quarter of Brussels; we became friends. And how generous the friendship
between a Belgian and an American can be, only the members of the
Commission for Relief truly know! It is swift and complete.
I had been in Brussels five months when she said to me one day:
“My dear, I understand only too well the difficulties of your
position—the guaranty you gave on entering. As you know, I have never
once suggested that you carry a note for me, or bring a message—tho
I have seen you starting in your car behind your blessed little white
flag for the city of my daughter and my grandchildren! Nor have I,”
she laughed, with the swift play so typical of the Belgian mind,
“once hinted at a pound of butter or a potato! But lately I have been
suffering so many, many fears, that I am tempted just to ask if you
think this would be wrong for you—if it would, forget that I asked it:
I have a relation who has always been closer to me than a brother—we
were brought up together. He is eighty-two now, and, at the beginning
of the war, was living near X in Occupied France. He was important in
his district, his name is known. Now, if I should merely give you that
name, and, when you next see your American delegate from that district,
you should speak it, might it not be possible that he would recognize
it, and could tell you if my dear, dear M. is suffering, or if he is
yet able to care for himself? Would that be breaking your agreement?”
As she stood there—intelligence, distinction speaking from all her
person—fearfully putting this pitiful question, I experienced another
of those maddening moments we live through in Belgium. One swiftly
doubts one’s reason—the situation—everything! The world simply can
not be so completely lost as it seems!
Mercifully this would not be breaking any promise; and I begged for the
name.
But even then I was rather hopeless that our American would know. In
the North of France he must live with his German officer; he is not
free to mingle with the French people.
Thursday, conference day, came, when all the little white flags rush in
from their provinces, bringing our splendid American men—their faces
stern, strained, but with that beautiful light in them that testifies
they are giving without measure the best they have to others.
Never will any one, who has experienced it, forget the thrill he felt
when he saw those fifteen cars with their forty-two men rushing up,
one after the other to 66, rue des Colonies, nor the line of them all
day on the curb with their fluttering white flags carrying the red C.
R. B.! There were no other cars to be seen. Each person, as he passed,
knew that these fifteen white flags meant wheat and life to 10,000,000
people.
As I stood there I heard a band. I looked up the street and saw the
German soldiers goose-stepping before their guard mount. This happens
every morning, just a square above our offices. The white flags and the
goose-step—they pretty much sum up the situation!
I hurried inside, hoping fervently to hear the longed-for answer, as I
put the name and my question.
But the name was strange to S., he could tell me nothing, tho he felt
sure that by keeping his ears open that week, he might learn something.
How often through those days I thought of these two, caught in this
war-night of separation. For two and a half years neither had been
able to call across it even the name of the other. And then of the word
thrown into the night with hope and prayer!
On the next meeting day, as he hurried toward me, I could see from S.’s
face that he had news. “Yes,” he said eagerly, “he is still there, he
draws his ration—he is not suffering from want, he has enough left to
pay for his food. But when he heard that somebody would possibly carry
this news to his dearest living relation, he cried: ‘Oh! Would it
not be possible to do just one thing more! I am eighty-two; I may die
before this terrible war is ended. In pity will not somebody tell me
before I die if any of my nieces has had a little baby, or if any one
of them is going to have a little baby?’”
“And now,” S. said, “you and I know that if the Relief stops, we’ve
got to find out for that poor old man that there is a baby!”
And I went about it. On Thursday, when he rushed over to me I could
call: “Yes, there _is_ one! It’s Gabrielle’s! A little girl, five
months old and doing beautifully!”
“Hurrah!” he shouted, and hurried back to his tons and calories.
It is four months since then, and I do not know if there are any more
babies, or if that old gentleman of a distinguished house has had any
other than this single connection with the loved ones of this family in
over two and a half years.
