ekum
continued thoughtfully. "We should take lessons from history, and
do everything in our power to provide for the poor. I have worked
hard in the development of the 'People's Kitchens' in Berlin. We
started in the suburbs early in 1916, in some great central
kitchens in which we cook a nourishing meat and vegetable stew.
From these kitchens distributing vehicles--_Gulasch-kanonen_ (stew
cannons) as they are jocularly called--are sent through, the city,
and from them one may purchase enough for a meal at less than the
cost of production. We have added a new central kitchen each week
until we now have 30, each of which supplies 10,000 people a day
with a meal, or, more correctly, a meal and a half. In July,
however, the work assumed greater proportions, for the municipal
authorities also created great central kitchens. Most of the
dinners are taken to the homes and eaten there.

"The People's Kitchen idea is now spreading throughout Germany.
But I believe in going further, I believe in putting every
German--I make no exception--upon rations. That is what is done in
a besieged city, and our position is sufficiently analogous to a
besieged city to warrant the same measures. All our food would
then be available for equal distribution, and each person would get
his allowance."

This earnest Social Democrat's idea is, of course, perfect in
theory. Even the able, hard-working Batocki, however, cannot make
it practicable. Why not? _The Agrarian, the great Junker of
Prussia_, not only will not make sacrifices, but stubbornly insists
upon wringing every pfennig of misery money from the nation which
has boasted to the world that its patriotism was unselfish and
unrivalled.

The most important German crop of all at this juncture is potatoes,
for potatoes are an integral part of German and Austrian bread.
The handling of the crop, to which all Germany was looking forward
so eagerly, exhibits in its most naked form the horrid profiteering
to which the German poor are being subjected by the German rich.

It was a wet summer in Germany. Wherever I went in my rural
excursions I heard that the potatoes were poor. The people in the
towns knew little of this, and were told that the harvests were
good.

An abominable deception was practised upon the public with the
first potato supply. For many months tickets had been in use for
this food, which is called the "German staff of life." Suddenly
official notices appear