' ■ TviewLs oL. kUV- — ' WKirAi^e. INHUMAN BLOCKADE STRANGLING \ A NATION ( ) r 1920 WASHINGTON, D. C. s OTHER PAMPHLETS PUBLISHED BY THE FRIENDS OF UKRAINE 1. Bolshevism and Ukraine. Two cents. 2. Ukraine, Poland and Russia and the Right of the Free Disposition of Peoples. By S. Shelukhin. Fen cents. 3. Protest of the Ukrainian Republic to the United States Against the Delivery of Eastern Galicia to Polish Domination. 1 en cents. 4. The Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine. By Julian Batchin- sky, Israel Zangwill and others. 1 en cents. 5. Ukraine and Russia. By Woldemar Timoshenko, Vice Director of the Economic Institute at the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Fen cents. 6. What About Ukraine? Editorials of Times-Picayune, N. Y. Times and N. Y. Tribune. Five cents. 7. Trade With Ukraine. Ukraine’s Natural Wealth, Needs and Commercial Opportunities: I he Ukrainian Co-operative Societies and Their In¬ fluence. By Emil Revyuk. 1 en cents. Address all communications to FRIENDS OF UKRAINE 345 Munsey Building :: :: :: Washington, D, C. 1 Inhuman Blockade Strangling a Nation Pestilence and Famine Threaten Existence of 45,000,000 Souls—Their Civilization is Being Blighted—It is the Nation of Ukraine READ IN THESE PAGES “The Prayer of Women ”—Being a message from these innocents to their sisters everywhere. “International Red Cross Mission Report” —describing Epidemics, Death and Famine of these stricken people. “Ukraine the Sorest Spot of Europe”— an illuminating story by Major Fisher Ames, Duxbury, Mass. “A Letter from Ukraine” —giving in lurid detail account of what the blockade has wrought. “Letter from Ukrainian President to Supreme Allied Council asking that blockade be lifted. 1920 PUBLISHED BY FRIENDS OF UKRAINE 345 MUNSEY BUILDING WASHINGTON, D. C. A PRAYER OF WOMEN The Union of Ukrainian women addresses the following appeal to women throughout the world:— Dear Sisters: For two years the Ukrainian people have been fight¬ ing against their enemies for the right to live; for an independent Ukraine; but the Powers will not recognize that right, and are pro¬ longing this sanguinary war. It is in vain! The entire Ukrainian population stands, as one man, for the independence of Ukraine. Every Ukrainian woman has risen in defence of her native home against the hereditary enemies. No one will be able to conquer this force. In these incessant fights our sons, our husbands and our fathers fall on the field of honor; epidemics are spreading; we have not the facilities necessary for saving our wounded and sick; they perish for want of medical aid , for it is forbidden to send medicines and dres ings into Ukraine. We do not ask for material aid. Our country is rich in corn, and we have the wherewithal to pay for everything, but we address our¬ selves to you, our Sisters, and implore you to make your voices heard in your Governments, and to insist that the prohibition of the export of medicines and sanitary supplies to Ukraine shall be removed. Our Sisters, you who mourn for your husbands and sons fallen on the battlefield in the defence of your country, may this prayer reach your hearts! And to you, happy wives and mothers whose husbands and sons have returned home and work for the reconstruction of your country, we confide the lives of our people. What international law sanctions this inhuman cruelty, which allows a people of forty-five million souls to perish without med¬ ical aid? Women throughout the world, the Ukrainian women appeal to your heart and to your conscience! INTRODUCTION Why have thousands of Ukrainians died from disease, pestilence, cold and hunger, and from the rigors of needless war? Why are other millions of innocent men, women and children at the gates of death? Why have they suffered agonies that cannot be told in words, misery that welcomes the relief of death? All this sorrow, famine, pestilence, death is largely due to the BLOCKADE! Ukraine is located in what was Southern Russia, under the czar. It is a republican government, with area of 330,000 square miles and population of 45,000,000. The government was estab¬ lished in 1917, after the overthrow of the czar, with the seat of government at Kiev. Ukraine wants the blockade lifted in order that she may trade with other nations, obtain food and medicines, and reconstruct her¬ self. So much the better if the blockade is lifted from all Russian territory, but she especially speaks for Ukraine. Overrun by Enemies . At the present time Ukraine is mostly overrun by her enemies, the bolsheviki on the north and east and the Poles on the west. Her rich fields are the battlegrounds of contending forces and her stores of grain and minerals are the prey of her enemies. If the blockade is lifted from Ukraine, her loyal people can take care of themselves. After the Brest-Litovsk treaty, Ukrainian farmers drove the Germans out. The bolsheviks came and the farmers drove them out. Denikin came with his armies and the farmers drove him out. Now the bolsheviks are back and they will be driven out. More than 70 per cent of the people of Ukraine are Ukrainians. They will never submit to any foreign domination. In 1654 the Poles, Turks and Russians were their enemies, all contending for this rich area belonging to this distinct nationality, the Ukrainians. Overwhelmed, they united with Russia (Muscovy), but were to have autonomy. The czars disregarded all agreements. The Ukrainians made several attempts to free themselves, and finally 5 autocracy was overthrown and Ukrainians regained their freedom. The subsequent Russian governments tried to subjugate them. Just now the bolsheviks are invading Ukraine and hold the principal cities and the railroads; but the villages and rural sections are held by the Ukrainians. And the fight for freedom continues. This is Ukraine’s Prayer. Ukraine’s plea to the world is that she be given a chance, that there be rendered to Ukrainians that which belongs to Ukrainians; that her innocent people not longer be starved and smothered by an inhuman blockade. When the facts are known, no valid and humane reason can stand why a civilized world should strangle to death this