Grasshoppers and Widos; R. LeFevre

GRASSHOPPERS AND WIDOWS RECENTL y a terrible scourge of grasshoppers swept into eastern Colorado and surrounding states, devouring the tender young shoots of corn and wheat and leaving devas tation in their wake. There is no question as to the seriousness of the plight of the unlucky farmers who suddenly found themselves in the path of this marauding horde. Something had to be done, and quickly. A few of the more independent and stalwart of the planters took action. They purchased insecticide, built fire trenches, and otherwise met the infestation as men, battling to preserve what was theirs. This was not true of the majority. Like so many help less and dependent children, they set up a great wail for help from the government. County and city bureaucrats called on Colorado Governor Steve McNichols. Mc Nichols called upon the President of the United States. The problem of the grasshoppers was supposed to be come a matter of national concern from the rocky coast Mr. LeFevre is President of the Freedom School and also has re sponsibility for the editorial page of the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph in which this editorial was first pUblished, June 19, 1958.

96 GRASSHOPPERS AND WIDOWS 97 of Maine to the high and spume-swept cliffs of far-off California. Over three million acres were declared a "disaster area." But some way, the federal government didn't seem to get steamed up over the plague beyond that point. Of course, state and county money was quickly allocated to fight the locusts. We can only congratulate and thank the federal man agement for not taking up the plea of 'Colorado's gover nor. And in order to understand why we say this, permit us to shift the scene for a moment. The Forgotten Widow Here is a widow who lives, let us say, in North Caro lina. She has three children she is trying to put through school. One of the children has just had a bout with measles and the doctor's bills are unpaid. She is a month behind in her rent. Her meager income, a small annuity left by her departed husband, is not enough to manage all her costs. Fortunately, she does own a few shares of stock, as so many independent Americans do. This stock does provide her with a few extra dollars of income twice a year.

However, to compound the widow's problems, yester day her kitchen caught fire and by the time the govern ment firemen finished the demolition job, she was facing a $1,000 repair job. Insurance will pay about $600 on it, and she must find the other $400 or do her cooking out of doors.

98 ROBERT LE FEVRE You ask, "What has the widow got to do with the grasshopper plague?" The answer is, of course, that mor ally she has nothing to do with it. But because the farm ers ran to the bureaucrats and the bureaucrats ran to the governor and the governor ran to the President, this widow might have been compelled to help pay for that grasshopper infestation. Taxes on the income from her few shares of stock might have gone up next year so that the farmers in Colo rado could have some bug juice sluiced out upon their fields. We, of course, are sorry for the farmers. But we are also sorry for the widow. And if we multiply this widow by thousands, we will see the true picture that faces all of us whenever government is called upon to render help in a disaster. Private Charity The trouble is that all of us face our own private dis asters every day. Mostly, we are ready and willing to help others whose condition may be worse than ours. But the only person who can judge whether a grasshopper plagued farmer is in sorrier straits than we are, is each one of us individually.

The government cannot possibly have this information nor can it act on it. The government, then, is not the proper agency to assist anyone. It can only render such assistance at the point of a gun leveled at everyone with out distinction.

GRASSHOPPERS AND WIDOWS 99 This illustration should enlighten us as to the abso lute necessity for individual initiative, even in the face of disaster. The business of "togetherness" causes all of us to sink in the face of any disaster. Would it not be better and far more moral for each of us to handle our own problems, asking for assistance on a voluntary basis if we need it, rather than to harness the guns of government so that regardless of the problems everyone else has, they too can be compelled to share in ours?