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24
The Commoner
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Compulsory Service on Farms to
Prevent Food Famine
Tlio most distressing of all current
lunacies is the failure to realize the
food situation.
It is evident that the people do not
realize the condition, because every
body goes on eating and drinking as
usual; and it is ovidont that the gov
ernment does not realize the condi
tion, because it goes on doing noth
ing, as usual.
Wo must take that back. The
government is doing something. It
is doing all that can bo done to ship
out of the country as much as pos
sible can bo shipped of our insuffi
cient food reserves.
Even the construction work on our
battleships is to be stopped, if cer
tain influences can have their way,
, in order to hasten and increase the
shipments of our food supplies to
other countries or to litter the bot
tom of the sea, via the submarine
route.
Mr. Hoover, who, as head of the
American Food Commission, has
been in Europe consulting with
members of the British, French and
Italian cabinets, declares that the
allies must lose the war unless wo
ship them a minimum of 90,000,000
bushels of wheat in addition to mil
lions of tons of pork, beef, corn,
beans and secondary food during
tlio next four months.
Mr. Hoover points out that this
minimum quantity of wheat is twice
as much as wo have to spare and
feed ourselves as usual.
The government of Great Britain
had neither tho foresight nor the
courage to put the people on rations.
It tried the Utopian plan of urging
voluntary food restrictions. The
natural result was that everybody ate
all he wanted and expected his
neighbor to do without voluntarily
and that is why the government of
Great Britain is now begging us to
go upon rations to feed a people who
would not submit to being rationed
themselves.
But to got back to tho problcm.
Wo have not food enough on hand
in this country to last us until the
next harvest is ready to eat, five
months from now.
England insists that we must ship
to her and her allies during that
time not less than ten thousand mil
lions of pounds of foodstuffs which
is equivalent to taking 100 pounds
of flour, meat, potatoes, beans and
mflk from every inhabitant of the
United States counting babies with
tho rest.
And tho British demand, besides,
that we shall furnish the shipping to
carry these vast supplies, stopping
our navy building, destroying our
vital coastwise commerce and cover
ing the bottom of tho sea with the
mercantile marine wh'ch should be
rtur rfiHnnr.fi in the race for the
world's trade that will begin the in
slant the war is over.
! We think futility was never more
ridiculously in evidence than the
scheme suggested by some glittering
intellect at Washington, and actually
adopted, whereby tho submarine
blockade was to be overcome by
building 3,000 wooden ships of 3,000
tons each "bridging the Atlantic
with one b a mlle.V as some absurd
newspaper naval strategists proudly
proclaimed.
' After this wonderful scheme had
been formally adopted, it occurred to
nomebody in authority in Washington
to make practical inquiries, which
resulted In tho discovery that wood?
en shipbuilding on that scale would
require 20,000 ship carpenters and
that thero wero not 5,000 ship car
penters to be had In tho whole coun
try. And far worse than this is the
fact that half of tho planting season
has slipped away n& tho prospects
aro that this year's crops will not
even equal those of last year, when
they should be twice as great merely
to keep our people and Europe's
people from actual famine.
Instead of drafting 600,000 men for
military service and putting them to
work on farms, and mobilizing all
our available resources in the shape
of tractors, farm implements, seed,
fertilizers and labor under the or
ganized direction of agricultural ex
perts, ordered into the national ser
vice, the food problem has been left
to, the helpless and utterly useless
enthusiasm of individuals or volun
teer local associations all meaning
well, and all doing nothing of any
earthly value.
We warn tho country now, and we
warn tho government, that if de
cisive steps are not taken at onco to
put at least 500,000 men at work
under government compulsion and
direction within the next six weeks
there will not be food enough in
this country next September to last
through till the next harvests, and
the inevitable results will be hunger
among the poor and all the disturb
ances, riots, bloodshed and destruc
tion of property that always occur
when thousands are hungry.
We suppose our words are useless.
We dare not hope that there is in
Washington the statesmanship, or
the foresight, or the courage to com
pel, in time; the production of the
food supplies upon which depends
the. fate of mankind.
But the words must be written,
nevertheless.
Neither in conscience nor in duty
to God and to the country can we sit
mute in the presence of this coming
disaster in the presence of the in
credible folly and futility which does
nothing to prepare against this com
ing disaster. San Francisco Exam
iner. t
THE MAN WITH THE HOE
The hero of the hour is the man
with the hoe. The nation's welfare,
perhaps the fate of the nation, or
even of the world, may depend upon
the man behind the plow as truly as
upon the man behind the gun. There
is a basis of truth in the idea, and
there aro limits to it. The fact that
agriculture is the one great system
of production which depends upon
muscle power is worth thinking
about. Machinery has been applied to
rarmmg, but not power on any great
scale. Horses go ahead of the plow
as truly as six million farmers go be
hind it. It takes more land to grow
corn and oats and general fodder for
a horse than for a man. It is a waste
of land to .put it to supporting 26,
000,000 horses Instead of a larger
number of men. This country could
support men instead of horses if
power other than muscle were put
ahead of the machines they draw.
The bonanza farms use gasoline
mastodons, but the farmer on a
small scale sticks to his horse for
lack of a gasoline pony. There is no
lack of proof of what power .can do to
rAiiove the man with the hoeof his
bftck-bretldii, muscle tearing work.
We plow, plant, and harvest by
machines-, bat for the most part
muscle moves the machines. With
oxen farmers scratched the 'ground.
With horses they plow inches deep.
Power plows cultivate a foot deep,
reaching sources of fertility and
moisture in the subsoil which other
wise escape. There is talk of enlist
ing two million boys for farm work.
