Borlaug was born on a Norwegian farm in Iowa.

His family encouraged education and he went into the field of

Plant pathology. This was at a time when there were

Extensive food security problems for populations, unfed.

In Mexico, India and Pakistan, especially for the poor

His ground-breaking scientific research and applied methods

Made all the difference. Harvests increased as never before,

Feeding the hungry. His field demonstrations involved

Dwarf wheat, maize and binding new hybrid partners.

New strains suited to special climates solved

A great global difficulty. His personal resolve

Played an important role in getting it done.  

Providing bread for a hungry world was just one

Of the ways in which Peace could – and would – be won.

Under the foundation of the ILO in Geneva

Is a document that says, “If you desire peace, 

Seek justice.” Of course, this international labor mantra

Has been repeated from wars to trade unions and congresses:

Since Versailles, the tripartite strength of workers and employers,

With States, has brought rights and protections across national borders,

Work not ceased. The litany of workers’ causes won

Began with limited night hours for women and protection

Against working with phosphorus. From that day on

Came benefits for unemployment, disability and pension,

Fair wage measures, a ban on child labor, paid vacation. . . .

The ILO’s strength grew, enforceable against nations.

It extended to helping them develop more means to trade,

With programs designed to link people’s trade to what they made.

He said, “The war put its indelible and unmistakable stump

On me [and] my contemporaries. But it wasn’t

So much the spectacular horror of the battlefields

Or the suffering in the hospitals that marked us, as

It was the agonized perception of the lasting and wasteful

Consequences of the war:  the disabled soldiers  . . .

The families deprived . . . – dead for the welfare of all.”

He would not accept the idea that ‘solidarity’

Meant limiting a nation’s response merely to ‘charity’:

He founded war veterans’ organizations to influence

Global initiatives in many social and political arenas,

And fought against the idea that a sovereign state

Had absolute control over humans in its jurisdiction.

For the “inherent dignity” of all humans, he sought “recognition.”

Cassin was born in southern France and survived

World War I, severely wounded but alive.

He was a professor of law for many years and fled

To London with de Gaulle when Hitler led

His troops to overrun their land. His positions

Included work with the League of Nations and war veterans,

Whom he felt especially qualified to help bring peace

Between adversaries. He was honored with the Prize

For drafting the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.

His tireless work with Eleanor Roosevelt brought sufficient ‘ayes’

To the drafts and additional covenants later signed.

But how could Peace come out of mere agreement with words?

“Here is your protection against violence;  here is your sword,

The belief in our life, The worth of mankind.”

The Children’s Fund began after WWII as UNICEF

At the insistence of President Hoover, among others.

Many demanded the world respond to address

The desperate needs of post-war children and mothers:

Six million in Europe alone were thus fed

One meal every day through the winter of ’47.

The ‘begging bowl’ grew, by its first president, Pate, who led.

Called UNICEF’s slumbering conscience, he sparked

A “road to peace” ‘where politicians groped in the dark.’

Then 121 governments contributed funds that would

Feed, nurse, teach, reduce infant mortality in childhood,

To help without any ulterior motive, seeing all as good.

The Children’s Fund offered the young care, health and education,

Arguable prerequisites for any true “brotherhood of men.”

King accepted the prize in the name of “those devotees

Of nonviolence” climbing the “ramparts of racial injustice.”

He’d come to believe in using Gandhi’s non-violent

Resistance. So they walked and they marched – and they sat.

They were shot, bombed, arrested, beaten, jailed and spat at,

And the eyes of the nation began to have to see

The ugly discrimination still practiced so boldly in the South.

The FBI followed him, tried to blackmail him into

Quitting the movement. Instead, it expanded and went

From a black movement to a broader insistence

That “human worth” over poverty and war must triumph.

“Now is the time,” he said and was right to demand

A swift ending to the war in Vietnam,

The war from which 58,000 American men

Never came home again.

All know of King’s work for U.S. racial equality,

His dream, five score years after Lincoln stated, slaves

“Shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

King experienced the reality, and gave

Of his boundless spirit and energy to save

The dream of real freedom for blacks in America.

They were forced to give way to whites – sit in the back of the bus,

And in other ways not share the ‘freedoms’ reserved for the rest.

When Rosa Parks did not obey and sat in the front,

King was there and agreed to lead others to confront

These humiliating laws. He’d read Thoreau, and, from him,

“We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system.”

He believed opposing poverty and injustice was a Christian duty.

And began to worry he’d be killed before he turned forty.

These two international organizations had long worked in tandem.

The Committee, a Swiss organization, stated the sole reason

Its members are admitted into “the territory of belligerents”?

Their impartiality is complete and inspires confidence.

“They know . . . in a world where selfish and ideological interests

 Are in conflict,” the Red Cross alone, “without any thought of self-interest”

Will step in to relieve suffering without prejudice of any kind,

Their work guided by the Geneva Convention, as expanded,

From war’s prisoners to all displaced and distressed populations.

With medical care and material goods, they arrive,

With the power of their national chapters, to keep alive

The war-torn, the persecuted, the refugees trying to survive.

At this time, they had 170 million members supporting world relief

Consistent with their motto, “By Humanity for Peace.”

Pauling’s anti-war activity spanned the period

When the U.S. and Russia were being asked to confront

The exceptional danger of nuclear weapons and myriad

Repercussions of nuclear testing. He worked to shunt

Nuclear proliferation – with treaties and entreaties.

He joined Einstein after the war and crafted a treaty

To ban that testing, which he took to Russia and the U.S.

A similar one passed. He continued – on Vietnam, mirroring the anxiety

Of the nation. He renounced all use of war-like force.

He said “no human being should be sacrificed to a project . . .

Of perfecting nuclear weapons that could kill hundreds

Of millions of human beings, could devastate

This beautiful world in which we live.”

He called the “military-industrial complex” and “war contractors,”

With their billions in excess profits, War’s only backers.

Linus Pauling, Professor Extraordinaire, lived

“On the frontiers of science,” earning the Nobel Prize

In Chemistry (in ’54) and Peace. His research articles

Gave structure to the bonds that hold atomic particles

Together. But the bomb dropped on Hiroshima appalled

Him and he turned to devote himself to the clarion call

Of stopping nuclear arms and testing. He began

A petition of scientists around the world who demanded

An end to nuclear testing, disarmament and a ban.

He published his opinions in a book, No More War.

These actions resulted in his investigation:  was he a Communist?

He told Congress he was not – in ’55 and again,

In 1960. By then he had participated in the organization

Of a world congress against nuclear arms proliferation.