Americus times-recorder. [volume], July 26, 1915, City Edition, Page PAGE FOUR, Image 4

About Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current

Image provided by: Digital Library of Georgia, a project of GALILEO located at the University of Georgia Libraries

                
PAGE FOUR
. jtfUßk Hello, Grandma!
ere All Well,
How are You?
A \ 11 /) \
/ f I It is a joyous moment
\ f° r th e distant grand-
parent when she hears
the voice of her favorite
youngster on the Long Distance Bell Telephone.
Children who cannot write can use the Bell
Telephone with ease, and their small voices over the
wires give assurance to loved ones that all is well.
The Long Distance Bell Telephone plays an im
portant part in the social life of the nation. With
out leaving your home you can visit satisfactorily
with relatives or friends in distant cities.
The service is fine; the rates are reasonable.
Every Bell Telephone is a Long Distance Station.
f SOUTHERN BELL TELEPHONE
rl jM R
wEw AND telegraph company.
Poland Faces Second Crisis
Unhappy Country Again in Trouble
ARMIES TO LEAVE
COUNTRY DESERT
OFRUINEOHOMES
(By Associated Press.)
LONDON, July 26. —The desperate
fighting now going on around War
saw and throughout the Eastern zone
of operations centers attention on the
coilossal tragedy of Poland, the sec
ond that unhappy country has endur
ed, the first having stirred America to
its depths when Kosciusczo went there
to tell Poland’s own story and left its
memories in the statue of the Polish
liberator in one of the public squares
of Wasrin,gton.
But that first tragedy was as noth
ing compared with what Poland is now
undergoing ,th e entire theatre of East
ern fighting being within the territory
of the old kingdom of Poland, with
Russian armies tramping over the
country from the east, Austrian arm
ies from the south ,and German arm
ies from the north and west, all com
pressing Poland as in a double vice
from four sides, marching and fighting
on a scale of unprecedented magnitude
and leaving a train of wreck and deso
lation even greater than that of Belg
ium or Serbia. This is the testimony
of disinterested eye-witnesses, Polish.
English and American, who have re
cently traversed the stricken regions,
including C. C. Gibson of the Rocke
feller Foundation, who declared on his
return that this was one of the great
est tragedies the world had known,
the devastation of Belgium shrinking
in comparison.
Such telegraphic news as trickles
through Poland, except the official re-
ports of miltiary operations from the
three sides, is censored and garbled
and gives only the picture of fighting,
without that of the prostrate country
under the heels of the fighters press
ing from four sides. But from eye
witnesses returning, from Polish stu
dent refugees from the scourged dis
trict, and from letters to those w’ho
have sought asylum here, there is a
mass of information on the real con
ditions at the scene of these gigantic
Eastern operations. Much of this
information flows into the hands of
Miss Laurence Alma-Tadema, daugh
ter of the great English artist, who
for three months has been working
day and night as the secretary and
directing genius of the Polish relief
committee, whose offices and patrons
embrace about every name of note in
England—peers, cabinet members, am
bassadors. artists and authors.
“Think of the magnitude of this
appaling Polish tragedy," said Miss
Alma-Tadema to a representative of
The Associated Press. "It is difficult
for us in England or America. with
conditions serene, to cast the mind's
eye across Europe and grasp the fact
that all the titantic Eastern battles
are being fought on Polish soil. And
it is not only a gigantic struggle of
invading armies from without, one
following another with all their train
of ruin and desolation, but it partakes
almost of civil conflict with Pole fight
ing against Pole.
“There are,” she went on, “about
twelve million Russian Poles, and
about the same number of Austrian
and Prussian Poles. All of them have
that intense longing to see Poland rise
again as a united kingdom. And yet of
these twenty-four million Poles, a mil
lion Polish soldiers are fighting in the
Russian ranks .and another million
are fighting in the Austrian and Ger
man ranks—literally brother against
brother. One of the reports reaching
me tells of a body of Polish infantry
THE AMERICUS DAILY TIMES-RECORDER
on the Russian side, charging at a body
of the enemy with bayonets raised
and the battle-crys ringing from both
sides—only to distinguish as they
came to grips that both were shouting
the cry of Poland —and on that instant,
as if inspired by a common impulse,
every bayonet was lowered and every
man in the facing ranks fell on his
knees and in their common language
breathed the Lord's prayer. That was
Poland’s prayer on the battle-field of
this terrible Eastern conflict.
