Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1941-05-30

1rVe to Death
5ohy Declares
edibles that has all the features of
our prohibition era. In furnishing
Spain, Poland and Belgium, the rich
can eat without too much trouble.
Each one has his favorite food
bottlegger. In the famous Filet de
Boeuf any one who has enough
paper francs can still find excellent
beef with sauce Bearnese, lobster au
champagne and other creations" of
the celebrated Pierre Andre, along
with the best of burgundy and
champagne But the reason the rich
can eat is because the poor cannot,
and the reason the poor cannot is
because ordinary labor gets 40 francs
(S1.2O day and the skilled artisan
is paid only twice that amount.
Prices Fixed BY Decree.
When the military government
was installed in Brussels, prices
were fixed by decree to guard
against initiation and severe penal
ties were announced for any evasion
of the law. Also ration was pre-
scribed and, according to this sched-
ule, prices are not unreasonable A
loaf of bread costs the equivalent of
Is cents butter costs SO cents, meat
so cents and potatoes IL cents a
pound. Actually these commodities
cannot be found in any open market
and the prices the law allows are a
grotesque travesty of tragic reality.
AS an indication of prices based on
the law OF supply and demand, a
loaf of bread costs 81 so, meat SITS
pound and butter 81 so per pound.
Only one thing is not dealt with in
these undercover black markets.
Milk is distributed openly and at
the very reasonable price fixed by
law: One and a half francs a
cents a pint.
Belgian law provides penalties
for violation of ration for both
buyer and seller, and severe Jail
sentences are often inflicted But
the traffic goes on unrestrained, just
as it did in our prohibition days.
For much as men crave whisky and
beer, the will to eat is more i'm
perious and will not be denied, law
or no law. The hostess who pro-
vided a very comfortable dinner the
night before I left Brussels told me
she faced a long term behind bars
if she got caught. But, of course,
every one is doing it and there is
no moral stigma attached to eating,
If you can Convert trafficking goes
on at night and the whole business
is strikingly reminiscent of our
bootleg days. with the same con-
tempt for law and respectable peo-
pie getting disrespectable in the
same respectable way.
Marauders Steal Food.
Meanwhile, the famished do not
revolt. AS in the great potato
famine of 1848 to 1849. when a mil
lion of the fighting Irish race were
buried beneath the old peat sod. and
as in the Ukraine in 1882, where
the toll of the famine was like
pestilence, the will to protest fails
with dying strength.
There are ugly stories going the
rounds in Belgium, such as the one
Of man on. believe it or not,
Philanthropy street. who ate too
well and whose neighbors accord
ingly beat him up so badly that he
was carried of to a hospital And
that of a group of Belgians who
were caught digging Dutch potatoes
over the border in Limburg. When
the police came to arrest them, they
offered determined resistance and
said they would rather be shot than
gnawed to death by empty entrails.
The police let them go-with some
of the potatoes.
Priests are countenancing, so gos-
sip runs, peremptory action on the
ground that the right to live tram
sends the right to property. Bands
of desperate, hungering men hold
up farmers wagons at night and
make off with everything edible
they can get their hands on. Near
Liege. organized sorties systematic
ally sack the countryside and there
are thousands of itinerant mendi-
cants who rove the highways off
from Brussels, Bruges and Client,
begging for bread at day and Sleep
ing wherever night descends upon |
them.
No One Despairs.
1t is a nasty world, this Europe |
after this first winter of war. My |
sleep is haunted by black dreams
Of another winter of want in Bel
GUM. Yet no one despairs, and the
and nobility of the people |
are an inspiration, as I told a
banker friend who came to see me
of at the train.
Eyes, we will 60 on" he said. |
1.-THE Belgians are brave and no
one will raise his hands in surren-
der. But no one dares to think of |
the future"-and his own hands |
went up to the heavens-"for that |
way madness lies"
The banker asked me timidly
about the Hoover plan for children,
but I told him what l had told the
Secretary General of Agriculture,
that the American people were