The Cordova daily times., 1917-10-16
THE ROMANCE OF THE BEAN

Ht SlOlN SDtS tlldl q SOulutIn torian with a savings sense of humor once declared that the defeat of the Confederacy was due to the fact that the North had a never-failing supply of beans, bacon and bullets" It was fairly sensible explanation, at that, and despite the radical develop ment in the machinery and maneu- vers of modern warfare, the old army bean" still seems to have lost none of it's flavor or fighting properties. We are told that, notwithstanding all the mighty armament that science has wToght since the Civil War, the fate of battles is still decided by the preponderance of man power, and so it is that the belligerent nations hope to sustain the stamina of their man power by the liberal use of this an cient article of food.
 We use the word ancient" advis- edly, for while we did not become a bean-eating nation until the early sixties" of the last century, the bean itself is much older than this count ", older even than medieval times; in fact, it has been immortalized in the traditions of the ancient peoples and might almost be said to antedate civilization itself We have it from no less an authority than history it. self that the earliest races ate beans and flourished until they ruled the world in their time.
 This being true, may We not apply the converse of the rule and say that when these mighty peoples stopped eating beans and cultivated their ap- petites to the point where they crav- ed only fancy foods, then their power began to wane and finally they van ished altogether.
 A famous student of biblical times tells us that the locusts which John the Baptist ate in the wilderness were in fact the carob beans and thus they were called St. Johns Bread Also we know that in the ancient govern ment beans took the place of ballots. In this usage in the early times a white bean stood for absolution and a black one for condemnation. The process of blackballing now so com- mon in many of our modern clubs and secret orders undoubtedly origi- hated from this ancient custom. And in this respect, we are reminded that Pythagoras, the ancient Greek philos- opher, admonished his fellow citizens to "shun the bean. This was an other way of saying "leave politics alone, which leads one to believe that the bean in those days was as uncertain for the practical politician as the ballot is today.
 But to come back to our own count ry For more than two centuries the people of Boston were partial to baked beans and the practice become so firm ly established as to develop into one Of our most humorous traditions. Am ericans everywhere throughout the country poked no end of fun at the residents of the Old Bay State, on the assumption that bean-eating tended to develop lofty snobbishness and superficial intellectual aristocracy. The rush of the Massachusetts troops to the defense of Washington at the outset of the Rebellion-the first sol diery to reach the National Capital went long way toward disproving the theory that beans as a steady ar- ticle of diet had damaging effect upon the red corpuscles of the aver age American citizen. On the con- trary, it was not long before the gov ernment considered them just as es- sential to the successful campaigning of its armies as bullets. Beans and pork became the principal rations for the Northern armies and when the war closed the soldiers carried their acquired appetite for beans home with them
 Since that time we have become bean-eating nation. The old vet erans of the Rebellion have celebrated many reunion. sitting by their i'm -provised "campfires" eating bean soup boiled in great cast-iron kettles. In some parts of the country these affairs are still known by the common name, "The Annual Bean Soup" Thus has the custom grown upon us. Then too, beans have formed a prominent part of the regular army rations for years. Our soldiers ate great quan- titles of them during the war with Spain and on the Mexican border,