The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1934-02-23
Howe About:
War and Debt
Temperance Plea
Farming Situation
BY ED HOWE
g, Bell Syndicate.-WNU Service.

they kept war going on thirty years.
/. You may say we have more
sense than that now. I am not so
sure of it. Our last war was conduct
ed on so magnificent a scale that the
world became bankrupt in four years,
and we had to quit; whereas 1t Is re-
lated Frederick the Great paid for his
wars as he went along. When he quit,
he didn't owe a penny. and had no
pensioners to move on his capital, and
threaten to take it. Boys coming on
soon supplied Frederick with more
farmers; food was produced again In
year. But a war debt con-
stantly increasing and drawing inter-
est, will ruin anybody.
have noted that many people who
annoy me, occasionally turn out to
have a good deal of sense. One man
sent me pamphlets daily for weeks,
but finally the pamphlets were made
into a book called Toward Liquor
Control" 1 have read the book. 1t
was written by a number Of rather
notable men employed by the Rookie
Teller foundation to look thoroughly
into the problem of liquor control, and
make report about it.
The book is one Of the best written,
most sensible and important l have
ever read. 1t includes review of our
general American shiftlessness In pub
lie affairs, and which has finally al
most bankrupted us morally as well as
financially. l recommend the book to
everyone who believes little in COM
mon sense and decency, and in pre-
serving the little civilization we have
managed to achieve.
The book is a plea for temperance
not only as to intoxicating liquors, but
In everything else. We are very in
temperate in our eating, In sex mat
ters; in all phases of public affairs. In
education, religion we must become
ashamed of our intemperance, or we
shall be Inundated before the world
more than we have been lately.
Not less than SO per cent of our in
dustrial workers are hampered by i'm
proper diet; Of all money spent by their
families on food, 70 per cent is mis-
spent, either on improper or too costly
or otherwise uneconomic dietaries.
This disgraceful percentage holds in
everything else we do.
Americans became so rich we
reached the Coal Oil Johnny stage in
extravaganza and shiftlessness, and
we must do better, as Coal Oil John
ny did in the poor house.
Although he said a poor-house diet
would kill him, after living so long on
terrapin and turkey, 1t actually result
ed in better health; actually assisted
in restoring him to sanity and indus
try.
When I was a boy, and my father
farmed and preached the old gospel,
we occasionally had a horror. Once
a farmer drove into Pole creek after
a rain, and was drowned. His horses
drowned with him.
1t was terrible, but we didn't have
excitement often. Once a man had
nose-bleed for days, and constantly
grew weaker, as nothing could be done
to stop it. We all went over to look
at him; everyone was excited. Once
q man was bitten on the thumb by
rattlesnake. He had cut down hick-
DRY tree, to get the nuts, and the ac-
cident happened while he was picking
them up. The man put his thumb in
his mouth, and sucked the poison out
We talked about that for days. An
other time a farmer came home from
town drunk, and everybody ran over
to his house to suggest remedy. One
woman suggested that he drink pan
of milk. She had lived In town In
Indiana, where we all came from, and
knew about such things; and the man
got well.
The Civil war was going on then,
and an occasional soldier came home
on furlough with tall tales to tell, but
we had no such terrors as I hear of
every morning and evening now, when
I get the papers. Somewhere the 9TH
er day the members Of family were
eating supper, when an airplane fell
on their house. The house and seven
persons were burned up, with the
neighbors looking on; all they could
do was to save the house next door.
In my day, farmers were at least
steady men; now they are rioting, a
thing I never heard of even town men
doing until I was man grown.
We were poor people. but always
had plenty. Now farmers say they
are starving. Millions Of them actual
~ have starved in Russia, because
town men take what the farmers raise.
In my boyhood we hardly ever saw a
town man; specially they didn't come
out carrying guns. and tell us what
part Of our corn we could keep. and
what part they wanted to support the
governments N. A. B. D., which means
a new and better deal.
When / was young didn't know II
was possible for man Of eighty to be
as comfortable and active as am at
that age. Everybody said in my youth
that If man lived to be seventy. that
was all he had right to expect; and
usually he had been accused of senil-
fly ten or fifteen years before that.
/. / was never much good, but
am about as good now as ever was.
I never thought much Of golf or foot
ball or dancing. but can do about as
good work at the tasks | have been
trained in as 1 ever could. I have no
weighing machine: no list of special
things to eat. live as people have
always lived except that I eat less.
One meal day. and that at noon, is
a