FEARFUL FAMINES OF THE PAST 



History Will Repeat Itself Unless the American People 

 Conserve Their Resources 



By Ralph A. Graves 



GIVE us bread !" is the despairing 

 cry which today comes across the 

 seas to America in a score of 

 tongues from three hundred million peo- 

 ple who stand on the brink of the abyss 

 of starvation. 



All the resources of the nations of Eu- 

 rope and Asia Minor have been diverted 

 for three years from gainful pursuits to 

 the destructive activities of war. Men 

 have been forced to put aside the hoe and 

 scythe ; fertile fields have been gashed by 

 trench and blasted by shrapnel until they 

 can serve no purpose save as graves for 

 the slain ; the plowshare has been beaten 

 into the sword, the fertilizer converted 

 into high explosives. 



Thus have the agencies of plenty been 

 made to breed havoc over land and sea. 



What is in store for mankind if Amer- 

 ica fails to respond with all her food re- 

 sources to this call for help ? 



The fearful famines of history reveal 

 to us what may happen — nay, what inevi- 

 tably must happen — now, as in the past, 

 with the difference that whereas famines 

 of a bygone age took their toll in thou- 

 sands, the famine of today, if it ma- 

 terializes, will compute its death roll in 

 millions. 



Grim, gaunt, and loathsome, like the 

 three fateful sisters of Greek mythology, 

 war, famine, and pestilence have decreed 

 untimely deaths for the hosts of the earth 

 since the beginning of time. A veritable 

 trinity of evil, the three are as one 

 scourge, equal in their devastating power 

 and in their sinister universality. 



Twentieth century civilization, with 

 science and industry for its allies, grap- 

 pled with these potent forces of destruc- 

 tion, and there were those who, as re- 

 cently as the early summer of 1914, be- 

 lieved that the good fight had been won ; 

 that never again would the pleasant places 



of earth be baptized in the blood of a 

 peaceful people ; that never again would 

 ravening plague, following through the 

 fields harvested by cannon, claim its vic- 

 tims by the tens of thousands ; that never 

 again would the silent specter of hunger 

 stalk through the world with but one na- 

 tion to stay its progress. 



But the era of permanent peace is yet 

 to be won by the sword of democracy, 

 and science finds that she still has her 

 battles to wage against the armies of con- 

 tagion mobilized in the charnel houses of 

 ravaged nations. 



AMERICA ALONE CAN DEFEAT MAX'S 

 THIRD FOE 



There is still a chance, however, to de- 

 feat mankind's third great foe — famine. 



Is the struggle to feed the world worth 

 the sacrifice which America will be called 

 upon to make ? Here are presented a few 

 pages from history's black chronicle of 

 the suffering and the degradation which 

 famine has wrought in every clime and 

 among every people. If to save mankind 

 from a recurrence of these horrors is a 

 goal worthy the industry and the re- 

 sources of our republic, the answer is 

 plain. 



A survey of the past shows that war, 

 pestilence, and famine always have been 

 related, sometimes one and sometimes 

 another being the cause, and the other 

 two the effect. Where one of the trio has 

 occurred the others, sometimes singly, but 

 usually together, have followed. 



The primary cause of famine almost 

 invariably has been a failure of food 

 crops. This failure has often resulted 

 from a variety of natural causes — long- 

 continued drought, blasting hot winds, 

 insect armies, earthquakes, severe and 

 untimely frosts, and destructive inunda- 

 tions. 



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