California Star Quotes
A more shocking scene cannot be imagined, than that witnessed by the party of men who went to the relief of the unfortunate emigrants in the California Mountains. The bones of those who had died and been devoured by the miserable ones that still survived were lying around their tents and cabins. Bodies of men, women and children, with half the flesh torn from them, lay on every side. A woman sat by the body of her husband, who had just died, eating out his tongue; the heart she had already taken out, broiled, and eat! The daughter was seen eating the flesh of the father - the mother that of her children - children that of father and mother. The emaciated, wild, and ghastly appearance of the survivors, added to the horror of the scene. Language cannot describe the awful change that a few weeks of dire suffering had wrought in the minds of these wretched and pitiable beings. Those who but one month before would have shuddered and sickened at the thought of eating human flesh, or of killing their companions and relatives to preserve their own lives, now looked upon the opportunity by these acts afforded them of escaping the most dreadful of deaths …
Forty-two emigrants, including Donner, and two Indian guides died. However, the remaining forty-seven travelers survived.
The California Star, Description of the Cannibalism of the Donner Party, April 10, 1847
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Reflection on the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1850
In 1921, there was a terrible famine in Communist Russia. The United States was ambivalent about humanitarian relief to the leading Bolshevik county while there were Communist supporters in the U. S. who were setting off bombs and calling for the overthrow of the democratic government. Herbert Hoover persuaded President Warren G. Harding that food aid relief was a moral obligation and would do much to weaken Bolshevism. 400 ARA Americans went to Russia and hired over 120,000 Russians to implement the relief program. Rarely in human history have this few people with the resources made available to them saved as many lives as Hoover and his staff did. A number of the Americans died in Russia from disease and those who survived worked under near impossible conditions. Ironically, while it created much good will towards the United States, many including Hoover suspected that the program and the pressure that the Americans put on the Soviet Government officials for more efficient administration may have forced the Soviet Government to learn how to organize much of othe society like the railroads, thus strengthening the Communist Party’s control over the country.
California Star was an 8,577 GRT refrigerated cargo liner that was built in 1945 as Empire Clarendon by Harland and Wolff Ltd, Belfast for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT). In 1947 she was sold and renamed Tuscan Star, then Timaru Star in 1948. She was sold again in 1950 and was renamed California Star in 1959. She was scrapped in 1969.