“Here is another thoroughly authen
ticated case,” said Miss Alma-Tadema:
July
August
September
AND
October
Rent a 12 inch
fan for these hot
months
$5.00
for four months
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“A Polish infantryman raised his rifle
and fired point blank at an advancing
foe, only to see him pitch forward and
hear him cry out in Polish, ‘My God I
leave a wife and three children.' And
this agonizing dying cry in Polish
rang in the ears of the brother Pole
vho had fired the shot, torturing him
night and day, until he literally went
mad and was taken from the ranks a
raving maniac,
“It was natural that the Russian
Pole should cast his lot with Russia,
and this loyalty has been rewarded by
the inspired proclamation of Grand
Duke Nicholas romisipng freedom for
Poland ,a pledge which every Russian
Pole acecpts in good faith as fore
shadowing the reunification of the
Polish nation. On the other hand the
Galician Poles showed a perfectly nat
ural first movement of allegiance to
Austria whicch had given them the
right of their own faith and lagnuage
and some semblance of freedom. This
and the laws of compulsory military
service brought almost a million Poles
into the Austro-German ranks to fight
against their brothers in the Russian
ranks. And yet In both Austria and
Prussia the overwhelming majority of
the Poles are at heart solidly with the
kingdom of Poland.”
When Mr. Gibson of the Rockefeller
Foundation returned from Poland he
told Miss Alma-Tadema of the terrible
scenes he had witnessed in the strick
en regions. Together they planned for
extensive measures of relief, to be
sent through Germany with the ap
proval of the British Foreign Office,
Germany consented, but the officials
here doubted the good faith of Ger
many’s letting large supplies of food
pass across Germany to Poland. And
so the negotiations halted and now
another plan is on foot to get supplies
into Poland byway of Switzerland
without passing through German
hands.
One of the scenes Mr. Gibson pictur
ed was a Polish village where he pass
ed a cemetery and saw’ a crowd col
lected. On inquiry he learned it was
the joint funeral of twelve children
who had died that day; and he learned
further that this w’as the normal av
erage in this and other stricken vil
lages—twelve children a day dying of
starvation. At one point he noted an
old woman who had crawled sixteen
kilometers to get a hand-full of black
bread. These w’ere merely a few in
stances out of a great number which
i le<j to the conclusion that the des
olation in the wake o fthe armies in
Poland w’as greater than that in Bel
gium, where he had made a similar in
spection.
The Polish student group here is al
so receiving mail advices from their
friends in the various parts of Poland.
One of the last posted of these student
letters summed up recent advices
which got through as follows:
“Out of 127,000 square kilometers in
old Poland, 84,000 square kilometers
have now been occupied by the Austro-
German armies. The departments
which have suffered most are Kallska,
Piotrowska, Kielecka, Radowska, Sp
wolska, and Plocka; also four dis
tricts of the government of Lonisyn
sky, 10 districts of Warsaw, which is
a department half the size of Wales in
addition to the city of Warsaw, four
districts of Lubelskicj and five in Che-
Imskiy. Out of 12,000,000 inhabitants
of this region, 9,000,000 have suffered.
Os 27,000 villagers, 5,500, or about 20
per cent are partially destroyed, and
another 1,000 villages are completely
leveled to the ground, not a trace of 1
them remaining beyond the heaps of
smouldering rubbish and ruin.”
