably Brand Whitlock. Indeed, we Just missed this crisis a night or so after the Germans struck the allies on the southern border. That night a German garrison was rein forced by 3000 men sent back from the front. Without newspapers, a prey to rumors, the people believed that this meant a German defeat. The aimless crowds grew brisker In their move ments, the thrill of coming trouble In the air. Fate of City In Balance. "Gentlemen," said the German com mandant to his Belgian hostages that night, we would hate to destroy any part of your beautiful city, but you know what we might have t do!" The influential men of Brussels went from corner to corner, haranguing the mobs, begging the people to go home, assur ing them that the Germans had not retreated. The police cleared all the public squares. The Germans trained three machine guns on the Place de la Station. The garrison slept that night on Its arms. Along toward midnight an incident occurred which might have set off the spark. A German officer came back to his hotel very drunk. and "shot up" the lobby with his auto matic pistol. Fortunately by that hour the populace had gone to bed. Had It happened four hours earlier this tiny break in discipline would probably have precipitated the riot. A small thing to bring slaughter, burnings and re prisals, but, then, the immediate cause of this' whole war was a police case. That, It turned out. was to be -the climax of fears for Brussels; somehow she has avoided ever since such disas ter as affected poor Louvain. But the unemployed are still there, huddling in the slums and tenements of Brussels as they huddle In every tenement and every farmhouse of poor Belgium. Only they have grown much hungrier, much less hopeful, much more dulled and deadened; the spirit for a riot, perhaps. Is not in them. Only the final despera tion of hunger will bring it out, Blight on European Peoples. Of course, this war is horrible be yond any previous conception we have had of war, and the heaped up trenches of the dead, the human wreckage in the base hospitals, the epic sufferings of the men in the line, do not com prise all its horrors. Worse, to any manof sympathetic spirit, is the blight of misery over the European peoples whom the army has left behind. But there is still nobility left in war even such brutal, wholesale, mechani cal war as this. There was a kind of exaltation in the way the Belgians dis missed the thought of their own losses. It reminded one of the spirit which the Californians showed after their com paratively minute disaster in San Fran cisco. There it wasn't etiquette for a man to mention that he was ruined? So, too, with Belgium. The people wouldn't talk on that subject. A farm er who spoke some English sat near his doorway near Aries and spoke with me candidly and cautiously on the war. "I suppose it will be a hard Winter for you here," I said. "Oh, certainly," said he, and turned the subject to matters which interested him more my news from Mons. But I qp.me back to the subject and held him to it, brutally. "I expect starvation," I said. "Cer tainly," he replied: TBo are my cattle. There's only a little Gram in town, i nave two sons in the army" and he went on talking'of his sons, oblivious to his own hungry fu ture. ' Nobody Whines In Belgium. A Belgian gentleman, concerned in getting food for the people, has been doing heroic service for the American Commission for the Relief of Belgium. The German authorities let him- visit London in order to help the work. Six months ago this man was a real in dustrial factor. His business radiated from Belgium all over the world. One day, he said, as a mere parenthesis in a sentence, "of course, my business is ruined forever." and he continued to set his mind to the problem of getting flour ships through the canal. He men tioned later that in some Belgian towns men of property and influence, "such as I was last July," were waiting in line with laborers and mechanics to get one bun a day from the municipal authorities. You see, Belgium has run the logical course of the loser in this war; only it has run it faster. When the con flagration started we said, in our folly: "It can't last longt It is going to cost $50,000,000 a day. There isn't enough money in the world to keep it running, more than a few months." We over looked the obvious fact that money is merely the medium of exchange. We have found since that the problem of struggling through will resolve Itself in the later stages into this: "Have we the food to keep our people alive; have we the raw material to make the necessities of war?" In the later stages money Is no good. Belgium haiN nearly reached that later stage: she will probably reach it absolutely by Christmas. Industry stopped, whereupon only the prosper ous and the saving had any maney. Then came the stage when even money would not purchase food, because the food was not there. A shipwrecked crew, wrecked on a sandbar, would have no use for a million dollars; it would get them no food. Belgium is the sandbar. Money is rapidly becoming no good. The six or seven million people left inside her borders are going to starve, rich and poor alike, unless the unafflicted part of the world, and mainly America, sends food, food and more food. The respon sibility for the state of affairs does not matter. A hungry stomach knows no politics and when a man is drown ing the thing to do is pull him out, not ascertain who threw him in. It is up to America. a r j si eill OFFICER TO TAKE CHARGE General George Bell, Jr., of