Martha Gellhorn Quotes
Furthermore, they were constantly informed by all the camp authorities that they had been abandoned by the world: they were beggars and lucky to receive the daily soup of starvation.
Gellhorn, Martha. The Face of War. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988.
Reflection on the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1850
During the Irish potato famine, other crops continued to be exported from Ireland. Some argued that without the exports the Irish economy would totally collapse exacerbating the pain to Ireland, but many others disagreed and argued that all available food should be used for the people of the country. For his seditious activities he was sentenced to penal servitude for life. He escaped and came to America where he entered politics
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.
At the time in Britain, women who gave birth to out-of-wedlock children were not only disgraced, but also disciminated agains them in almost every phase of life. Poor single women would be fired by their employers even if it was the employer who had impregnated her. Few would hire a woman who had given birth to a bastard child. As a resukt of this terrible pressure on women, many would murder their own new-born child, and others would "leave it to others".
Martha Ellis Gellhorn was an American novelist, travel writer, and journalist who is considered one of the great war correspondents of the 20th century.