struggling nation. There is plenty of evidence of the conditions that exist in Ukraine. The International Committee of the Red Cross sent a Mission to Ukraine. Major Lederrey, head of that Mission, filed a report set¬ ting forth in lurid detail some of the terrible afflictions of this people. Because of its official nature, it is here published almost in full. It is well worth reading from beginning to end. There are parts of it that would almost move to tears one with a heart of stone. The Women Plead Read the “Prayer of Women” in this pamphlet. They are just folks like us all, mothers, wives, sisters and daughters, praying that they and their loved ones may be delivered from unspeakable grief and enjoy some of the peace that God intended should be the share of all. Then there is the letter from V. Andrievsky, written from the Heart of Ukraine. Read it and then determine whether you think these distressed and tired people should be deprived of medicine and food. Do not overlook the article by Major Fisher Ames, Duxbury, Mass., well known to Americans. He tells what the American Red Cross Commission to Europe discovered in this blockaded area. What Ukraine wants is told in President Petlura’s appeal to the Allied Council. Let us end this travail. Let us lift this inhuman blockade. There can be no peace on earth while pestilence and misery afflict millions of people. If statesmen think so, God have mercy on their souls! 45,000,000 People Facing Disease, Starva¬ tion, and Death Reports Ukraine Red Cross Investigator Vivid account of the horrors, pestilence, and famine that afflict Ukraine is given in a report made by the International Red Cross Mission to Ukraine. The report, in part, which goes into details as to suffering, needs of the poeple, and the local causes of the terrible conditions, follows: REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS MISSION ON THE SANITARY SITUATION OF UKRAINE Documentations Lacking. It has been most difficult for me to obtain exact documentation upon conditions in Ukraine, because of the state of extreme disor¬ ganization in which the country is at this moment. Statistics either do not exist at all, or they are inapt to give a real idea of the situa¬ tion. I visited ten hospitals at Mohyliv, Zhmerinka, Proskuriv and Kaminetz-Podolsky. The principal data here set forth were obtained by talks with the sanitary staffs of those institutions. I distributed a questionary at the different hospitals. In this way those in charge of nearly all the sanitary institutions of Ukraine were enabled to help throw light on the subject. Sanitary Organizations. Mr. Ivan Rychlo, the Chief Surgeon of the Ukrainian Army, uses four physicians and his jurisdiction extends over the front, while the rear depends directly upon the War Office. In Galicia the Chief Surgeon of the Army, Dr. Boratchinsky, has under his direction three physicians. Nearly all the hospitals have been militarized and you may find even women among the patients of a military lazaret. The hospitals belong either to the cities or to the Zemstvos (boroughs) or to the Red Cross. At Mohyliv are a Jewish hospital and a military lazaret. All these establishments receive their principal means of subsistance from the State. 7 Originally the Zemstvos gave free medical help to the population. Now they accept none but pay patients. Patients pay in money or in food for their beds, consultation and medicines and furnish their own bandage material. Consequently the main part of the civilian popu¬ lation remains without medical help. From the standpoint of the struggle against epidemic diseases, this circumstance is very important, because the poor classes who are more easily subject to the contagion receive no help. I think that a short extract from Dr. Ilnitzky’s report upon the sanitary organization of the Zemstvos will be welcome here. 4 ‘The whole territory of the Government of Podolia (4524 square miles) with its population of 4 y 2 millions of inhabitants, is divided in 400 medical districts, supervised by the local Zemstvos. These dis¬ tricts used to have a doctor, two or three Samaritans and midwives and a like number of subaltern medical attendants. About 60 of those districts possessed a small hospital of 10 or 15 beds for non-contagious diseases and five or eight for epidemic diseases. The other districts possessed no hospitals and had only ambulatories. “Formerly when the Zemstvos could give gratuitous medical help the district physicians stood a chance, by isolating the infectious patients and adopting proper sanitary measures, of averting the danger of the disease spreading over the country. In case of greater or more serious epidemics the Zemstvos used to build isolating bar¬ racks and act with the utmost energy. The material means for this kind of struggle were furnished by the Zemstvos taxes. The State shared these expenses only in cases of extraordinary danger. Since 3916,, owing to the rising prices for nourishment, the growth of epi¬ demics, and the general disorganization they have brought with them, the Zemstvos are forced to apply for help to the State Exchequer. “Nowadays, when as a matter of fact all the Zemstvo organizations depend upon the subsidies of the State, the State itself is unable to struggle with any efficiency against the epidemics which are increas¬ ing daily.” fer j 1 f ■ • Mi !-; Reasons that Contribute to the Development of Epidemics 1. The lack of knowledge by the population, which is completely in ignorance of the most elementary notions of hygiene. 8 2. The requisitions of sanitary materials. The German troops, for instance, left to the people but a third part. Then there came other troops which continued to lay drugs under requisition until the pharmacies were nearly exhausted. 3. The mobilization of the medical staff. The medical staff being constantly enlisted for the needs of the army, the civilian population remained without sanitary attendance. 4. The militarization of the civilian hospitals has rendered the situation still worse. The patients remaining in their homes communi¬ cate the infection to those surrounding them. 5. The government of Podolia is situated very near to the front. This circumstance prevented it from easily receiving help, while on the other side every new army brought new epidemics. 