XII
THE “DROP OF MILK”
Belgium is succoring her weak children, but she is going deeper than
this: she is trying to prevent weak children. All through the country
there are cantines where an expectant or young mother without means may
receive free a daily dinner, consisting usually of a thick soup, a meat
or egg dish with vegetables, a dessert with lactogenized cream, and
a measure of milk. Light service, like the peeling of vegetables, is
often required in return. The mother may come as early as three months
before the birth of her child, and if she is still nursing it, may
continue nine months after its birth. About 7,000 mothers are receiving
this dinner, and 6,000 more come to the affiliated consultation
cantines for advice.
Of course, there are always those who can not nurse their children, or
who can carry them through but a short period, when the question of
pasteurized milk becomes all-important. The “Goutte de Lait” (drop of
milk) sections meet this problem by offering the necessary feedings of
pure milk. The mother may pay for the bottles, and have them delivered,
or she may, if necessitous, receive them free by calling or sending for
them.
[Illustration: A MEAL FOR YOUNG MOTHERS]
In Antwerp, where this work has assumed unusual proportions, a
big-hearted president of the Belgian Provincial Committee got
permission to purchase 100 cows in Holland and to hold them without
danger of requisition. He installed a model dairy on his place, and
now gives all the baby cantines pure milk. He is always most anxious
to finish his arduous day’s work at the bureau, so that he may return
to his dairy, examine the milk tests, and review his fine herd.
One of his daughters, in addition to hours spent in the cantines,
takes the entire responsibility of the management of this dairy. Other
towns are less fortunate, and must struggle continually to get the
milk they require. There is a beautiful development of the work of a
“Goutte de Lait” in Hasselt, in a cantine occupying part of a maternity
hospital. There they have an admirable equipment for sterilization and
pasteurization. At 7 o’clock in the morning I found the women directors
already busy with the preparation of the milk. Each feeding has its
separate bottle, and may be kept sealed till the baby receives it.
After seven months, white phosphatine, a mixture of the flour of wheat,
rice and corn, with salt, sugar and phosphate of lime, is furnished; at
fourteen months, cocoa is added, and after two years, soup and bread.
I happened to arrive on the weekly weighing day. One hundred mothers
were gathered in a large, cheery room, their babies in their arms,
many of them gay in the pretty bonnets the doctor’s wife had made for
those who had the best records. They passed, a few at a time, into
the smaller room where the doctor and his wife examined, weighed,
counseled, while two assistants registered important details; the three
young nurses generally aided the mothers and their chiefs.
Then I was shown an adjoining room, where, in the corners, there were
heaps of little white balls rolled in wax paper. From a distance they
looked more than anything else like tiny popcorn balls. What could
they mean? I took one in my hand and saw that they meant that the most
precious prize that can be offered a Belgian mother to-day is a tiny
ball of white lard! With the more ignorant, this prize-system is the
swiftest means of opening the way. The doctor laughed as he recounted
his struggle with one obstinate woman, who argued stoutly that because
the cow is a great, strong creature, while she herself is but small
and frail, undoubtedly its milk would be infinitely more strengthening
to her child than her own! Where argument failed, the prize convinced.
If a mother can nurse her baby but neglects to, she is forced to feed
it regularly before some member of the committee. Nurses visit all the
homes registered.
The attempt is being made everywhere to induce mothers who are not
actually in want, to enroll in these cantines, while paying for
their food, that they may have the benefit of the pure milk and the
physician’s care. The “Relief” is not counting the cost of this
fundamental work—the baby cantines are the promise of the future.
They are already closely watching the development of 53,000 babies.
The educational value alone can not be measured; women who had not the
faintest conception of the simplest laws of hygiene are being trained,
forced to learn, because their own and their children’s food can come
to them only from the hand of their teacher. While the war has brought
unutterable misery, it has also brought extraordinary opportunity, and
Belgium is seizing this opportunity wherever she can.
