Part 39

Neukölln, den ---- 1915 Der Magistrat

Even this fare might have been bearable had it been supplemented by the usual amount of sugar. In the past this had been as much as six pounds per month and person; now the regulations permitted the consumption of only 2.205 pounds per month and capita for the urban and 1.65 pounds for the rural population, while persons engaged at hard labor were allowed 2.75 pounds. Parents who were willing to surrender all to their children went without sugar entirely.

How these victuals were obtained by the woman of the household has already been indicated. Heretofore it had been necessary to stand in line for bread, fat, and milk, the latter two being usually obtained simultaneously at the Fat Central. The establishing of food zones--Rayons--had obviated that. The measure was a great relief, but since it governed no more than the distribution of these articles, much standing in line was still necessary. The disciplinary value of the food-line was still kept in mind in the distribution of potatoes, beets (Wrucken), wheat flour; now and then other cereal products, such as macaroni, biscuits, buckwheat flour, and oatmeal; meat when the city distributed it at or below cost price; fuel, coal-oil, sugar, and all groceries; soap and washing-powder; shoes, clothing, textiles of any sort, thread, and tobacco. Now and then dried fruits would be distributed, and occasionally jam, though with the ever-increasing shortage in sugar little fruit was being preserved in that manner. Once a week the solitary egg per capita would have to be waited for. One egg was not much to waste hours for, and usually people did not deem it worth while to claim it, if they had no children. The woman who had children was glad, however, to get the four, five, or six eggs to which her family was entitled. It might mean that the youngest would be able to get an egg every other day. Such, indeed, was the intention of the government, and such was the purpose of the food-line. It would happen now and then that there were so many who did not claim their weekly egg that the woman with children got a double ration!

For many of these things certain days had been set aside. Potatoes could be drawn every other day, for instance, while wheat flour was issued every fourth day, meat on all "meat" days, fuel once a week, petroleum every two weeks, and sugar once a month. Shoes and clothing were issued only after the Clothing Central had been satisfied that they were needed. It was the same with thread, except silk thread, and with tobacco one took a chance. Other articles were distributed when they were available, a notice of the date being posted near some shop where the food-liners could see it. The arrival of "municipal" beef and pork was generally advertised in the newspapers.

In this manner, then, was the government ration obtained. To it could be added fresh, salted, and dried fish, when available, and all the green vegetables and salads one wanted--peas and beans in season; in their dry form they were hard to get at any time. For a while, also, sausage could be bought without a ticket. The government put a stop to that when it was found that much illicit trading was done with that class of food.

Many hours were wasted by the women of the household in the course of a month by standing in line. The newspapers conducted campaigns against this seemingly heartless policy of the food authorities, but without result. The food-line was looked upon as essential in food conservation, as indeed it was. In the course of time it had been shown that people would call for food allotted them by their tickets, whether they needed it or not, and would then sell it again with a profit. To assure everybody of a supply in that manner would also lead to waste in consumption. Those who did not absolutely need all of their ration did not go to the trouble of standing in a food-line for hours in all sorts of weather.

Subsisting at the public crib was unpleasant business under such conditions, but there was no way out. The food "speak-easy" was almost as much a thing of the past as was the groaning board of ante-bellum times, though it was by no means entirely eradicated, as the trial of a small ring of food sharks in Berlin on October 10, 1917, demonstrated. How hard it was for the several governments to really eradicate the illicit trading in food, once this had been decided upon, was shown in this case, which involved one of the largest caches ever discovered. There were hidden in this cache 27,000 pounds of wheat flour, 300 pounds of chocolate, 15,000 pounds of honey, 40,000 cigars, and 52,000 pounds of copper, tin, and brass. The odd part of the case was that to this hoard belonged also 24 head of cattle and 9 pigs.

On the same day there was tried in a Berlin jury court a baker who had "saved" 6,500 pounds of flour from the amounts which the food authorities had turned over to him. It was shown that the baker had sold the loaves of bread he was expected to bake from the flour. Of course he had adulterated the dough to make the loaves weigh what the law required and what the bread tickets called for. A fine profit had been made on the flour. The food authorities had assigned him the supply at $9 for each 200-pound bag. Some of it he sold illicitly at $55 per sack to a man who had again sold it for $68 to another chain-trader, who later disposed of it to a consumer for $80 a bag. There can be no doubt that this flour made expensive bread, but it seems that there were people willing to pay the price.

But forty cents for a pound of wheat flour was something which only a millionaire war purveyor could afford. All others below that class, materially, ate the government ration and stood in line.

Sad in the extreme was the spectacle which the food-lines in the workman quarters of Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest presented. Upon the women of the households the war was being visited hardest. To see a pair of good shoes on a woman came to be a rare sight. Skirts were worn as long as the fabric would keep together, and little could be said of the shawls that draped pinched faces, sloping shoulders, and flat breasts. There were children in those food-lines. Thin feet stuck in the torn shoes, and mother's shawl served to supplement the hard-worn dress or patched suit. Everything had to go for food, and prices of apparel were so high that buying it was out of the question.

Once I set out for the purpose of finding in these food-lines a face that did not show the ravages of hunger. That was in Berlin. Four long lines were inspected with the closest scrutiny. But among the three hundred applicants for food there was not one who had had enough to eat in weeks. In the case of the younger women and the children the skin was drawn hard to the bones and bloodless. Eyes had fallen deeper into the sockets. From the lips all color was gone, and the tufts of hair that fell over parchmented foreheads seemed dull and famished--sign that the nervous vigor of the body was departing with the physical strength.

