The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-07-02
FOOD CONSERVATION DAY |S EMPHASIZED IN LOCAL PULPITS Dr. Dickinson and Rev. James B. Crippen Present Views to Congregations BIRMINGHAM HAS
 SPECIAL PROBLEM Dr. Dickinson Points Out How Saw ing of Food Is Mainly Prob
 lem for the Cities
 to Solve

numDer or the pastors or DIT mingham churches yesterday devoted sermons on the subject of conserva-
 ton of food products.
 The action was in response to a re- cent request from the government that this subject be emphasized from the pulpits of the nation on July 1. Two of the sermons preached on the sub- ject here yesterday were by pr. A. J. Dickinson, pastor of the First Baptist 1 chruch and by the Rev. James A. Grip pen, pastor of the Simpson Methodist church
 pr. Dickinson preached from the fol
 lowing text:
 And Joseph gathered up all the food of the seven years which were
 in the land of Egypt, and laid up the | food in the cities; the food in the fields, which was round about every city, he laid up the same. And the seven years of famine began to come, according to Joseph had said; and when all the land of Egypt was fam ished, the people cried to Pharoah for bread; and Pharoah said to all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph, and what he saith unto you. you do.' And Jo- seph opened ali the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians. Gen. Al: Is, 54, 55, 56.
 Every food famine that ever was, said Dr. Dickinson. There never has
 been a famine over all the earth at the same time, or over any one part of it for many years Yet we may say that there is always a famine in some thing somewhere on the earth; and no people 1 is ever capable of furnishing all of their necessities of life all the time | It is this that makes trade necessary l to the veal of the world; for trade IS with the overplus there, that all may share equally in the satisfactions of ! life. Paul calls this the law of i equality, your abundance being sup ply for their want, that also their abundance may become supply for your wants, that there may be equality | as it is written He that gathered
 much had nothing over, and he that | gathered little had no lack
 ALWAYS SURPLUS SOMEWHERE Somewhere in the earth at every l time there is a surplus sufficient for 1 the relief of any possible deficit that I may come elsewhere, and some har- l vests will exceed the needs of that year by as much as others may be | short of the demands of other years
 and hence the relief from famine is l Ia ct trib of tho fS l of the earth over larger areas and through larger number of years, the abundance of one being the supply 1 for the deficit of the other. God all | ways makes the earth produce enough | for the worlds needs and gives us day l by day our daily bread; and food fam
 ines are not of the failure of the l fields, the rain and the sun, but of conservation of the products and their 1 proper distribution.
 l When l got the letter of the gov l ernment asking me to preach to you l this morning on the conservation of | food products, I thought that was a | question for the farmers, rather than l for merchants and bankers and man. ufacturers, but the more I thought
 over the problem, the more convinced l I became that it was city problem | and its solution lay entirely in the l hands of our urban citizens. The | farmers are doing their duty in this matter, and have always done it, and 1 the distress we are now having grows l out of the failure of the merchant | and manufacturing class, and the cure | lies in their awakening to their duties l in the conservation of food products. | When Joseph foresaw the coming fam l inc, just as we do now, he found it's | remedy, not in going to the fields, but l by establishing storehouses in the | cities and in storing in them the abundance from the fields round about. l COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION
 "The conservation of food products lies in a proper collection of storaGc l and distribution, and these are func-
 tions of cities Then I saw that the government was right in asking me to l preach to city people on this impor- tant matter, for the solution of 1t lies in the hands of the cities The pres | ent distress grows entirely out Of l the failure of our cities to provide Tor us a safe and effective market Tor the goods we need. and this has always l been the case and the bane of our life, | which the war has emphasized and | made more acute. Let us in these l wartimes see our error and correct IL for all time to come.
 Tn our own country we have a Prussianized market of wheat kings cotton kings and other lords of the markets, who seek for themselves q