XIII
LAYETTES
And babies must be clothed, as well as fed! I visited one of the
Brussels layette centers with the C. R. B. American advisory physician,
whose interest in children had brought him at once face to face
with what women are doing to save them. We went to a little cantine
consisting of a room and anteroom on the ground floor, and, I might
add, the sidewalk—for before we reached it we saw the line of hatless
mothers with their tiny babies wrapt in shawls in their arms, waiting
their turn. This was a depot where they might receive the articles
for the lying-in period and clothing for babies under six months of
age. We passed through the anteroom, where a number sat nursing their
babies (young mothers mostly, and many of them pretty), into the
distributing-room.
Here we found three directors very busy at their tables with the
record-cards, books and other materials of their organization, and
three younger women rapidly sorting out the tiny bibs, slips and sheets
heaped high on the counters along the walls. From the miscellaneous
piles they produced the neat little layettes—each a complete wardrobe
for an expectant or young mother, and comprising 4 squares, 2 swaddling
cloths, 3 fichus, 4 brassieres, 2 shirts, 2 bands, 2 pair socks, 2
bonnets, 3 bibs, 1 hooded cloak. The packages for children from three
to six months held 3 squares, 2 pantaloons, 2 bibs, 2 fichus, 2 shirts,
2 brassieres, 2 dresses.
As the mothers came in, the babies were carefully weighed and examined,
the records added to, through direct, effective questioning—always
gentle and encouraging. The young women turned over the needed
garments, with advice about their use, chiefly regarding cleanliness.
To support this advice, they attempted to have the materials white as
far as possible.
When I asked what they most needed, they said, “Cradles, Madame,
cradles. We could place fifty a week in this cantine alone, and white
materials for sheets and blankets—and oh, hundreds of yards of rubber
sheeting or its equivalent!” For very evident reasons, the C. R. B. is
not allowed to bring in rubber materials of any kind. Many mothers,
as the babies arrive, appeal for beds for the older children and for
mattresses for themselves. “We can still get ticking in Brussels if we
have the money, but nothing to stuff it with.”
Every morning since the beginning of the war these women have been
there, on their feet most of the time—sorting, arranging packages of
garments, and keeping in their minds and hearts the hundreds of mothers
and babies who depend on them. They often visit the homes after cantine
hours. Madame smiled as she explained the necessity of a personal
investigation of each case. “For instance,” she said, “if at the
children’s cantine I gave a youngster a pair of shoes simply because he
seemed to have none, and without personally proving that he had none, I
should undoubtedly have an entire barefoot family the next day!”
It was with this particular kind of work that the Petites Abeilles or
“Little Bees” started five years before the war. A group of young women
banded together to help children, and organized centers in Brussels
for the distribution of needed clothing. Their efforts at once won the
enthusiasm of the people. Poets wrote songs to “The Little Bees,” the
Queen and the adored Princess Marie-José were their patronesses—they
were probably the most popular organization of their kind in Belgium.
Then the war came, and the mothers quickly took charge. They
established a vast home for refugees, where they housed over 5,000.
Later they appealed to the Relief Committee to be allowed to develop
their work to meet the terrible emergency. Their offer was only too
gladly accepted, and one after another cantine for feeding, as well
as clothing, was opened in the various sections of the city; where
to-day practically all the work for the children is carried on by these
wonderful “Little Bees” and their mothers. By July, 1916, their 124
Brussels sections were caring for about 25,000 children, and between
2,500 and 3,000 women were giving a great part of their time to the
work. Social barriers disappeared. All classes rallied to the need.
Four hundred telephone girls out of work were doing their best, side
by side with countesses.
As we were leaving, Madame explained that the woman who founded this
particular cantine was a prisoner in Germany. The three beautiful young
girls sorting the layettes were the daughters, carrying forward their
mother’s work. I was to learn that almost invariably at some moment of
my visit, the veil would be withdrawn and the tragedy revealed.
XIV
THE SKATING-RINK AT LIÉGE
To the world Liége is the symbol of Belgium’s courage. During eleven
days her forts withheld an overwhelming force, reckless of its size or
her own unpreparedness, determined to save the national integrity of
Belgium. And well Belgium knew to what point she could count on the
brave Liégeois; through all her troubled history, they had been the
ardent champions of her freedom.
