Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-05-24
Historic Post War Plaques
From Bulletin of the National Geographic
Society.


Perhaps no barometer more surely indicates
our advancing civilization than the success OF
efforts now being made to avert the hitherto
invariable handmaidens of war-pestlence and
famine.
One refutation of the always has been, there
fore always must be" argument for war is the
fact that civilized nations are emerging from
the greatest war the world has seen and avert
ing the two other consequences always deemed
inevitab!e-plague and starvation. True, ma
tons which represent ancient civilizations also
exhibit the old phenomenon; hence those peo-
pies more highly organized economically not
but must help feed other lands.
Ralph A. Graves of England, in q commit
nication to the Geographic society, gives pic
ture OF the past famines in England, in striking
contrast to its present condition after the ter
r;ble strain it has withstood. He says:
The story OF famines in England has been
q gloomy one from earliest times. At the be-
ginning Of the eighth century dearth. which
extended to ireland, drove men to canibalisn.
1t was not until the reign Of Aethelred the I'm
ready, however, that such famine prevailed
as no man can remember from zoos to lol6.
Those chroniclers who were wont to see
bad conditions at their worst declared that half
the population of the larger island persisted.
But 1t must be remembered that much of the
mortality of this period was occasioncd by the
wars between Aethelred and Sweyn the Dane,
from England for time.
Naturally, the era following the advent of
William the Conqueror was one of widespread
starvation and pestilence among the English
peasantry. OF the last 80 years Of the eleventh
century nine were years Of dire distress.
peasants Of the north, unable longer to secure
dogs and horses to appease their hunger. sold
themselves into slavery in order to be fed by
their masters .a,
There were sporadic periods Of suffering
during the succeeding reigns of William Rufus
times, and under Henry H. But the next
dearth which especially quickens the sympathy
was that which befel the people in the days of
Richard Occur de Lion, the Crusader There
is brief reference to the famine of this period
in Ivanhoe.' Starvation was followed by pes
tilental fever. Ceremonial burial was omitted
except in the cases of the very rich.
while backward seasons were contributing
factors, the responsibility for the two great
famines of Henry I11's reign is to be laid at
the door of the government itself In the first
Of these Q235) 10000 persons are said to have
was even worse
1T was during this famine that England for
the first time imported from Germany and Hol-
land grain to alleviate the suffering Of its poorer
classes. The first ordinance in English history
designed to curb the greed of the middleman
PoSSSo " ASSe
supplies.
Few English kings have lived through
greater periods of distress than Edward II, who
was scarcely able to secure food for his own
immediate household when the heavy rains of
1914 spoiled the harvests. Everything mag
Unable was eaten-dogs, horses, cats and even
babies. 49,.
with the exception Of the world war per-
haps no other calamity that ever befell the hu-
man race can be compared with that of the
Black Death and the accompanying famine,
which afflicted all western civilization during
the middle decade of the fourteenth century.
Its toll has been variously estimated at from
one-fourth to three-fourths of the entire popula-
ton Of Europe. Certainly 1t was not less than
100000 people. ~
"Out Of the situation which resulted from
the impoverishment of the labor resources of
the kingdom grew the first great clash in Eng
land between capital and labor. The peasants
became masters of the situation. In some cases
they demanded double wages.
Parliament hurriedly passed drastic laws
in an effort to meet the new condition. Anti
loafing statutes, which also fixed wages at the
scale paid year before the first appearance Of
the plague were enacted. Runaway laborers
were to be branded with an IF" as perpetual
sign of their falsity."