Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1874 — The Nebraska Sufferers [ARTICLE]

The Nebraska Sufferers

To the People of Indiana : There are ten thousand people in the western part of the State of Nebraska who are reduced to the verge ol starvation. Nebraska, usually so prolific, has this year met with a sad mishap in the loss, by grasshoppers, of all the crops grown in the bolder counties. I lately traveled over the devastated region* and found the inhabitants in a most deplorable condition.— In Gundy, Hitchcock, Jasper, Boon, Furnas, Franklin, Phelps, Howard, Greeley, Valley, Buffalo and Sherman counties, fully one-third of the people had no shoes, and were clothed in rags. Many were living on little pieces of black bread, watermelons, squashes, and a few were already suffering from hunger. There was not over ten days’ supply of anything i» the counties. — Three counties had no meat, and most of the inhabitants had not •tasted animal food for six weeks. When houses- burn, food is generally at hand, and the people live on in comfort lut when crops fail, then suffering, and death must soon follow Th-s roar of the flames, and the crash of falling buildings awaken the anosi lively sympathy of more ioetunate neighbors, and they give liberally ; but in the loss of crops the bony hand of starvation comes, silently to grasp the vitals,and wring life tr jm the body. The people of Nebraska have suffered a worse disaster than fire. Fc« ten years this State has not only maintained its own people, but exported largely, and contributed liberally to the wants of the unfortunate of other States. Omaha g:i<re twenty thousand dollars iu cash to the Chicago sufferers after the fire which was more than one dollar per head for every man, woman and child in the city. The Nehraßkianß are now struggling manfully to maintain their unfortunate people, but they cannot do it unaided. There are leu thousand destitute to be fed from now until crops grow again. To feed, clothe and warm thesj will require at le;.st four dollars each per month for seven or eight months, a sum equal to ♦28U.000 or $300,000. ■Not lo seed the people would be to tleave them where we found them, without any means of living, and we must therefore give them seed to plant in the spring. This will fake SIOO,OOO more. The people are our frontiers-men, and we are equally interested in the settlement ot the West. People of Indiana, the facts are before you.—What will you do in the matter ? What is done should be done quickly. The destitute Nebraskians live in a beautiful section of the country. They are loth to leave their new-found homes, and I think it Is our duty to maintain them until crops can be grown again. It would not be good poliey to break up fourteen new counties ot the West, yet this must be done unless the people are fed.