This beautiful city on the Meuse escaped the ruin visited on other
parts of her province. In fact, all the four largest cities of
Belgium escaped, in each case a smaller neighboring town, especially
picturesque, stands as an example of destruction and warning. Belgians
ask if it was not with the obvious intent of cowing the near-by
capital, that Dinant was made an example to Namur, Nimy to Mons,
Louvain to Brussels? They point out that tho only the ghost of lovely
Visée remains, Liége itself has lost but about 100 buildings. After
the final inevitable surrender of her forts, the attacking army passed
on, leaving her under powerful control. But tho the material damage
was small, as the populous center of a great industrial region, this
city was one of the first to realize the distress that followed the
occupation and isolation of Belgium. One by one her famous firearm
factories and glass mills closed their doors, and poured their
thousands of workmen into the streets. In many cases the factories were
dismantled, the machinery taken to Germany to make munitions. And this
was happening all through the province, so that by 1915 it counted
90,000 idle workmen (chômeurs), and in the capital alone, fully 18,000.
Ordinarily (among her 180,000 inhabitants) Liége lists 43,000 skilled
workmen; so for her the proportion of idle was almost one-half; with
their families they represented but little less than one-quarter of
the entire population. The 4,000 employed in the coal mines, which,
fortunately, were able to keep open, were the one saving factor in the
situation.
The question of chômage, or unemployment, is the most serious the
relief organization has had to face. It has been most acute in the
two Flanders; but in Antwerp, with its 25,000 idle dock hands, in
the highly industrial Hainaut, in Namur and Brabant, as well as in
Liége, there have been special circumstances developing particular
difficulties. Over 665,000 workmen without work, representing millions
of dependents, would present a sufficiently critical problem to a
country not at war. One can imagine what it means to a country every
square foot of which is controlled by an enemy so hated that the
conquered would risk all the evils of continued non-employment rather
than have any of its people serve in any way the ends of the invader.
Better roads, better railways, mean greater facility for the Germans.
None of the leaders I have talked with have been satisfied with the
system evolved, but no one has yet been able to substitute a better.
A scheduled money allowance for the chômeur was quickly adopted, but
as a friend from Tournai said, this enabled a man simply to escape
complete starvation, but not to live. Three francs a week for the
workman, one franc and a half for his wife, fifty centimes for each of
his children, or one dollar and ten cents a week for a family of four,
just about the war price of one pound of butter or meat! Obviously
the chômeur and his family must draw on the soupes and cantines, and
this they do. They form a considerable part of the one and one-quarter
millions of the soup-lines. Every province has tried to reduce its
number of unemployed by providing a certain amount of work on roads
and public utilities. Luxembourg has been conspicuous in this attempt,
reclaiming swamps, rebuilding sewer systems and roadways, employing
about 10,000 men. In fact, Luxembourg has so far almost avoided a
chômeur class.
Throughout the country, too, the clothing and lace committees are
furnishing at least partial employment to women. In a lesser way
various local relief committees are most ingenious in inventing
opportunities to give work. In the face of the whole big problem they
often seem insignificant, but every community is heartened by even the
smallest attempt to restore industry. I have seen fifty men given the
chance to buy their own food by means of a “soles work.” All the needy
of the village were invited to bring their worn shoes to have a new
kind of wooden sole put on for the winter, and the men were paid by
the committee for putting them on. In one city the owner of a closed
firearm factory has opened a toy works where 100 men and 30 women are
kept busy carving little steel boxes and other toys. If these articles
could be exported, such establishments would quickly multiply, but
every enterprize must halt at the grim barrier.
In Liége I came upon a most picturesque attempt at an individual
solution. I had been much interested in Antwerp and Charleroi and other
cities, in the “Dîner Economique” or “Dîner Bourgeois,” conducted by
philanthropic women. These are big, popular restaurants, where because
of a subsidy from the relief committee, and because almost all of the
service is contributed, a meal can be served for less than it costs.
