"Civilians have been ordered to surrender all firearms...."

BUDAPEST HAS "SUNDAYS" ONLY

 

Red Army Rapidly Being Formed of Bolshevik Converts

Short Rule Predicted

 

Lenine Sends Daily Messages to Kun--Order Declared Prevailing

 

By the Associated Press

 

   Budapest, Sunday, March 30 (Delayed)--"Every day is Sunday" in Budapest. The shops are closed and the workers are having a holiday. The street cars are loaded with passengers, but few automobiles are to be seen except those used by officials.

 

   The commune has nationalized mansions, and the richest families are restricted to the fewest rooms possible, and have been forced to discharge their servants. Civilians have been ordered to surrender all firearms, with the alternative of death. This alternative has resulted in general compliance with the regulation.

 

   A Red army is rapidly being formed, with Hungarian prisoners of war from Russia as its basis. These men are thought to be converts to Bolshevism. Bela Kun, the Foreign Minister, himself is a repatriated prisoner.

 

Regime Lasts While Food Does

 

   It is prophesied that the present regime will live as long as there is food, after which uprisings are expected.

 

   There are pessimists who declare the government will endure less than a month, it being pointed out that its success will be partly dependent upon the success of the Russian Bolshevik army to establish a corridor from Kiev to Budapest by way of Bessarabia and Bukowina, Budapest is orderly and the government is making every effort to stabilize conditions.

 

   Bela Kun receives hundreds of telegrams of an official nature every day, among them being messges from Nikolai Lenine, the Russian Bolshevik premier. He receives newspaper men freely, but has ordered that their dispatches be censored for the purpose of cutting down the material to be sent over already crowded wires as well as to eliminate objectionable features. Kun is most anxious to deny reports relative to the communication of women in Hungary, which he declares to be "preposterous." He also denies rumors of assassinations and disorders. Of the twenty-four members of government nineteen are Jews.

 

   In Transylvania, following the practise in Moscow, the churches have been converted into music halls. In these, the best seats are reserved for the proletariat.

 

   The government officials do not pay house rent and have priority on food-stuffs and clothing.

 

   The Pester Lloyd, which consists of four sheets, contains a large advertisement today dealing with the benefits to the people from joining the "Red" army. The news in this journal is confined to official acts of the government, one of which proclaims that boys may enter the training school of the army, which is officially designated "Red".

 

Reduce Hotel Prices

 

   Prices have been reduced in the hotels. A commission of six men visited the Hotel Hungaria and asked one man what he was paying. Replying that he was being taxed eighteen crown the commissioners exclaimed:

 

   "These robbers! In the future you will pay one crown."

 

   The People's Finance Ministry also has fixed the prices of foreign monies, allotting for a dollar fifteen crowns, and for an English pound seventy-two crowns. All gold, jewelry and precious stones of a value of more than 2000 crowns must be remitted to the state. Insurance companies have been socialized....

 

...Professor Phillip Brown, Lieutenant Weiss and Professor Archibald Coolidge, of the American commission are staying at the Hotel Ritz.

 

[Evening Public Ledger, Philadelphia, Thursday, April 03, 1919. Vol. V--No. 172 Pg. 9]