OVER HALF THE WORLD IS STARVING

It is not often that a hungry man stands at our door begging for food. If all the hungry people of the world stood in single file at our door, the line would circle the earth and return to our door again—not just once or twice, but twenty-five times! If you drove ten hours a day, averaging fifty miles an hour, it would take you three and a half years to cover the length of the present line of hungry humanity. And as population increases this line expands over twenty miles a day! If we arranged these starving people into large cities, they would make fifty-seven cities each with a population as large as London, New York, and Tokyo put together.

Another way to say it is that sixty percent of the 2.7 billion people of the world do not have enough to eat. Many of these actually die of starvation, while millions more barely subsist. Man’s daily intake should be between 2,500 and 5,000 calories. The diet level of the worst concentration camps is about 1,200 calories a day. As recently as 1957 the 80 millions of people of Indonesia subsisted on this near-starvation diet. One and a half billion people in the world eat less than half the necessary caloric intake. This means that over half the world is receiving the equivalent of a bowl of rice and a few slices of bread per day!

A correspondent of Time recounted his experience with China’s starving millions by saying, “My notes tell me that I am reporting only what I saw or verified; yet even to me it seems unreal.” He tells of how babies were abandoned to cry and die on every highway and how peasants would seek dead human flesh under the cover of darkness. He saw dogs eating human bodies by the roads. Trees are peeled of their bark and leaves, straw, cottonseed, and water reed are forced into empty stomachs. Five millions of Honan’s 34 millions will have died by the time the next harvest is gathered. When they die, the reporter says, they just lie down in the slush or gutters and give up.

In addition to all the physical and mental anguish of starvation there is the moral dimension to be considered. It is very difficult for a hungry man to live right. History tells us that even the sainted passengers of the Mayflower “fell to plain stealing both night and day from ye Indians” when hunger overtook them. Irrespective of his background or culture the hungry man is indelicate and probably dangerous. Josephus tells us that even women became so indelicate as to devour their own babies during the terrible siege of Jerusalem by the Romans. Undernourishment motivates man’s most basic urge—survival! It is this urge that leads men to eat rats and children to grovel in the dirt to find something to fill their empty stomachs.

The uncomely behavior pattern of the hungry man has lead Herbert Hoover to say that hunger is more destructive than armies, not only in human life, but in morale. He states that all the values of right living and all the gains of civilization crumble in a society that is starving. Those of us who live in a land of plenty must realize that such ideas as democracy, liberty, and Christianity have little appeal to the man with hunger pangs shooting through him. Bread means more to him than sermons; rice means more than talk about the four freedoms.

As I write these words a book is open before me with pictures of suffering humanity. One pictorial shows a crude school room with some twenty children sitting on the floor before a poorly-trained teacher. The caption reads, “Every second one human being dies because he has lacked common knowledge.” Another picture is of a man holding his starving child, while still another is an anxious mother with a sick child. Other pictures reveal the drab huts made of cardboard where desperate people try to keep alive. Oh, how my heart bleeds for these people! They are my people, children of the same heavenly Father. I must love them and be concerned for them. As I sit in a comfortable home before a table of plenty I must not forget that I have brothers and sisters who would be happy to have my leftovers. Is it right for me to have so much while they have so little. Surely one of the world’s greatest needs is approximate economic equality.

What can I do? Where can I start? The problem is so great that even if the entire North American continent were to double its food production and distribute all its surplus to the needy countries it would only make a dent in an almost impossible situation. Yet there is something I can do. I can start by being concerned, which would be a new venture for the average American. I can also pray fervently about the situation. What I can do beyond this is questionable, but I can at least be “grieved over the ruin of Joseph” rather than immerse myself in the vanity and luxury of a sensate culture. It is questionable as to whether a nation that spends billions on the habit of war and the habit of liquor has a moral conscience.

I should not close this editorial without stating that something is being done for the destitute of the world and that there is a small part that each of us can play. The United Nations is of course committed to the task of creating conditions leading to work and food for all and health enough for zest in living. Its aim is to assist people everywhere to accept their role as members of the Family of Man. The U.N. is mustering great organizational and financial strength in programs on the levels of food, agriculture, education, science, and culture. UNESCO is now beyond the crawling stage in its efforts to help the farmer who works with a wooden plow. It is especially interested in the 60 per cent of the world’s population that has a yearly income of around $60 and a life expectancy of 30 years. It is realized that the way to solve the problem is through the resources of the people themselves.

By means of its Point Four program, Marshall Plan, IIAA, and military assistance the United States has poured billions into aid for backward nations. Point Four is especially significant since its function is to educate rather than merely to disperse dollars. It not only shows the destitute that they should use a hoe instead of a bent stick, but it also works on friendship and confidence. The Colombo Plan, consisting of eighteen nations, is likewise in the fight for better living conditions. Then there are many voluntary organizations that add a few more drops of mercy. The Rockefeller Foundation, for instance, has been active in more than eighty different countries for nearly 45 years. It labors for increased food production, medical and public health training, a virus research program, support for population studies, and it supports 250 scientists to work in destitute areas each year. The Ford Foundation recently invested nearly 28 millions for economic and social development in Asia.

So there is some mercy still in the world, isn’t there? CARE, for instance, sends jars to Greece so that 500,000 tons of food wasted annually for lack of canning equipment can be preserved. The Quakers conduct farm pilot courses in Israel and Jordan. There are many mission institutions, one being conducted by the Presbyterians which has for forty years worked for better methods of teaching elementary school in India.

There is something each of us can do. We can first of all join the society of those who care. Concern is an imperative!

“In my opinion to increase creative, unselfish love is at this present moment of human history the paramount task of humanity.” (P. A. Sorokin)

Let’s join the human race!-Stringfellow-Barr