Seventh Brigade, to "Leave for Texas. VANCOUVER BARRACKS. Wash.. Dec. 19. (Special.) General George Bell, - Jr., "in command of the -Seventh Brigade, will leave Monday, Decem ber 3, for his new station in command of the Fifth Brigade at Galveston, Tex. Mrs. Bell will accompany her husband as far as Omaha, where she will visit. Lieutenant Lawrence E. Hohl, aid de camp to General Bell, will accompany the General to Galveston. Who will assume command of the Seventh Brigade to succeed General Bell has not been, learned here) yet Come Tomorrow CTADT WITU 1 1 Make your selection now and pay O I Hill IIHn $1 i down, and then you pay the balance in cash or whatever agreement you make for first payment, and the balance $6 monthly, etc., until the piano is paid for in full. You Need Not Begin Your Pay ments Until After the Holidays You will, be sure to appreciate these most liberal of Christmas terms, since now the buying of a new piano will in nowise interfere with the buying of the other, usually numerous, smaller Christmas presents. -4H mm 1 3 The greatest musical progress of thl ape has elven you the n w tmproveo up-to-date Flayer Ftano. You can yourself play it artistically, beau tifully, thus be coming one of the greatest pi anists, particu larly since the latest and most wonderful hand played music by Greig -Godowsky, etc., makes this all possible. If you don't want to make & large purchase your children can se cure a splendid musioal educa- 1 $650 Now $385 $10 Monthly tion with one of the new $325 Pianos which we are now offerings a lot of two carloads of new Christmas pianos at $193.50, cash or on terms of monthly until fully paldv This $325 New 1915 Model for $193. 50-$6 Monthly to Brim? You a Piano or oPl&ver Plant br CHRISTMAS 1 '.'--.MSsj, Yon can afford to pay $6.00 monthly, yon can therefore afford to bny one of these new Christmas Pianos now. $950 Kranich & Bach $695 Make early selection Just Received Two Carloads Newest 1915 Models Christmas Pianos Priced for Q.ulck Sellln 1 Will Secure Voun for Christmas IJellverjr. .$325 PIANOS $193.50 ?S?cJ350 PIANOS $217.50 I'SUAI, PRICK Other Pianos f5, S1CIS, 194, 243. .$375 PIANOS $232.50 AVE NOW OFFER SS-XOTE $650 PLAYER PIANOS $360 nre1 $750 PLAYER PIANOS $435 $950 PLAYER PIANOS $695 riaycr Pianos. $295 $385 $465 to $1375 in Player Grand. Every piano or player piano purchased carries with it the Graves Music Co. guarantee of satisfaction, as also the usual guarantee by each manufacturer of these new musical instruments; besides, we take it In exchange within one year, allowing the full amount paid, if desired. Graves Music Co.,!Er151 Fourth St. LIFE INSURANCE TODAY PROTECTS MAN'S DUTIES Senator Sherman From Illinois, Tells How Policy Substitutes Contract That Extends Person's Productive Period by Eliminating Hazard. BY LAWRENCE T. SHERMAN. United States Senator from Illinois. THERE is a sharply drawn line be. tween self-support and charity. One Is creative, the other Is ex haustive, and If not supplied by the former, destroys Its source of supply. One develops, the other merely sus talris. Self-support arouses all theTbet ter faculties. It Includes in its terms all dependent on the efconomlc- unit. Every incentive ought to be given, and every burden to self-support removed wherever possible. Charity ought al ways to be reduced to a minimum. The more self-support is hindered the more charity must relieve where individual effort fails. Neither universal charity nor a uni versal distribution of property will solve the problem of self-support. Both utterly fail to respond to the normal Industrious person during the span of his productive years. Self-support does not take heed . merely of productive years. Infancy, age, disability and mis fortune hedge about every stage of human life. Mere thrift alone, the sturdy frugality that limits outgo un til the income leaves a surplus, is not a certain protection to the family. Such productive effort is perpetually subject to the destructive vicissitudes of life. Modern life insurance protects the whole scope of man's economic obliga tions by substituting a contract that extends his productive period by elim inating the hazard of death. The cer tainty of a secured contract is substi tuted for the uncertainty of an uncov ered future. It adds to thrift a guar anty that It will not be stricken down before Its purpose shall have been ac complished. Risk la Distributed. The risk Is distributed through given periods and great numbers. The cost is so divided that present payments are within reach of all. The certainty of the responsible life insurance contract Is pitted against fce certainty of death or the risks of misfortune that sur round the average man. . I am Informed that the average life insurance policy is about 2000. The American Nation has more than 20,000, 000 of homes. The ideal state for all ot them is self-support. If the average life insurance poliey could be increased in amount and diminished in .annual cost it would be a great benefit. The head of a family who has not accumu lated income-producing property may thereby capitalize his future earnings. He builds up a barrier against uncer tainty: He creates a sinking fund against possible misfortune and the certainty of death. He does so by Join ing with the ability and resources of a great multitude of others who are in spired by a like purpose. It Is the mu tual contract of experience and prudent reflection. It was cot devised by the carele3 and improvident. Human earn ing- capacity is underwritten at its