The peasantry are pictured as mov
ing about uike great tribes of gypsies
over the blackened fields, carrying and
pushing their scant belongings in
small carts. Miss Alma-Taema gives
a graphic picture of this wholesale
desolation: "Industry is at a stand
still; millions are out of work; the
meadows and arable lands are fur
row’ed by deep trenches, riddled with
shell-holes; the same tracts have been
swept over and over by immense bat
tle waves; nothing remains. The barns
and ricks are burned; the horses and
cattle ail stolen or slain; ruin every
where. The women and children have
been driven out into the open, they
cow’er in the W’oods; the manse, the
manor house, the old castle in the.
park, all are destroyed; there is no one
to help, there is nowhere to fly to.
nothing to do but to hide in ruins, in
w’oods or in hollow’s, gnawing roots
and the bark of trees, while the chil
dren shiver and starve to death.”
And this is from one of the best in
formed Polish authorities in England,
th e energetic young woman official of
the Polish committee, the bearer of one
of England's great names, and the
center into which pours all this mass
of information concerning the colossal
tragedy of Poland.
There are many other enthusiastic
Polish workers here, notably Mme.
Syanislawa Bevan, the Polish wife of
the prominent English painter. Robert
Bevan, who is chairman of the com
mittee looking after Polish refugees
coming to London. Mme. Bevan, born
in Poland, has sacrificed her jewels to
aid in caring for her countrymen. One
of the rings sh egave for the cause is
significant of the berning hope under
lying the Polish cause. It is an old
family heir-loom, bearing date just
after Poland was torn into three parts
and passed around to Austria, Prussia
and Russia. What appears to be a
seal on top is in truth a miniature cof
fin, emblamatic of Poland’s burial. But
when a tiny spring is touched, the cof
fin opens and a Polish knight in the
full regalia of old Poland, rises with
sword aloft from his tomb in which
Poland has slept since she was dis
membered.
The Anglo-Russian entente creates
many political obstacles to getting de
tails of conditions in the Eastern field
for publication and even in telling the
truth. For example, Cardinal Bourne,
archbishop of Westminister, made a
remarkable address recently to a
gothering of Poles and Polish adher
ents. It w’as presumed that such an
address would be printed in all its
details, but w’hen the text appeared in
the “Universe” it was with frequent
parenthetical phrases “Deleted by the
Censor.” Even one of the appeals for
relief of Polish victims has fallen un
der the ban and had to be w’ithdrawm.
Thus England is loyal to her Russian
ally, and the political status of Poland
is necessarily viewed in London from
the Anglo-Russian viewpoint. But the
actualities of the Polish people, the
havo c and distress among them, stand
out in startling magnitude notwith
standing the veil which is kept so
tightly drawn over the political status.
Just as Well.
Long quaffing maketh a short life.
—Lyly.
Chero-Cola
VyT * Chero-Cola is sold
A\\\ / / only in the original
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s ' \ Vk never varying in its
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lHlk Call for-
11 I \ IB In a Bottle— *
\ \ V in Through a Straw i
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v Z-HWik
4
Be has been for 18 years the Old Reliable, largest-seHin* home sad offices! .... I
ht enough to oil a watch; heavy enough to oil a lawn mower. On s soft cloth It ■
in ideal fumitun frlUlur. Makes a yard of cheese cloth the best and
.stint Cloth. %
n-One absolutely prevents rust or tarnish on all metal surfaces. Indoors and or,-, %
sate. K W
in-Om. WriteroJoyforgenerous/eMsampleandtbeDictionaryofuses—>
One is sold everywhere in 3-siza bottles: 10c (1 or.), 25c (3 ox.), 50c (8 ox., X Pint for"
Also ia patented Handy Oil Ca. TScGXox.). *
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» | Agents
I GAS RANGES I f ||l
MAKE fIOOSEWQftKJRk AS(
EASY! toftiiniOW
\L
Many Women JIL
Are Slaves.
They are slaves to the kitchen \ " m
coal stove —tied hand and foot by \
foolish custom to an old tradition. I . l~fa— L
But the day of freedom has dawned. B
The modern gas stove is proving \
the great emancipator. It turns
cooking into a pleasure. It gives k
the housewife more time to herself. PvX (I
It cooks better, faster and cleaner /II \\\
than the coal stove.
It is cheaper in the end. \ —\\
AMERICUS PUBLIC SERVICE COMPANY.
MOKDAY, JULY 1915