The Potters Herald

Truths Pondered While
Riding At Anchor
MR. MODESTUS
AFTER WAR
COMES HUNGER
FARMING MACHINES
TURN INTO TANKS
Hunger follows War-
For War destroys Labor--
Setting Labor at tasks of Destruction
Dead men cannot produce food, or
clothing
Men marked for War, in camps; men
in battle line--
Have left their fields and factories--
Hands and brains subpoenaed by
Mars-
But if, and when, they come home
from the wars--
They and theirs will be looking for
something to eat--
QUERY: Will America feed the
world again?
If so: Under whose direction?
Rumanian farmers are saying:
"This time next year, there will be
nothing to eat"
Thousands of Polish refugees, farmers last year-
Are sprayed about, in Rumania
Germany, France-
Who is working their fields this
year?
Who will raise that grain, those
cattle-
For next year's food?
Not Germans: Their blood and
bones-
Are fertilizing Flanders' field
again-
America's field will be harvested-
But at whose commands?
Only 20 per cent of Italy's lands
can be cultivated-
Italians feed on Balkan grains and
meats-
Czecho-Slovakia is
an economic
wreck-
Except where Bohemians are driven
to manufacture guns and tanks-
Spain has been ravaged as
by
a
plague of locusts--
European Low Countries are being
sucked dry by hungry hordes-
Britain and France, about to be put
through a wringer--
Refugees, they are hungry ones--
Dislocated by hundreds of thousands-
From firesides and acres ancestral
They swarm, leaving behind them
lands destroyed--
They light, where gods of war and
business laws permit
Suck sustenance, such as charity
may spare--
Problems of Jewish refugees are
dwarfed, engulfed
In migrations horrendous, unbelievable-
But those people are hungry; and
they have no soil
No shops, no mills, machines, or
tools-
Nothing but appetites, and children-
x
Farming, today, is also a matter of
machines--
But tool makers have turned to
making guns--
If these hungry millions must resort
to hand labor-
Assuming they can have access to
good land
Our clocks will be turned back to
Middle Ages-
When 95 per cent of a people's labor was required--
To feed themselves, give luxury to
the other 5 per cent
Dark Ages will come again, after
this lightning's flash-
Nations, and men, demanded peace
and security
For themselves; using other nations
as pawns in their game--
Refused to see, that security
whether from war or hunger-
Is possible only on terms of mutual
interest-
Will this world have another chance
to learn that lesson?
*4*44
WISDOM
Every man I meet is in some
ways my superior; and in that I
can learn of him.--Emerson.