Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1917 — MANY AUSTRIANS DYING OF HUNGER [ARTICLE]

MANY AUSTRIANS DYING OF HUNGER

Medical Records Show That Deaths Are Caused by Famine Conditions. FISH SUPPLY IS SHORT Seafaring Males Are Called to Fight and Incompetents Fill Boats— Speeches in Parliament Reveal Appalling Conditions. Rome.—There Is now no further doubt about the desperate conditions in Austria, where people are actually dying of hunger. Deaths from starvation are medically attested, and the certificates of the district medical officers cannot be kept secret, as they must be produced by the relatives of the deceased person to the local authorities in order to have the body buried without an Inquest and a postmortem examination. The Arbeiter Zeitung recently published a facsimile of the certificate of death of a laborer named B. Hauptlg, native of Relchenberg In Bohemia, whose body was found in n field.

The district medical officer of Kratzau attested that the man had died of hunger. Similar certificates have from time to time been published in provincial papers, but as a rule the great majority remain unknown. Moreover doctors often use the expression “nervous exhaustion” to explain deaths from hunger, and thus to a certain extent appearances are saved. The fact remains, however, that people are starving to death in Austria, and evidence of the appalling economic conditions is afforded by two speeches delivered in parliament by Deputy Bianchinl of Dalmatia -and the German Socialist Renner of Vienna. Dalmatians Aroused. Deputy Bianchini, who despite his Italian name Is a Croatian and noted for his loyalty to Austrian rule, openly accused the military authorities of despoiling the Dalmatians of. everything and condemning them to starvation. “All our fishermen have been called to the colors.” he said, “and if some of them were sent home and provided with boats, ropes and nets they would provide enough fish for the population. It is useless to send Hungarian fishermen whq know the sea by hearsay and cannot fish. The military authorities have even requisitioned salt from Dalmatia, with the result that even when fish is plentiful It cannot be salted and kept for the winter. Another mistake committed by the authorities has been the wholesale requisitioning of oil. Oil is indispensable as an article of food to Dalmatians, as it replaces every kind of fat. Besides, like salt, oil is needed to preserve fish and vegetables. The people are suffering tortures from lack of oil. Denutrition has reduced them to skeletons, and now in many districts of the province a terrible unknown epidemic is raging, which the doctors attribute to lack of oil and fat. This epidemic is most violent. Its main symptom is a sudden swelling of the feet, which in most cases Is followed by death within twenty-four hours. “Live stock has been requisitioned without any system In Dalmatia. -Horses. mules and oxen have been sent to Serbia, Montenegro TLnfT Albania for military transport and men over fifty years old and boys of twelve and fourteen were sent as drivers, and few of them ever returned. The Austrian army has been fed with beef from Dalmatia to such an extent that the 116,000 head of oxen existing/before the war have now fallen to less than 30,000.

Bread and Meat Scarce. “Bread is even more scarce than meat in Dalmatia. The wheat grown in the province is hardly sufficient to feed the population for two months in normal times, yet all the wheat has been requisitioned and paid for so low that the farmers lost money besides being starved. The bread now supplied is of such an inferior quality that it cannot be eaten even by starving people. “As food Is scarce and dear it is no exaggeration to say that before long a regular famine with all its terrible consequences will inevitably follow in Dalmatia.” Deputy Renner denounced the hopeless economic conditions In Austria. “I do not appeal to the crown, to the government and to parliament as national institutions, but I speak as man to men and appeal to your intelligence and to your hearts." he said. “While we are talking here people outside are dying of hunger. We deplore that some provinces are worse off than others and debate as to whether the middle classes are suffering more than the lower ones, and yet all the people are desperate. The bread ration is insufficient, but what is worse the minimum fixed for each person often cannot be had. and more often still the distribution of bread is irregular.” All the members of the Austrian parliament, even those who support the government and are bent on resistance to the very end. denounced the hopeless economic situation, and even when optimistic they admitted that the war could not be prolonged more than three months without risking a regular famine.