26 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1919 



SHO ETL Y 

 after peace 

 was declar- 

 ed people began 

 to make such re- 

 marks as this: 

 "I was perfect - 

 1 y willing and 

 glad to deny my- 

 self food to help 



win the war, but I shall not try to 

 save one particle of food to help 

 feed those Germans who sunk food 

 ships, those baby-killers and mur- 

 derers of innocent civilians, those 

 Huns guilty of unspeakable atroci- 

 ties." 



Many, knowing my sentiments on 

 food conservation during the war, 

 have asked, "Do you think the Germans 

 deserve to have food provided for them 

 now?" 



No, to speak truthfully, I do not. But I 

 do hope the allied countries will see to it 

 that they are allowed to obtain food for 

 themselves, and for this reason, to preserve 

 our own self-respect. 



I think it was Clemenceau who recently 

 said, ' ' We are making war not on humanity, 

 but for humanity. ' ' 



And our own President Wilson said: "To 

 conquer with arms is to make only a tem- 

 porary conquest. To conquer the world by 

 earning its esteem is to make permanent 

 conquest. I am confident that the nations 

 that have learned the discipline of freedom 

 and that have settled with self-possession 

 to its ordered practice are now about to 

 make conquest of the world by the power of 

 example and friendly helpfulness. ' ' 



And the keynote of a speech made by 

 Lloyd George was "Peace without venge- 

 ance. ' ' 



Doesn't it thrill you with pride to con- 

 trast these utterances with those emanating 

 from "German Kultur?" 



Don't imagine I am a sentimentalist who 

 would be in favor of letting the Hohenzol- 

 lerns and military leaders, who are to blame 

 for bringing all this horror and sorrow on 

 the world, go unpunished. I hope they will 

 be speedily brought to justice; but I do 

 feel that if the victorious allied nations re- 

 taliated and sought revenge on the civilian 

 population of the central countries we 

 should be descending toward the level of the 

 Huns themselves, and the lives of our he- 

 roes, who fought for an ideal, would have 

 been sacrificed in vain. 



But even if we should not wish to save 

 food which might find its way into Germany, 

 there are all our little allies which must be 

 helped at once, the Belgians, Serbians, Eou- 

 manians, Greeks, Czechs, Jugo-Slavs, and 

 others. Hoover tells us that out of the 

 420,000,000 inhabitants of Europe, practical- 

 ly only three areas. South Kussia, Hungary, 

 and Denmark, comprising some 40,000,000, 

 have sufficient food supplies to last until 

 next harvest without imports. Something 



over 200,000,000 

 of the people of 

 Europe are in 

 social disorder, 

 which immense- 

 ly increases the 

 problem. 



Last year we 

 were asked to 

 save food to, win 

 the war, and we all know how won- 

 derfully the American people re- 

 sponded, and how the food which 

 went over to keep our allies from 

 starvation gave them courage to 

 keep on with the fight until our 

 Americans reached there in sufiicient 

 numbers to fight shoulder to shoul- 

 der with the French and the English. 

 This year we should save two-thirds more 

 food than we did last year, and we are to 

 save food not to win a war but to prevent 

 anarchy in a large part of Europe, for we 

 are told famine is the mother of anarchy. 



While we are all rejoicing that autocracy 

 has been overthrown, perhaps forever, we 

 must not forget that the Bolsheviki doc- 

 trines, if allowed to spread thru Europe 

 like a pestilence, may prove to be more of 

 a menace to the peace of the world than 

 militarism. 



1^ 



'HEEE are those who are inclined to 

 blame the restricted diet of the past 

 year for the influenza epidemic which 

 has swept our country like the plague, and 

 which is still prevalent in so many locali- 

 ties. Now, I have no aspirations toward a 

 Health Page, and when even learned doctors 

 do not pretend to know why influenza 

 sweeps the world in pandemic form two or 

 three times a century, I am sure I do not. 

 But, as I have urged food conservation ever 

 since the war began and have published 

 many recipes for the use of wheat substi- 

 tutes and other war foods, I feel that a few 

 words in justification of the war diet are 

 proper in this department. 



The Puerden family were fed just as near- 

 ly according to the Food Administration 's 

 suggestions as T knew how to follow them. 

 When a friend once asked me if I practiced 

 what I preached, I assured him I practiced 

 more than I dared to preach. We. ate wheat 

 substitutes, esiDecially quantities of corn- 

 meal, observed meatless and wheatless daj^s 

 literally while they were in force, cut down 

 on the amount of sugar, used fruits and 

 vegetables and local products freely, to save 

 shipping space, and simplified our diet gen- 

 erally in order to consume no more food 

 than was needed to maintain health. Did 

 our health suffer? It did not. We were 

 never before so free from colds as we were 

 last winter; in fact, not one of the family 

 had a real cold. The children gained in 

 weight faster than usual. This fall we have 

 continued to be unusually well and entirely 

 free from colds so far, altho we have all 

 been exposed to influenza, some of us several 