6. At the end of the war the disorganized and dislocated Russian armies passed through Ukraine, taking with them or simply destroy¬ ing the stores of sanitary material and leaving sick soldiers instead. 7. The desolated economic situation and the general misery caused by the war. The population, weakened by privations of all kinds, became easily the prey of epidemics, and the lack of soap, linen and disinfecting materials prevented the possibility of striv¬ ing against them efficiently. The situation is getting worse daily. Pauperism becomes more and more intense, the prices are growing steadily, so that most of the necessaries of life, which cost now about 500 times more than at the beginning of the war, are quite out of reach for the main part of the population. 8. The return of the demobilized men to their homes, which have in some cases been, spared until now. 9. The sanitary staff, which is particularly exposed to contamination, has succumbed to the sicknesses and there is nobody to take its place. A physician told me that he had to do only with dilettantes, trained staff lacking altogether. The material conditions in which this staff, overburdened with work, is living are not fit to protect them from in¬ fection and disease. The physicians are real paupers. They get the same nourishment as the patients and the nurses but they receive for their other needs and for supporting their familis 1,000 Karbovantzys a month. The nurses receive 720 Karbovantzys a month. 10. The penury of means of transportation. The physicians have no horses to effectuate their visits. The ways are impossible for motor cars, and the later are lacking too. The railways circulate only for 9 army needs and that too very rarely. The negligence of the railway workers is such that between Proskuriv and Zhmerinka, where there is hardly a train in each direction once every three or four days, there was a collision with our train, one car was totally destroyed and four men killed. In this place I must also mention the fuel crisis. There is much wood, the hospitals have even the right to get it gratui¬ tously, but the prices for transporting it are so high that the hospitals have been obliged to abandon this source of fuel. At Zhmerinka they felled the trees that gave some charm to the hospital gardens, but within a short time this source of supply will be exhausted. 11. The connection between the administrative centres and the ad¬ ministrative districts nearly failing, the problem of help is most dif¬ ficult. Relief Measures Difficult . I do not think that I have enumerated all the contributing causes which have overwhelmed Ukraine with epidemics, but I think that I have mentioned the principal ones of them. Some measures of relief ought to be adopted. It would not suffice, however, to send sanitary staffs and materials, it will first of all be necessary to bring some order, to organize the state of things, if any success in the struggle against epidemics is to be obtained. It seems to be a nearly unsur- mountable difficulty. The Sanitary Situation. Last year, exanthematical typhoid fever and the Spanish Grippe had a most terrible effect upon the population. Dr. Gromatchesky states that almost everybody was infected. In villages of abut 2,000 to 3,000 souls, half of the people suddenly contracted exanthematical typhoid fever, and 10 or 20 would die daily from its effects. In some of the villages, 10 or even 13 per cent of the inhabitants died. There was almost no medical care. During the last winter and spring the Zemstvos sent sanitary detachments about. But when in every house there is at least one patient who should be completely isolated, 50 or 60 beds amount to nothing; and one single disinfecting apparatus can be of no use whatever when used on 10,000 or 13,000 people. There were physicians who had to attend to a territory of from 40 to 50 kilometers (25 to 31 miles) in diameter. One must have seen the paths—they cannot be called roads—of this country to know what that 10 means. Doctors who had to treat about 20,000 or 30,000 patients and could get no medical supplies generally had to give moral encourage¬ ment to their sick. Conditions Worse Now. This was last year. But this year it was even worse. Typhoid and other epidemics are increasing to unknown propor¬ tions, the means of fighting them decreasing daily. Last year there were few, but some, medical supplies; now there are practically none. Of the sanitary personnel 20 per cent are dead; they died at their tasks, defenseless victims of the typhoid. Those who re¬ mained alive w r ere mostly drafted, and the civilian population, who had already been deprived of their hospitals, had nobody to care for them. Then came the “typhus recurrens” which is hav¬ ing terrible effects at this time. The horrible part of it is that one may contract it several times. I have been told of a Red Cross soldier who had it twice, and who also had had exanthematical typhoid fever. Dr. G-romatchesky writes me that there are hos¬ pitals the whole personnel of which is sick. He also states that there are villages with many houses, every inhabitant of which has died. Speaking of the terrible agony of Ukraine, a physician sorrowfully depicted the situation by these terrible descriptive words: “You see, it is this way: the sick are awaiting death, and we who are still in good health expect the disease.” One only is able to understand the force of these few words if he has seen the de¬ spair of the healthy and the deep misery of the sick. One must have passed through those hospital rooms that smell of rotten straw, have felt on oneself the deep-set, haggard eyes of the feverish patients, have seen the unhappy people suffering from dysentery; one must have observed how they writhe themselves on their wooden couches almost unable to keep from screaming! Generally, their bed consists of two supports carrying some planks with a thin sack of straw or chopped wood, and on top a sheet grey with dirt. The patient on this couch often has not the smallest blanket to cover himself. At the Mohyliv hospital, the sick had only sacks for covers. As wood is scarce and strictest economy must be observed because of the coming coldest period, the windows are but rarely opened. Instead of glass panes, they sometimes have wood planks or pieces of cardboard. The smell is indescribable, as well as the general condition. 