At the hotel where I was stopping I met an American lady with three daughters. She said that they had enough funds to take them home in four weeks by the strictest kind of management. The mother and the two young girls had taken over the task of doing the family washing in the bathtub, while the eldest girl was earning one dollar a day for stenographic work at the Embassy. A little later I met two girls who had been in Hamburg. They managed to pay their board and part of their tickets by helping the council out there. I soon found out that even with money in my pocket, it was hard to make money count, for when it came to getting change they would only give you paper money of small denominations. Gold was the only thing that spoke, and silver was as much at a premium as paper was worthless. I found many people who were going without their next meal because they could not get their paper money changed. I went on a shopping expedition for an hour one morning, just to get a hundred marks changed. I was told that thousands of Americans were stranded in Switzerland, who were without a dollar and without a ticket. As a friend wrote to me, "It is a pitiable sight to see so many of our American women and children, including artists, invalids, school teachers, and mothers with families, who have been educating their children in Switzerland, driven almost to destitution. They come back with tears in their eyes from Swiss banks, because the clerks try to find any possible flaw in their drafts and refuse to honor their letters of credit. Even the more generous of these bankers have only a few hundred dollars a week on which to do business. "Those of us who are living in Swiss families and boarding houses are fortunate, for the Swiss people are intelligent to understand our predicament and to feel sorry for us. But many have been living in fashionable hotels, where the prices mounted immediately when tourists came piling in by the hundreds. These proprietors expect to have their bills paid weekly, which means that many of their guests are without a dollar. I am sure that more than one wealthy woman has parted with more than one handsome piece of jewelry to pay a week's board bill for herself and her children. The question uppermost in every one's mind is, "When will the Tennessee with its chest of two hundred million dollars arrive, voted by Congress for the relief of Americans?" "I am sure that the greatest hardships are being known by those who have been living in the mountain resorts in Switzerland, where they have been cut off from all communication. I have seen a number of such people come staggering into our town carrying dress-suitcases, exhausted for want of food and sleep."