Feeding the Hungry, P. C. Hiebert, 1929

first. 4. Purposeful adaptation to the new, perhaps un- desirable, but inevitable conditions of life has done much to improve the morale of the people. They have learned to get along under conditions which would have been un- thinkable in pre-war days. Demands are less and life is much simpler. The wants have decreased to conform to the decreased capacity to supply; and conditions may appear quite good in comparison to what they were during famine times. On the other hand necessity is the mother of invention, and our people have learned to produce more under prevailing conditions and with available means than they at first thought possible. RELIEF AND RECONSTRUCTION IN SIBERIA CHAPTER X Alvin J. Miller To the average American the name Siberia suggests a wild region, a frontier wilderness, a place of dreary exile. It is however more like the western half of North America, with its vast plains and high mountains, with the cold of Alaska and the heat of Mexico. Deep in the prairies of Siberia, several hundred miles south of Omsk, are Mennonite settlements numbering about 17,000 souls. Our first contact with these brethren was brought about in a unique manner. Our Western Mennonites had sent M. B. Fast and Wilhelm Neufeld to convoy a shipment of clothing from California to this settlement via Vladivostok. There the shipment was held and finally the two men returned home. In June 1922 we were requested to confer with the Government at Moscow relative to forwarding the goods to their destina- tion. By this time the obliging Mr. Lander was the Gov- ernment representative for relief organizations and by August we had not only permission to bring in the 88 cases of clothing, weighing about a ton, free of duty, but also the promise of free transportation all the way from the Pacific Coast to Omsk. Both points were granted on the basis of our A.M.R. Moscow relief agreement though the Government was under no obligations to transport our supplies free of cost from the Pacific coast. It was an indication of the Government’s favorable attitude toward the A.M.R. RELIEF AND RECONSTRUCTION IN SIBERIA 313 It was not until near the end of 1922 that appeals for general help came from Siberia. There had been a drought. In some villages the local officials had illegally confiscated much of the grain and live-stock. In the course of time some of these officials were imprisoned for their predatory acts, but that did not restore the food. Many farmers did not have grain enough to provide both food and seed. We tried to ship American food supplies from Ufa, where Col. Bell, the A.R.A. District Supervisor, sought always to give us every possible assistance, but by the time delivery was to be made, the Government did not permit transportation across the boundary of European Russia into Asiatic Siberia. ‘Therefore instead of supply- ing food, it was arranged that they live on their own small grain supplie