11 Groans Answer Priest’s Liturgy . One of my most emotional experiences was a mass held in the cholera ward. The priest’s liturgy was answered by agon¬ ized groans of about thirty sick, whose rags were as contrast¬ ful to the splendid ceremony vestments of the priest as the incense with the terrible air of this hell But the worst memory of all is that of the medical center of distri¬ bution of Zhmerinka. Sick soldiers, pale, stumbling, weak, would almost crawl to the central station, where other sick already were as¬ sembled, filling the room completely. Some of them, who had fainted on the way were lying outside. There were about 2,000 in a building intended for 200 patients at the utmost; dying of hunger, for there were not enough people to take care of them. Some of them died after having waited four or five days at the same place, for they had not had enough strength left to move. The agony of these must have been terrible. Those who were able to do so escaped and they would infect the towns with the epidemic, entering anywhere, lying down in hallways, on staircases, in front of doors. Everywhere you could see these erring phantoms, their eyes without force, everywhere, even on the railroad tracks, where they hoped to find a train. Where to? They did not care, their only intention was to get away. Two of these poor invalids who had boarded our train were found dead the next morning. One of them had slipped into one of our disinfecting ap¬ paratuses. I do not intend to continue a description which my pen is unable to make as forceful as it should be. None but Dante could do it. And yet I wish with all my heart to transmit the emotion I felt at these terrible sights. Why Do We Fortunate Complain? These hospital visits made upon me a lasting impression. I am sorry that the people who complain of the hardships of the present time are not able to see the ragged people of this country, wearing underclothing that is foully dirty—for there is no soap, and laun¬ dry facilities are lacking. Some of them have kept their boots on probably for fear of the cold. I have been told that many pa¬ tients had their feet frozen in bed. I saw one soldier suffering from typhoid fever to whom this had happened. Some of the ty- 12 phoid wards reminded me of a tailor’s workshop. Sitting on their beds, with crossed legs, holding their covers or their clothes in their hands, they were searching them for vermin, which are every¬ where. As long as one is in Ukraine it is absolutely impossible to escape these pests. You may understand how great the danger of in¬ fection is if you know that both typhoid fevers, the recurrens and the exanthematical are transmitted by insects. Proportion of the Different Epidemics Among the Civilian Population of Podolia. In 1918, upon a population of 4*4 million souls about the popula¬ tion of Switzerland, there have been registered: 20,000 cases of exanthematical typhoid fever. 12,000 cases of abdominal typhoid fever. 21,000 cases of influenza. but Dr. Ilnitzky believes these data to be far below the actual numbers and believes the total of all cases of epidemics for 1918 to be about 100,000. For 1919, the military situation having changed considerably, the statistics are only drawn for one-half of this Government. To be able to establish a base of comparison, the following data must be doubled: In October 60,000 cases of exanthematical typhoid fever had been reg¬ istered (in former years the whole government of Podolia never had more than 10,000 cases a year) and 80,000 cases of typhus recurrens (formerly 60 or 70 cases.) Dr. Ilnitzky believes the mortality to be about four or five per cent. Mortality in an Epidemics Hospital. At the epidemics hospital at Kaminetz-Podolsky in a period of 4J4 months, from July 1, 1919, to November 13, 1919, 272 of 3,704 pa¬ tients, or 7.3 per cent, died. In what terrible proportions the peril is increasing appears in the fact that for October alone the mortality amounted to 9.6 per cent. Cholera made its appearance in Ukraine in October and the mortality rate is 58 per cent. Epidemics May Spread to Other Nations. These very expressive data need no comment. They are more apt than my pen to tell the very serious sanitary situation in Ukraine and to narrate the terrible danger to the neighboring 13 countries. As yet, other peoples do not seem to have understood what peril awaits them. The Poles and Roumanians, absorbed by their problems of interior and exterior policy, seem to shut their eyes so as not to see the terrible epidemics which are about to cross their borders. The only proof I need give of this, as con¬ cerns Roumania, is the fact that the subaltern Government officials at the border did everything they could to hinder and embarrass us. Of course, our expedition to Ukraine was but a very small help, but I dare not apply the proper term to human beings who for purely formal reasons detained us for twenty-one days. Twenty-one days! How many people could we have helped in that valuable space of time ? How many human beings might we have saved? But what is that when a functionary wants to satisfy his bureaucratic instincts. I have been told that if I had used other means than the purely legal ones, I might have interested the customs officials in our philanthropic mis¬ sion, and the police might have been interested too. What is Needed? I now come to the practical part of our mission. This also ends my report. In the conference which was held two days before our de¬ parture, at the Public Health Ministry, we discussed mostly the means of helping to better the situation. I now bring, classified as to their respective urgency, the wishes which were voiced and which I under¬ took to transmit to the international Committee of the Red Cross. Sanitary Personnel is Necessary . a. To secure the co-operation of from 100 to 300 physicians, who must be accompanied by sanitary personnel of second class (nurses, etc.) if at all possible Ukrainians or Slavs, as the language question is of great importance. They must be told that their position shall be a most difficult one. b. To give adequate help to the medical personnel to make them suffer less hardships and to enable them to fulfill their hard task. To this effect the Ukrainian Government must be most urgently pressed to increase the salaries; the personnel must be provided with the cloth¬ ing and medical fixtures they need. c. To send as many hospitals as possible, at least ten; these hospi¬ tals must consist of about 200 beds, and they must be provided with the necessary personnel and materials; the Ukrainian Government 14 must undertake not to send these hospitals farther into the country. The neighboring states would be highly interested in safeguarding themselves in this way. Materials. Classified as to their urgency there are needed: a. Bedding : At least 10,000 blankets, 10,000 mattress sacks for hay, 20,000 pillow covers, 30,000 bed sheets. b. Clothes and Linen : 30,000 shirts, 30,000 underdrawers, 20,000 towels, 20,000 dressing gowns, (20,000 pairs of stockings), (3,000 op¬ eration blouses for personnel), (2,000 white operation blouses for physicians), (10,000 pairs of slippers). The parenthised objects are less urgent. c. Disinfection : From 10 to 100 simple movable steam disin¬ fecting engines, 200 portative pulverisators (like those used in vine¬ yards), disinfecting chemicals: formaline two carloads, sulphur one carload, phenic acid one carload, sublimate 1% tons, liquid green soap three carloads, lysol eight tons. d. Medicaments: (Y. special annexed list.) e. Instruments: 10,000 thermometers, 1,200 syringes Nos. 13 to 22, 1,000 meters caoutchouc exhausting tubes, 2,000 caoutchouc ice bags (diameter 20 cm), 600 caoutchouc physicians’ gloves, 1,200 fingerstalls, 3,000 clysterpumps, 300 Richardson hand pulverisators, 5,000 square meters of caoutchoucated linen, 2,000 Record syringes for 1 gram, 1,000 Record syringes for 2 grams, 1,000 Record syringes for 3 grams. Transportation. Considering the present transportation difficulties, the numerous car changes and the negligence of the shippers, the following remarks should be taken note of so that the materials arrive in good condition: a. The boxes must be packed very carefully, as if they were to be sent overseas. b. They must neither be too heavy nor too big, not like those we took along. c. Some medicaments of extreme urgency and of smal size might be sent by airplane. 15 Credits. The purchases and shipments of materials should be attended to by the Ukrainian foreign missions under the patronage of the I. R. C. C. At the present time the following goods should be imported: a. From Roumania: Rolls of bandages, which probably are the former property of the Russian army, and for which the Ukrainian Government offered as a compensation 3,156 poods, i. e., 50^ tons of sugar. b. Also from Roumania: A bacteriological laboratory which the Roumanian professor Cantacuzene had put at the disposition of his Roumanian colleague Zabolotny, and which is presently at Czernowitz. c. From France: The sanitary material belonging to a lot of merchandise which the Ukrainians have bought from the American Liquidation Commission for about $8,000,000. d. From Germany: The bedding, medicaments, and caoutchouc which Dr. Ivholodny, who is at present at Berlin, is to buy and to pay for out of a sum of 2,000,000 crowns which were deposited at the Weiner Bank a month ago. e. From Austria : A second sanitary train. I have been told that the Ukrainian Mission at Vienna has at its disposition a sum of 10,000,000 marks for that purpose. Promised Aid Did Not Materialize. An American Mission visited Ukraine at the beginning of October and promised to send by the 20th of the same month some Neo-Sal- varsan for the treatment of the typhus recurrens, opium dilutions for dysentery and different oils (castor, glycerine, etc.). A month later nothing had been sent and nothing had been heard from or about the Mission. As the Minister for Public Health, Mr. Odrina, # was sick, his representative told me that the Minister would gladly accept any re¬ quest for credits, which might be made by the I. R. C. C. to the effect of bettering the public health of Ukraine. (Signed) Major Lederrey, Chief of International Red Cross Mission to Ukraine. Vienna, Dec. 10, 1919. * Odrina, the Ukrainian Minister of Public Health as well the head of Ukrainian Red Cross, Yiazlov, died recently of typhus.—^. U. UKRAINE THE SOREST SPOT OF EUROPE (Editor’s Note: The conditions in Ukraine are of great concern to people everywhere. This country has been called the sorest spot in Europe. The American Red Cross Commission to Europe took cognizance of this, and Major Fisher Ames, Duxbury, Mass., eminent lawyer and author, writing from War¬ saw, Poland, made Ukraine the subject of a special article. He describes- conditions that should appall the civilized world. Major Ames’ story of this stricken nation’s tribulations and hardships is here published.) By Major Fisher Ames American Bed Cross Commission to Europe. An epidemic of bubonic plague is reported from villages on the right bank of the Dniester, in Ukrainia, twelve kilometers from the Roumanian border. The news hardly comes as a surprise to those familiar with the history of this country during the past few years. The territory formerly controlled by the Ukrainian general, Pet- lura, is probably the -unhealthiest spot in Europe today. This is not due to any fault of Petlura’s, but mainly to the vicissitudes of war, which swept the area with exceptional virulence and frequently leaving deplorable conditions in the wake of each of its waves. Six Years of War. Representatives of the American Red Cross, who recently in¬ vestigated the situation there found that the rumors that had leaked out were based on solid fact. Considering the war rec¬ ord of Ukraine this is not remarkable. It has been the scene of fighting since 1914. In this area was anchored the southern end