present cash value covered by aver ages of death, cost of conducting the business and interest rates on fixed in vestments. The present life Insurance policy is one of the greatest triumphs of financial wisdom and business acu men in modern life. Whatever Just cause of criticism has been made in the past of the manage ment of life insurance has now ceased. Laws now regulate every necessary operation resulting in the policyholder's contract and its safety and certainty. Life insurance now Is one of the most powerful agencies of civilized society known to combat poverty and want, to create self-support and thrift and light en the rapidly-increasing heavy bur dens of public and private charity now resting on the purse of the taxpayer and the philanthropist. It is an active ally of school, church and state and every legitimate business in diminish ing poverty, misfortune and failure. It becomes an economic antidote for want. Self-Support Is Encouraged. What a vast measure of self-respect is preserved or created by encouraging self-support rather than charity sup port! As a fiscal agency to- advance great public undertakings by provid ing a purchaser for their securities, in surance companies are among the best known. The immense financial value to the putJlic of these great accumulation invested to sustain the life insurance contract need not, however, be con sidered. Insurance cannot now be made in terstate business and subject to uni form regulation by an act of Congress. Every life insurance company is now subject to the regulation of the 48 states. Each state is at liberty to treat every company incorporated under its local laws as a foreign corporation. Nothing short of an amendment to the Federal Constitution will vest in Con gress power to regulate insurance Any tax upon the business done in one state becomes a cost element in the premium collected in all other states. The Legislature of one state therefore becomes National in its nec essary effect. If one state taxes life insurance done within Its borders by foreign companies and another does not, the citizens of the latter state thereby are taxed by the former state. This becomes a direct incentive to a state collecting nothing or a low rev enue from foreign companies -to lay a tax or Increase their exactions, so that It may receive its.- share of the taxes. This has led in some instances to dis criminations and reprisals. It has im posed the most embarrassing variety of laws upon life insurance companies. The United States possesses that uni formity of climate, race, occupations and sanitary conditions that the cost of life Insurance is uniform and National, and not accidental or local. As a pre servative) element In the problem ot eeL-suj?port it la National, As an all; in warring against the evil of poverty and want it is National. The regulations under which life in surance business is done ought to be National and not local. It has risen to the dignity, importance and power of a National undertaking. It totals, measured by money alone, more than the transportation lines of the United States. No single line of human effort reaches so generally every walk and condition of life. Not a bushel of corn can be turned into distilled liquor with out the regulation of Congress. Not a cigar can be rolled and sold without the watchful eye of the Government. Still the hundreds of millions of invest ments safeguard life insurance contracts and many hundreds of mil lions of policies carried. The vast re sponsibilities entailed are without a single regulation of the Government of the United States. It is proper now to institute a movement to so amend the Federal Constitution as to give Con gress such power. COTTAGE GROVE ASPIRES "Cleanest City In State," Is Goal Set for Coming Year. COTTAGE GROVE, Or., Dec. IS. (Special.) Cottage Grove is going after the reputation of being one of the prettiest and cleanest cities in the state during 1915. There was a lively and enthusiastic discussion of the subject at the annual meeting of the Commercial Club and a civic improvement committee was ap pointed to have the work In charge. The members of the committee are J. S. Medley, K. K. Mills and Ray Trask. Chairman Medley is working out plans for the season's work. It is probable that the City Council will be asked to have the outlying paved streets swept oftener. The city has a large amount of paving for a city of its size, but much of it does not show up to best advantage because of not being kept clean. It is certain that the Council will be asked to enforce the ordinance against allowing weeds to grow within the city. At the same time an effort will be made to stir up greater interest in parkings, lawns and flower gardens. The co-operation of the women of the city will be asked. POOR BEING CARED FOR Ccntralia Organization Will Provide Baskets for Christmas. CENT R ALIA, Wash., Dec. 19. (Spe cial.) The Associated Charities is ac tively engaged in caring for the city's poor at Christmas time. On the day be fore Christmas a basket will be deliv ered" to each family reported to be in needy circumstances. Th- Boy Scouts have volunteered to deliver the baskets. The charity board has appointed the following directors: One-year term, T. H. McCleary, Mrs. R. A. Wilson, Mrs. ' Nellie Muck, H. C. GlUam and C. R. Fowler; Two-year term, William Scales, Mrs. William Frye, Rev. F. E. Dorris, Dr. F. J. Rickford and Mrs. W. W. Dlckeraon; three-year term, John Galvln. J. R. Buxton. Dr. F. G. Titus, ansa airrtla CotriU and H. il, Koblaaom