HUSBANDRY: Simply Got Hungry

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Because they are spectacular and photographic, catastrophes like fires and floods stir public imagination, bring generous popular relief. Because they are intangible, slow-working disasters with long-delayed effects, droughts are soon forgotten and minimized by citizens outside the afflicted area. When the Mississippi flooded in 1927 the Red Cross quickly raised $17,000,000 by popular subscription for relief. The Drought of 1930 was left to the Red Cross to relieve with a $5,000,000 "emergency" fund and no special public appeal.

City dwellers last week were sharply reminded of the Drought when 500 half-starved farmers and their wives raided the food stores of England, Ark. (pop. 2,408). Most of these hungry citizens were white; had been fairly prosperous husbandmen until last year. Their crops had been ruined. Their provisions were gone.

Assembling in England with guns tucked in their clothes they demanded Red Cross relief. When this was not forthcoming because the supply of Red Cross requisition blanks had been exhausted, they threatened to loot the stores. One George E. Morris, attorney, tried to pacify them with a speech, was constantly interrupted by cries of: "We want food and we want it now! We're not beggars, we're not going to let our children starve." Women sobbed, children whimpered.

To avert a riot, England's merchants, hard-pressed themselves by the Depression, began to dole out food to the hungry. More than 300 were each supplied with a ration worth $2.75. Fearful of a repetition of the raid, Lawyer Morris declared: "These people just simply got hungry. The merchants of England must either move their goods or mount machine guns on their stores."

The Red Cross announced it was already feeding 100,000 persons in Arkansas, expected 250,000 would be demanding food by Feb. 1. Senators Robinson and Caraway of Arkansas were leaders in the unsuccessful fight last month to include food for humans in the $45,000,000 Drought relief bill. Recalled was President Hoover's warning last summer: "From a relief point of view the burden of the [Drought] will show very much more vividly over the winter than at the present moment."