of the Russian line, the longest battle line the world has ever seen. At an early period the Russians made an advance in Bukowina, but were soon driven back again. Later they made a stronger thrust and sweeping through Bukowina reached the Carpathian Mountains and looked down upon the valley of Hungary. The rapid victories of Mackensen ousted them from this territory in 1915. Then followed varying fortunes. The Germans and Austrians, suc¬ cessful for awhile, were forced back in their turn. One can imagine the state of this wretched country over which opposing armies were alternately advancing and retreating. Towns and crops were destroyed, and supplies of all kinds were 17 confiscated. Diseases were spread broadcast. With the collapse of the Russian army in 1917, the country became the scene of a wild retreat, when thousands upon thousands of soldiers, armed and desperate, who sought to regain their distant homes, lived on what they could buy or seize on the way. There was no order, no disci¬ pline whatever. The Bolshevist revolution began in November of that year. Many of the stranded Russian army became infected with its doctrines and joined the Bolshevists. It was a time of terror in Ukraine. Ukraine Declares Independence . In December the Bolshevists, through their leaders, Trotzky and Lenine, made peace with Germany at Brest-Litovsk. A month later the Ukraine declared itself a Republic and also came to an under¬ standing with the same power. But this was hardly effected when the Germans entered and occupied Ukrainia, placing one Skoro- padsky, a creature of their own, in authority. Skoropadsky held on until the overthrow of the whole German structure in November, 1918. Simultaneously with the signing of the armistice in the west the Ukrainians with Petlura at their head rose up against Skoro¬ padsky and drove him from his place. Petlura then expelled all the German troops from the Ukraine-and once more there was a devasta¬ ting movement of troops across the country, with its inevitable residue of the disease always accompanying such large bodies of men. Petlura, now left to face the Bolshevist onslaught, had no strong force with which to check it, and in January, 1919, he lost the im¬ portant city of Kiev. His army was cut in two, and one half rapidly retreated in the direction of Odessa while Petlura himself with the other half was driven westward and eventually into Galicia. Here he was later joined by the rest of his soldiers whom the Roumanians permitted to pass through Bessarabia. In June he left his headquarters at Tarnopol and, moving sud¬ denly into Ukraine, seized Kamenetz, from which point he began an advance that ended in the capture of Kiev from the Bolshevists. He held Kiev only a few hours. This time it was Denikin and the Rus¬ sians that opposed him, and they forced him to make a hurried evac¬ uation and return to Kamenetz. The tide turned so strongly against him that he was soon obliged to flee and he sought an asylum in Poland. But today he is in the field again and Ukraine is still exposed to the horrors of war. 18 The Innocent Suffer. From this brief synopsis it is possible to understand some¬ thing of the hardships to which the country has been subjected. Without probing into the question of who is right and who is wrong, one can feel sympathy for its people, particularly for the children and those unfortunate citizens who have taken no part in the fighting, but have suffered equally from the acts of soldiers of all the armies. Hospitals of a sort are scattered throughout the country, but be¬ cause of the lack of physicians, nurses and medical supplies, many of them are not operating. The patients are mainly soldiers, and the sick civilian has a poor chance of entering one or of receiving any kind of professional aid. In consequence the death rate among the little villages is exceedingly high. One would be tempted to believe after reading the report of the Ked Cross representatives that admittance to most of these Ukrain¬ ian hospitals was by no means an advantage. They seem like mere accumulations of unrelieved misery and dangers. The Eed Cross report on any one of them applies with equal force to all the rest. The patients are fed from old and broken dishes. No mattresses, sheets or blankets for the “beds”; no cotton, gauze, or pharmaceu¬ tical supplies. Sometimes a scanty amount of bread, or oats, but no other food. The window glass missing and the windows boarded up to the permanent exclusion of light and air. There is little or no fuel and shivering patients are stretched out on bare boards. At one town 650 patients were lying in cold barracks awaiting their turn to be moved into the hospital, and outside the town 1500 were sick in their homes. There was no means of disinfecting these homes and typhus and dysentery were spreading rapidly. An epi¬ demic of dysentery is expected this winter. At another receiving station 200 sick were waiting, there were only two beds. * One of the larger hospitals had 1370 patients ill with typhus and dysentery and fifty per cent of the personnel were down with one disease or another. The patients here did not change their clothes for three or four weeks at a stretch. The majority of the beds were boards. The storeroom “had bottles but nothing in them,” says the report. The 19 few surgical instruments were old. Medicines, when any could be procured, brought the following prices: Quinine, 3000 rubles per kilogram; aspirin the same; cocaine 50,000 rubles, and neo-salvar- san 900,000 rubles. At another hospital no new garments had been received since 1914 ? and those in use were literally in rags. There were no medi¬ caments here, no soap, no bandages. The X-ray apparatus could not be run because there w r as no oil for the dynamo. Hospitals Filthy. At Smerinka 1800 men awaiting places in the hospitals were lying in cars and on the ground alongside the railroad tracks without bed¬ ding and practically without attention of any kind. The poorest of food was being served at the hospitals on unwashed dishes. Flies and filth were everywhere and the closely crowded wards emitted the stench of pig-pens. More than 100 men lay on