Even women are liable to be im
pressed hero as they have been in
other countries.
No opposition to su.ch proposals
should be made. They will do good in
supporting themselves even if what
they raise never reaches the statis
tical supply. But in proportion that
unaccustomed muscles are put ahead
of the farmers' tools, or behind them,
the pity grows. Our main reliance
must bo upon the men accustomed to
such work. They should be reinforced
with power as well as with tools. The
sure proof of it is that the Germans
make it their business to destroy all
farm tools which fall into their power.
Wagons are sawed in two and farm
machinery disabled. A farmer who
has a tractor commands the power of
several horses.
The food agitation suggests further
that our farmers aro as unorganized
as our banks used to be. In foreign
countries banks number fewer hun-
dreds than they number thousands
with us. But our industries, except
farming, are organized in units of a
sizo without parallel except in Ger
many. Our industrial workers are
many, but our industrial companies
are few. The suggestion is that our
agriculture would benefit by orgaru
ization as much as by power. The
man with the hoe is a poor reliance
compared witlL the, farmer. wJth. &
roll-top desk and capital invested in
machinery. That is the way tp at
tack the high cost of living because
it is the cheapest way to abundance,
and abundance is the greatest enemy
of high prices. Time is of the essence
of the problem as the planting season
wanes. Machinery is a greater saver
of time than of labor. The man on
a tractor can do more and do it
quicker than men with hoes and
horses. That is the way the problem
is attacked abroad, using our own
tractors. Yet those treating our emer
gency slight the use of machinery in
the country where it was invented,
and whence it is being exported.
New York Times.
WOMEN, WAR AND VOTES
Noting the patriotic activity of
American women the country over, it
is reasonable to assume that the close
of the present war will see as great
a change in public sentiment toward
the question of woman suffrage as
Great Britain has experienced. Our
government and its supporters, who
are so earnestly soliciting the good
offices of womankind in the United
States, could not with good grace as
sert that women who are fit to bear
the nation's burdens in time of war
are not fit to voto in times of peace.
While The Citizen has not always
been an advocate of woman suffrage,
it saw the justice of women's claims
when thousands of the wives, mothers
and daughters of England went out
into the fields and into the munitions
factories in order to serve their coun
try. Indeed, the sorrows and tribu
lations of tjje world's greatest war
have fallen with crushing weight up,
on the women of Europe, and when
victory finally rests upon the banners
of the entente allies, full credit
must be, and will be given to them.
There has been no "wealcer sex" in
this war, and we feel sure that when
lha test comes the women of Amerr
.frOfr 17, NO. 5
lea wfll,measnre favorably wltTT
heroic sisters across the w ' elr
English statesmen, led bv m ,
quith, all his life a bitter
of woman suffrage r Ehffn,?Ponent
the view that t2f change "'
sentiment is not a reward "C
behavior, but a course of 8Md
based wholly on tho nuinaw cUoa
Justice of withholding $ Je
tton as the- voto affords i from
Which for the first time ha? I m
its full share in the S-ea Lb,0rno
effort. Short of actual
arms in the field, there is hard ! ?
service which has contributed n, ,
contributing to the success of'the al
lied cause in which women have not
been at least as active and efflcle
as the men. And who1 can iS
that the daughters of Columbia w 1
not as richly deserve that sma
measure of recognition which Grea
Britain is about to bestow? Ashe
ville- (N. C.) Citizen. She
LAY LEADERS
The Kentucky Irish-American re
publishes a pretended discussion of
the report of the Commission on Re
ligious Prejudice. Tho discussion
written by Father E. A. Flannery of
Hazardville Conn., is itself a causo
of religious prejudice in so far as it
rests on the assumption that a lay
man is not qualified to speak publicly
on what it calls "the religious situa
tion." It deprecates in Col. Calla
han "his delusion that he knows
more about the religious situation
than the clerics." It even insinuates
that this layman does not "preserve
the faith in all essential elements."
when it says: "It is all very well to
be at peace with our neighbors, but
it is infinitely more important to pre
serve tW'faith'V all essential ele
ments." If the report of the Commission on
Religious Prejudice does not "pre
serve the faith in all essential ele
ments," why assail only one member
of the commission? Why not blame
the whole Order of the Knights of
Columbus, which approved the re
port? The laymen of the Knights of
Columbus have no more aim or
function to bo preservers of "the faith
in all essential elements" than did De
Maistre Chateaubriand and Montal
embert in France, O'Connell in the
British parliament and Windhorst in
the Reichstag; yet we do not find
fault with their public utterances on
"the" religious situation" in their re
spective countries.
While looking through the col
umns of the Kentucky Irish-American
for tangible proof against Col.
Callahan's orthodoxy, we soon dis
covered that "the religious situation
is but a plausible side issue with the
Kentucky Irish-American, for it fills
nineteen of its columns with ads, the
remaining nine columns being en
cumbered with the linotype's cheap
est output totally unfit to enlighten
Colonel Callahan or any seeker after
truth on "the religious situation.
What an exalted conception tne
Kentucky Irish-American has of w
religious situation," may be inferreoi
from the fact that it advertises four
breweries and tells the KM'
icans of Kentucky that no dinner
is complete without beer." www
god is their belly; and whose gory
la their shame; who mind eartwy
.things." Phil. 3:19.
By pointing to the liquor r
the principal cause of reug
prejudice, Col. Callahan dtagng
"the religious situation" bet er t
our astute theological bpom m W
the-American saloon i or thjfr cUJJ
brewery organs. From C&tno
and Prohibition."
i-v.-