For a few centimes, about ten cents, usually, one may have a good soup,
a plate with meat and vegetables, and sometimes a dessert.
Wonderful Belgian women come day after day, month after month, to serve
the thousands that flock to these centers that save them from the
soup-lines. If they can add this dinner to their relief ration, they
can live. And they are not “accepting charity!” The dining-rooms are
always attractive, often bright with flags and flowers, the women are
cheery in their service. Priests, children, artists, men and women of
every class sit at the tables. Once I saw a poor mother buy one dinner
for herself and her two children, and fortunately, too, I saw a swift
hand slip extra portions in front of the little ones. There are ten
such restaurants in Antwerp (five conducted by the Catholics, and five
by the Liberals) that serve on an average over 10,000 dinners a day.
The one in Charleroi serves from 400 to 900 daily.
In Liége the work is consolidated. I found the once popular
skating-rink turned into a mighty restaurant, gay with American
bunting. The skating floor was crowded with tables, the surrounding
spectators’ space made convenient cloak-rooms, the one-time casual
buffet was a kitchen in deadly earnest, supplying dinners to about
4,000 daily.
When I arrived, there was already a line outside; each person had to
present a card on entering to prove him a citizen of Liége. If he
could, he paid 75 centimes (15 cents) for his dinner. If unable to, by
presenting a special card from the Relief Committee, he might receive
it for 60, or even 30 centimes—a little more than 5 cents.
Inside the tables were crowded, sixty-five women were hurrying between
them and back and forth to the directors who stood at a long counter
in front of the kitchen, serving the thousands of portions, of soup,
sausage, and a kind of stew of rice and vegetables.
In the kitchen and meat and vegetable rooms there was the constant
clamor of sifting, cutting, stirring, of the opening and shutting
of ovens. While the sausages of the day were being hurried from the
pans, the soup of the morrow was being mixed in the great caldrons;
250 men were hard at work. Somehow they did not look as tho they had
been peeling carrots and stirring soup all their lives—there was an
inspiring dash in their movements that prevented it seeming habitual.
The superintendent laughed: “Yes,” he said, “they are chiefly railroad
engineers, conductors, various workmen of the Liége Railroad Company!
I myself was an attorney for the road, and I am really more interested
in this oeuvre from the point of view of these men, than because of the
general public it helps. Here are 250 men who are giving their best
service to their country. In working for others they have escaped the
curse of being forced to work for the Germans! The sixty-five women
serving the 4,000 were once in the telephone service. They also offered
to devote themselves to their fellow-sufferers, and they are so proud,
so happy to be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with other women in
this black hour.”
I asked if each worker were given his dinner. “Ah! there was a
problem!” he said. “The meals which we furnish for from 30 to 75
centimes, cost us an average of 63 centimes.” To supply this to 250
assistants was quite beyond the subsidy allowed the Relief. And yet the
workers certainly must be fed. Finally he admitted that he and a group
of friends were contributing the money necessary to supply these meals.
He added that in the beginning the men were hardly able to give more
than two hours’ hard work a day, but that after a few months of proper
nourishment their energy was inexhaustible.
On another day I found there were no potatoes, and that the number of
meals served had in consequence dropt fully 1,000; 743 at 75 centimes,
820 at 60 centimes, 1,473 at 30 centimes. If there are no potatoes
to be had in the city, and they are known to be on the carte of the
restaurant, there is not standing-room. Hundreds have to be turned away.
This kind of double oeuvre is quite the most interesting of all the
varied attempts to meet the staggering problem Belgium has daily to
face.
XV
A ZEPPELIN
I went down the road toward Verviers. I stopt at a farmhouse to talk
with the farmer about the pitiful ration of the Liége coal miners. They
travel many miles underground, and there is no way of getting hot soup
to them. His wife gave me a glass of sweet milk. Then we went into the
courtyard where he had a great caldron of prune syrup simmering.