the bare floor of a certain receiving room about 60 feet long by 20 feet wide. Filthy attendants were serving them with wet wheat in six or seven dishes which passed unwashed from hand to hand. Their condition w r as no worse, how¬ ever, than that of the 1059 sufferers who had been crowded into a hospital built for 210. Three doctors and one of the attendants had recently died of typhus at this place and four doctors and twenty-nine of the sanitary personnel were ill. The food given to the dysentery patients consisted of bad milk and soup made from oats. Wooden and pewter spoons were the only utensils and there were only 242 plates for all the sick. Many of the men, including the dysentery cases, lay on the floor. The rooms were filthy beyond description. There were no pharmacy supplies. The generally unsanitary conditions are partly accounted for by the fact that few of the hospitals, or the towns in which they were situated, had an adequate supply of water. Soap and disinfectants were also lacking. One hospital was not able to provide its patients with supper, at the time of the Red Cross representative’s visit, be¬ cause of the lack of water. Spotted typhus was specially prevalent here and most of those taken down with the disease died of it. There was a great deal of typhus throughout the countryside, brought there by the soldiers who had spread it from village to village. In 20 one village of 2000 practically all the inhabitants had contracted the disease. Water and Fuel Scarce . The extreme scarcity of wood and coal have entailed great suffer¬ ing. Few of the hospitals or homes are adequately heated and the cooking of food is often a problem. Cases exist where hospitals are practically without water, because the lack of fuel prevents them from using the steam pumps attached to their deep artesian wells. A large receiving station to which as many as 2000 patients have been brought in one day had little or no water or fuel. Nor was it better off in other respects, for it had no nurses and only three doctors. It did have, however, a force of soldier help, but fully half of them were ill themselves. Many typhus patients were wander¬ ing about aimlessly in the vicinity of the station, not knowing where to go or what to do. A group of 70 wretched creatures huddled forlornly together on the railroad track. Children Have Starved . During the past year 25 per cent of the children between one and five years of age died for the want of food. If proper nourish¬ ment is not given to the remainder the mortality will be appalling. Mr. Kiseloff, Vice-President of a local chapter of the Polish Red Cross, informed the American Red Cross representative that if the people of his town did not receive aid soon a great many would die. The same cry was raised in all directions. All the inhabitants of the cities are living on the verge of starvation, and ten per cent of the peasants are destitute. One-third of the people of the towns are without shoes or clothes—unless rags count as such. Ninety per cent of the children are unable to attend school for this reason. The lack of salt is another serious factor; if this need is not relieved there is great danger of an epidemic of scurvy. The whole system of social relief has broken down. The people are worn out by war and the formerly wealthy subscribers to char¬ itable organizations are now impoverished. Hundreds of thousands of individuals are separated from their families or homes and of those fortunate enough to have a roof over their heads many have little else. Furniture, linen, cooking utensils, even doors and win¬ dows, all have formed the spoils at one time or another of the various armies. Details of Terrible Distress Inhuman Blockade Has Brought A LETTER FROM UKRAINE. As long as head and stomach are in peace all is well. The head and stomach of Ukraine have forgotten peace. In Ukraine is going on not only the war of the Bolsheviki or Denikinists with the people, but also the war of the hungry people of the city with the village. The city does not give anything to the vil¬ lage and cannot give anything, except paper money and that of municipal make; there is now a special currency in the merest cross-roads settlements. The blockade has alsolutely ruined commerce, the whole manufacturing indus¬ try, and has thrown upon the streets the hungry workers and clerks. The City is Dying. A year more, probably half a year, and Kiev and Odessa will become grave¬ yards. That is what happened to Moscow and Petrograd not so long ago. There will be a revolutionary order and revolutionary discipline, because there will be no one left to strive. In six months of Bolshevik rule in Kiev they shot 30,000 of intelligentsia and workers, in Odessa 20,000. And one does not know who is better off, those who have been executed, or those who are dying of hunger, cold and epidemics. The city was the brains of the land. During the last year there was not published one scientific treatise by the Ukrainian universities. Nobody cares about science when he is hungry. Laboratories are closed. There are no funds to conduct clinics. The people are not being educated. Who cares to learn when the well edu¬ cated are condemned to the death by- hunger, and a student requires a few thousand of karbovantzis a month for living? High schools are extinct. Some¬ where in towns, the primary schools lead a miserable existence; the hungry in¬ telligentsia try to keep there a weak flame of culture. Book stores are closed. Libraries robbed. Newspapers are worth nothing, architects make money by wrecking wooden buildings for fuel. It is now more profitable to sell such buildings for fuel than to repair them. Mule Food For Bread. Europe does not imagine a hundredth of suffering of our cities. There is no bread! This means that Odessa ate for months a dirty black bread made of some mixture, brought by Allies for their mules. There is no fuel! For weeks even the children do not see warm food. In order to get water to drink one must look for a spring. All the water-works are closed. Epidemics are in¬ creasing. There is no light. At 4 to 5 in the evening everything drowns in blackness for 14 or 15 