I do not think sentimentalism of any sort can be laid at my door. But I must confess that these food-lines often came near getting the best of me. In the end they began to haunt me, and generally a great feeling of relief came over me when I saw that even the last of a line received what they had come for.

The poorer working classes were not getting enough food under the system, nor were they always able to prepare the little they got in the most advantageous manner. While the effort had been made to instruct women how to get the maximum of nutriment from any article, and how to combine the allowances into a well-balanced ration, results in that direction were not satisfying. Many of the women would spend too much money on vegetable foods that filled the stomach but did not nourish. Others again, when a few extra cents came into their hands, would buy such costly things as geese and other fowl. Cast adrift upon an ocean of food scarcity and high prices, these poor souls were utterly unable to depart from their cooking methods, which had tastiness rather than greatest utility for their purpose. The consequence was that the ration, which according to food experts was ample, proved to be anything but that.

In Berlin the so-called war kitchens were introduced. A wheeled boiler, such as used by the army, was the principal equipment of these kitchens. Very palatable stews were cooked in them and then distributed from house to house against the requisite number of food-card checks. The innovation would have been a success but for the fact that most people believed they were not getting enough for the coupons they had surrendered. The stew could not be weighed, and often there would be a little more meat in one dipperful than in another. There was grumbling, and finally the women who were giving their time and labor to the war kitchens were accused of partiality. The kitchens were continued a while longer. They finally disappeared because nobody cared to patronize them any more. It is possible, also, that people had grown tired of the stew eternal.

The Volksküchen--people's kitchens--and those war kitchens which were established when the war began, operated with more success. The public was used to them. They were located in buildings, so that one could eat the food there and then, and their bill of fare was not limited to stews. Being managed by trained people, these kitchens rendered splendid service to both the public and the food-regulators. I have eaten in several of them and found that the food was invariably good.

A class that had been hit hard by the war was that of the small office-holders and the less successful professionals, artists included. They were a proud lot--rather starve than eat at a war kitchen or accept favors from any one. The hardships they suffered are almost indescribable. While the several governments had made their small officials a war allowance, the addition to the income which that gave was almost negligible. At an average it represented an increase in salary of 20 per cent., while food, and the decencies of life, which this class found as indispensable as the necessities themselves, had gone up to an average of 180 per cent. The effect of this rise was catastrophic in these households. Before the war their life had been the shabby genteel; it was now polite misery. Yet the class was one of the most essential and deserved a better fate. In it could be found some of the best men and women in Central Europe.

Devoted to the régime with heart and soul, this class had never joined in any numbers the co-operative consumption societies of Germany and Austria-Hungary, because of their socialistic tendencies. This delivered them now into the hands of the food shark. Finally, the several governments, realizing that the small official--Beamte--had to be given some thought, established purchasing centrals for them, where food could be had at cost and now and then below cost. Nothing of the sort was done for the small professionals, however.

TRAVELING-KITCHEN IN BERLIN

A food-conservation measure that failed, because the people grew tired of the stew dispensed by the "Food Transport Wagon."]

STREET TRAM AS FREIGHT CARRIER

As horses and motor fuel became scarce the street traction systems were given over part of each day to transporting merchandise.]

Men and women of means came to the rescue of that class in the very nick of time. But a great deal of tact had to be used before these war sufferers could be induced to accept help. It was not even easy to succor them privately, as Mrs. Frederick C. Penfield, wife of the American ambassador at Vienna, had occasion enough to learn. To alleviate their condition en masse, as would have to be done if the means available were to be given their greatest value, was almost impossible. Shabby gentility is nine-tenths false pride, and nothing is so hard to get rid of as the things that are false.

But there were those who understand the class. Among them I must name Frau Doctor Schwarzwald, of Vienna, whose co-operative dining-room was a great success, so long as she could get the necessary victuals, something that was not always easy.

I had taken a mild interest in the charities and institutions of Frau Schwarzwald, and once came near getting a barrel of flour and a hundred pounds of sugar for the co-operative dining-room and its frayed patrons. I announced the fact prematurely at a gathering of the patron angels of the dining-room, among whom was Frau Cary-Michaelis, the Danish novelist and poetess. Before I knew what was going on the enthusiastic patron angels had each kissed me--on the cheek, of course. Then they danced for joy, and next day I was forced to announce that, after all, there would be no flour and no sugar. The owner of the goods--not a food shark, but an American diplomatist--had disposed of them to another American diplomatist. I thought it best to do penance for this. So I visited a friend of mine and held him up for one thousand crowns for the co-operative dining-room. That saved me. I was very careful thereafter not to make rash promises. After all, I was sure of the flour and sugar, and so happy over my capture that I had a hard time keeping to myself the glad news as long as I did, which was one whole day. In that dining-room ate a good percentage of Vienna's true intellectuals--painters, sculptors, architects, poets, and writers all unable just then to earn a living.

I was not always so unsuccessful, however. For another circle of down-at-the-heels I smuggled out of the food zone of the Ninth German Army in Roumania the smoked half of a pig, fifty pounds of real wheat flour, and thirty pounds of lard. Falkenhayn might command that army at the front, but for several days I was its only hero, nevertheless. But in food matters I had proved a good buscalero before.

The food craze was on. Women who never before in their lives had talked of food now spoke of that instead of fashions. The gossip of the salon was abandoned in favor of the dining-room scandals. So-and-so had eaten meat on a meatless day, and this or that person was having wheat bread and rolls baked by the cook. The interesting part of it was that usually the very people who found fault with such trespass did the same thing, but were careful enough not to have guests on that day.

In the same winter I was to see at Budapest an incident that fitted well into the times.

I was one of the few non-Magyars who attended the coronation dinner of King Charles and Queen Zita.