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Show " TWO SIDES To Every Question by Lytle Hull WIUj AMICRtC.V PREVENT FAMINE IX EUROPE? ul ,he signs point toward the hilltv even the probability T ,o her mlBhty disaster: Fmn- V . -! T,,ese fv;1' ess be Quickly analyzed by ; lament and if found to be threatening as reported, should j,e acted upon at once. The crop situation all over Eu-r Eu-r ' appears to be in desperate Uiou. A large proportion of Spring crops have been deled de-led and the war situation will make Summer planting very spot- There is supposed to be a tood Vnrtae In Germany,' and it is un-Hkelvthat un-Hkelvthat the Germans will allow e iselves to starve while there is any food to be had in countries which they now control. i lai-e portion of China will !Uffer crop losses. The Scandinavian Scandin-avian nations can't live without food and fodder imports even m normal times. Holland and Beldam Bel-dam ordinarily import nearly fif-t, fif-t, per cent of their food. Their Sprin crops are probably destroyed destroy-ed France is losing her early crops and it doesn't appear, at this moment, mo-ment, that she will be in a position t0 do much more planting this season. England must import most of her food and feed, at all times. The Polish situation is bad. Where is all this food coming from? There are four possible answers. Russia, or the Americas, or both, or neither. This last alternative al-ternative must not be! If it does happen, the civilized ( ? ) world of 1940 and 1941 may be able to sneer at the puny famine records of the past: Bengal, 1770 ten million deaths; Bombay, Madras and Mysore, 1878 five million; North China, 1878 nine and a half million; Russia, 19 32 four to five million. Russia has been saved from (amine twice by this country through modern fast transportation transporta-tion facilities. The still more rapid ra-pid transportation of today will make this possible in Europe if we have the food to transport! It doesn't pay for one nation to depend upon another these days. Let us hope that Russia and all the Americas can and will help. But if the world is to be spared the risk of what may well be the greatest catastrophe in all its history, then the United States must depend upon its own tillable acres, and its own farmers, and its own surpluses. And our present surpluses are utterly inadequate if the signs are correct. American farmers received for the year 1939, roughly, $766,-000,000 $766,-000,000 under the crop control and parity payment programs. There are excellent features in these systems, but the last five weeks in Europe have created undreamed-of conditions which make it almost imperative that every available acre in our country be put to production. The result will doubtless be large surpluses, but this time there should be limitless markets literally screaming for these surpluses sur-pluses and for those we already have in reserve. Much of this food might never be paid for by those who must have it, and the whole American citizenry should be required re-quired to divide the loss, through government purchase from the farmers at prices which would equalize the loss, or through some other system. The war may stop tomorrow, and a famine may be averted in Europe, without much outside help, but otherwise every week may make a terrible difference. Spring planting is over, both here and abroad; Summer crops can still be planted. But it must be done now. A few weeks may be too late. We shudder with horror hor-ror at the death tolls of today; but a famine is in prospect which may make these figures look small by comparison, and which may turn our hair gray before its time. The real American will tighten his belt to the backbone before he will allow his fellow men in Europe to starve to death. There is cvertainly no more "real American" Am-erican" than the American farmer, and he will pull his belt the tightest. tight-est. He is like that. He alone can stop the thing called "famine" and he will stop it if the situation is as dangerous as it appears to be, and if he is told of it by the government in time. Incidentally sincere but hysterical hys-terical writers must not be allowed allow-ed to stampede the people into a call on Congress for war; for even if we were prepared for such a venture, humanity would demand de-mand that we first insure against the paramount issue of mass starvation, star-vation, before we took the fatal step. After that if we Americans want war it is our own business. We know how to get ourselves into war, and we know how to keep ourselves out. We have been told a-plenty, and if we ourselves haven't the energy to lift a pen, then we have "no kick coming" if things don't go just the way we wish them to. |