Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-12-16
FOOD SAVING NOT A
HARDSHIP TO WOMEN
SAYS ONE Of THEM
Red Cross Woman, Returned
From France, Draws Vivid
Picture Of Hardships
SAYS AMERICA HAS
HAD NO PRNATIONS
Women Have Been Made More
Efficient Housekeepers BY
Food Laws

i 1T seems 10 me, said hed cross
woman who recently returned from
France, speaking at a club meeting,
that American women cannot truth
fully say that the food regulations
have made housekeeping any harder
for them, but only that they are wiser
and more efficient as result of them.
Before | sailed last year ! had
some difficulty getting my sugar, but
il was only a matter of little annoy
ance, and no real priva.ion. Then
when the food administration allotted
a certain amount to everybody / man
aged beautifully, and learned for the
first time about the sirups, and how
they could be used in cooking and
/ canning.
las for the war breads that we had
to make in order to save wheat I'm
sure we all liked them; and less meat
in our diet was good for all of us.
when | arrived in France and was
up near front, and heard stories from
the women who had lived under the
German military control in France and
Belgium, then l realized wha. food
troubles really were 1t made me
very thankful that American women
could help these people after their
liberation, and it was wonderful to
think that, by such small individual
savings and subs.itutions at home we
had saved the morale of the civilians
behind the armies, so that they did not
break" as the German civilians did.
IF ever you should find yourselves
complaining abou. what you have
had to do in the past year, or about
the conservation program that you
have to keep up until Europe is in
order again and our army comes home,
think how you would like to have been
in situations like these:
Sixty per cent of the wheat fields
in the parts of France and Belgium
under German control for so long we're
cultivated by the German army it.
self; twenty per cent by the army and
the peasants together, and the re-
naming twenty per cent by the peas
ants for themselves, under the W atch-
full eye of the German officials.
"All tina. the army grew it took for
itself, and half of the crops which it
had cultivated with the peasants.
Then it bought" most of the remain
ing CROP, and paid for it with prom
issory no .es, redeemable and payable
after the war-when Germany was to
have won.
Every peasant. the old women,
old men, mothers of families, boys and
girls over twelve, had to work a GER
tain number of hours a day for the
German army. They worked at the
crops, cut wood, washed clothes, dug
trenches or sewed sand-bags Each
had book to keep a record of his
weekly work, and If he or she had not
done enough. there was fiogging, i'm
prisonment, or even deportation in
Germany to work in the munition fac
tories or the mines.
THE Germans kept a record of all
the fruit trees, cows, hens, and even
eggs, and the peasants had to suffer if
they did not have the expected number
to sell" to the army.
"Now that the invaders have been
driven out and beaten, these poor peo-
pie are even worse off for food, be-
cause the crops and orchards and ami
mails were destroyed by the retreat
ing soldiers.
Can we say that we have suffered
here?" Voluntary saving, few SIM
pie regulations about using less sugar,
less meat, and wheat substitutes, that
is all we were asked to do. The vol
untary saving which the food admin
istration expects of us must con-
tinue. But that will not be a hard
task for the people of the United
States, who now know what accom-
| plishment means"
Saving to Bring Them Home
Empty ships cannot be sent from
America to France to get loads of SOL
diers. People are starving on the
o. her shore and must have food from
America. Every ship that leaves our
ports for European shores must be
filed with food When we remember
that we have more than two million
soldiers overseas who must be fed;
that we have a food pledge to the Al
/ lies to fulfill; and that millions of lib
Grated peoples are looking to US for
food, we realize the tremendous task
ahead of US. The housewife is now
saving food in order to save the world
that her son helped to rescue from abb
solute destruction.
There can be no put ling of for a
few weeks this newer and greater
task. No American homekeeper can
relax her strict program o. food.