Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 153, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1920 — FOUND LAND OF CONTRASTS [ARTICLE]

FOUND LAND OF CONTRASTS

Galling Poverty on One Hani, Riches on Other. GIFE CROWDS IRE HRILUUT iii ■ » Ui. • ■ « High Prices Cause Stranger* to Warn *■ dor How People Manage to LiveLong Queue* of Mon, Women and Children Stand In Cold, Shirt and •now Outed* Food Relief Stattom Walting far Breed. A* a land of striking contrasts Poland with her new wen freedom la without an equal today. On on* baud Is a display bf wealth, midnight suppers and revelry; on the other heed Is galling poverty, hunger and emafa ated arms held out imploring for abb There is a great scarcity of milk sad the price of it la exorbitant, but them always Is fresh whipped cream tor your coffee, while a lad, weak of body and hunger-pinched face and clogs as worn that he slips on the Ice covered pavement, pushes a handcart filled with mnk in bottles from house to house seeking customers. Fuel, too, is scarce and only the wealthy can buy coal, but the hot water in your apartment at a hotel may ran to waste all day and no om will tell you to turn It off. In fiorite windows exotic plants bloom, white outside the streets are slippery with their covering of ice and snow io banked high. Soli American Cigarette*. * Tobacco is scarce, but in every hotel lobby there are boys with packages of American Red Cross cigarettes, which they otter for sale <t 18 shnitngs for a package of twenty. Clothing is scarce and but one sees many well dressed men and handsomely gowned women, while waiters in cases and restaurants have abolished “tips” and dress suits as savoring of the bourgeois, and have purchased lounge suits at £4O each. And while men and women of wealth dine and wine In these places, outside at the food relief statlono there stand long Queues of men, women and children in the cold and the sleet and snow waiting for bread. How do they do it! How do tbs poor live! These are questions any stranger here would ask. The answer ie not easy for a cabinet minister's salary to only £IOO a month; a deck gets £4 a month. Bread costs two shillings avioaf, a pair of boots IM a cup of chocolate 4s. 6d.; a sweater and a knitted skirt, £B4; a table d’hote luncheon of soup, entree and an ice, £1 25., with a la carte prices as follows: Hors d’oeuvres, Uto; soup, Ba. 6d.; omelet, 95.; cutlet, Mb.; slice of turkey, 165.; spinach, Ba.; cote pote of fruit, 10s.; a bottle of daret, 70a Mark Worth Half a Fenny. The Polish mark, nominally worth la. 6d.. now is worth half a penny, and the Pole can only earn Poildh marks. Therefore mogy Polea who fa turned here from America when the new Poland arose now are trying to return to the United States. Meanwhile, the Pole is waiting fits something to happen. He knows th* present conditions cannot last always they cannot endure. But while it lasts Warsaw presents curious sights, striking contrasts—bitter frosts, radiant sun, biting wind and dust storms; glorious sunsets and snow. It is a busy, constantly moving city, with rooms almost unobtainable at the hotels; with street ears packed like the subway trains at the rash hours in New York; with Cases filled with brilliant crowds, dining and wining, while the orchestras play wonderful music. Today this is a city e 4 men of all nations; of handsome women in rich gowns and furs, and shambling. pinched faced beggars who bag a crumb of bread. And yet, with all Ite contrasts, Warsaw, and all Poland, has a high mm oelouenesß of freedom and pride of patriotism. Enormous possibilities are bare, and only , a constructive statesmanehip is needed to develop them, to weld the scattered eMs of ltfe together; to rehabilitate Poland, to make her a great productive unit of world production and commerce, and, if necessary, to' make her an effective barrier between bolshevism and wW ordered goveenment . Z X