582 THE KING’S BUSINESS I The most important issue before the American people Bread for the Busy or today is not how we shall raise our army, but whether Booze for the Bum. we shall have bread for the busy or booze for the bum. A ten-cent loaf of bread has gone up in some of our cities to fifteen cents a loaf and in some to twenty cents a loaf, and it is said that it is going up to twenty-five cents a loaf. If it does a good many of the workers and their families of this country will have to go without bread, and bread is the staff of life. But we are told that a vast amount of grain every year is going into the manufacture of different kinds of booze. It is said that 170,000,000 bushels, and according to another estimate 640,000,000 bushels go into booze. Even taking the lowest figure, if there was a law passed that not one bushel of grain should go into booze, the price of wheat would fall at once and the busy workers might have abundant bread. The high price of wheat is attributed in part to the fact that the crop is 100,000,000 bushels short, but far more than 100,000,000 bushels, as seen above, goes into booze. The duty of congress is as clear as day. There should be an immediate prohibition of any grain going into intoxicating liquors. Further than this there should be a pro hibition of the export of grain to any country that permits grain to go into strong drink, for example, England. For many months now England has been prohibiting the use of luxuries of various kinds, but England continues to to permit the use of grain in strong drink. There has been a terrible outcry against this, but the government has not had the courage to take this matter in hand. By sending them grain at this time we permit the use of grain that would otherwise have to be used for food to go into strong drink, and our sacrifices and our hunger are simply for the purpose, in the ultimate issue, of enabling another nation to squander its grain in strong drink. Which is more important, that we have abundant bread for the busy, or shall we all contribute our sacrifices to secure booze for the bum? land there is a family which was very dear to us. In that family there are three sons, all bright young men and earnest Christian young men. Two of them were led to an acceptance of Christ through the writer. At the outbreak of the war two of them were in the Cambridge University and one had grad uated and was making commendable progress in engineering work. At the very opening of the war they were all given commissions. The youngest of the three was almost too young to enter but he was given a lieutenancy. His brother just older was given a lieutenancyy and the oldest of the three a cap taincy. They were early sent to the front and were in some of the worst of the fighting. We often received word from them from the trenches, sometimes when pieces of shell were rattling on the covering of the trenches. For months they were all spared, then the youngest of the three was killed in the trenches by the explosion of a shell. He had shown great bravery and had been men tioned in the dispatches. The strain of his death resulted in the death of the father, who had had trouble with his heart for some time, a noble Christian America is going into the war. Up to the present time the war has touched most of us only in a very remote way, but a letter just opened contains a sug gestion of what war means in many a home. In Eng The Agonies of War.
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