JOHN BARLEYCORN.

White Ribbon, Volume 23, Issue 273, 18 March 1918, Page 5

JOHN BARLEYCORN.

John Barleycorn is the prince of slackers, the king of wasters, and the veriest glutton in all the world. In this year of threatened famine he will, unless he is curbed, swallow more food than will the wide Atlantic, aided by the entire Meet of German l boats. Eighty million bushels of sound grain, 120,000,000 gallons of molasses —that is only a part of the good foodstuffs that will go to glut his monstrous appetite. And meanwhile Europe starves; our Allies cry for food. In answer to that cry we sound the alarm for grain, more grain and ships, more ships, to put it in. We suffer panic from oui lack of farm lands and farm hands The wa» will be won in the trenches of France and in the fuiiows of America, so we arc told. We set ourselves to the task of training a million men in a year, of bringing new acres under the plough, and yet during the course of that twelve months we will consume in the form of alcoholic beverages alone enough grain to feed n ,ooo,ckx» mouti.'i. It is .»!! v r nig. It is c olossal waste. It is extravagance which the world cannot tolerate in this hour of stress. —Rex Beach.