hours. Dying for Medical Care. There are no medicines. This means that when your wife or children get typhus or other maladies you must look on helplessly while they suffer, rot and die. A dose of salvarsan has been costing 5,000 karbovantzi,* the medicine that cures * Normally one Karbovanetz equals 50 cents; under present rate of exchange about one cent. 22 recurrent typhus in 24 hours, and if it does not cure syphilis, at least makes it harmless for a long time. There is no clothing! There are no boots! A pair of boots was sold last summer in Kamenetz-Podolsky for 7,000 to 12,000 kar- bovantzi. Shoes for 2,000 to 3,000 karbovantzi; a suit of men’s clothes 10,000 to 12,000 karbovantzi. A fur covered with cloth could be bought last winter for 40,000 to 50,000 karbovantzi—now it cost 100,000. The city cannot give anything to the village in exchange for bread because it has nothing. The village refuses to support the city, because it suffers also. The village is dying because of economic ruin. The peasants hiding places are filled with paper money. But it has no value. One cannot buy clothing for it. There is no oil or salt. A pound of salt costs $1.50 to $2.00 American money. There are no schools. Driven by hunger the teachers went to the forests and joined the insurgents. There is no paper on which to print books. The phy¬ sician has to pay six or seven karbovantzi for a sheet of paper on which to write his prescriptions. Use Grain for Whisky. Grain is plentiful in the villages. In great stacks it lies throughout winter unthreshed. There is enough of the old grain. What is threshed is going for homemade whisky. Probably the Ukrainian village never drank so hard and never so hopelessly suffered from typhus, cholera, smallpox, as it does now. The hospitals are closed. Such is the picture of Ukraine just now. Transportation is broken down. One must ride sixteen days from Kharkov to Kiev, a distance of 200 miles. The train stops every half mile; it has to either scare away the bandits, gather wood, repair the road, bind the wheels, or put out the fires, because the axles catch fire for need of oiling. From Odessa to Zhmerinka, about 150 miles, the journey may be made in 6 or 7 days if one is lucky, but he must often change to peasants’ wagons, be shot at, and risk being robbed or killed. On your way you see the telegraphic posts cut down or upset, wires cut, the net ruined for scores of miles. The work of in¬ surgents. And so it is all over Ukraine. The trains go out blindly without knowing whether the way is clear. The authority in villages is held by those who are more fearless, or stronger, or have more arms and rounds of ammunition. Everybody is tired. Everybody is sick of the unending fighting and still more unending robberies and experiments. There is only one desire above everything else; peace and at least some semblance of order. V. Andrievsky. Kamenetz-Podolsky, Jan. 1, 1920. PRESIDENT PETLURA, UKRAINE, ASKS ALLIED COUNCIL TO LIFT BLOCKADE (Ukraine is Anti-Bolshevik) 1 lie I resident of Ukrainian Peoples Republic lias the honor to bring* to the notice of the Supreme Council of Allied Powers the following*: Since December, 1918, the Ukrainian Peoples Republic has been continuously in a bloody struggle with the Bolsheviki. By her own power, and without any outside assistance, the Ukrainian people have defended their aspirations to national independence. The best sons of Ukraine strengthen with their blood the building of a sovereign national state. Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers fell in this heroic struggle. At present Russian communists are making a third attempt to im¬ pose their government on Ukraine and the people of Ukraine now rise once more and they shall throw off this foreign yoke. This struggle, however, finds a great obstacle in the blockade, which by the order of the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers was in¬ stituted against Soviet Russia, but was applied against Ukraine as well. In view of lack of real force to stop the illegal trade, this blockade is only a source of profiteering and at the same time it de¬ prives the Ukrainian Peoples Republic of the possibility of supplying the army and civil population with medicines and sanitary supplies for a successful struggle against terrible epidemics of typhus and cholera, which are killing the soldiers and civilians. This danger menaces not only Ukraine and neighboring states, but possibly the whole of Europe as well. This fact gives the Ukrainian Peoples Re¬ public the right, which is also a duty towards the Ukrainian people, as well as other peoples of Europe, to appeal to the Supreme Council of Allied Powers to take into consideration the real conditions in Ukraine. The Government of Ukrainian Peoples Republic has the honor to ask the Supreme Council of Allied Powers that it be given a chance to fight epidemics and allow free importation to Ukraine of medicines 24 and sanitary supplies, which are already bought in the Western Eu¬ rope, but not yet delivered. The Government of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic has the honor to point out that in places liberated from the communistic occupation an energetic work is going on for reconstruction and reorganization of economic life as well as building up the state on the basis of purely democratic principles. The Government of Ukrainian Peoples Republic has the honor to ask the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers to support the aims of the Ukrainian people, but first of all to help toward physical recovery of the country. Without necessary measures toward general physical recovery Ukraine will become the prey of terrible epidemics. The physical recovery of Ukraine will be the first step and an energetic step toward solution of the Eastern Problem which is presently engaging the Supreme Council of Allied Powers. The Government of Ukrainian Peoples Republic is full of hope that the Supreme Council of Allied Powers will undertake real measures toward betterment of the situation in Ukraine. S. Petlura, The President of Directorate and Supreme Chief of Ukrainian Republican Army. Jan. 22, 1920.