The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1917-12-18

we do not have to be put on bread
cards and sugar cards and meat
cards to get US to do what is best
for our cause. We do 1t OF our own
accord and save the trouble and ex-
pense of making us do 1t.
A few weeks ago q great campaign
of instruction was necessary to get
us all to wake up to the necessity
of saving food, and managing our
cooking and eating so that we should
be able to export great quantities
of wheat, fats, sugar and meats, and
in order to bring the plan and the
practice quickly to everybody's no
tice flood cards" were prepared, and
hundreds of thousands of people got
busy on committee assignments to
get the food cards signed up. The
signing was merely to impress 1t up
on peoples minds, and not for the
purpose of depriving them Of any
rights or to take away anything they
had, nor yet for the purpose of plac-
ing any hardship on them. Millions
and millions of copies of printed in
structions and information about
the food cards were published in the
newspapers and magazines to get
people to understand the plan quick
ly and to get them to act quickly,
and in a fortnight the masses of in
telligent Americans were acting in
unison to conserve the food supply
and denying themselves so far as
seemed practical the use OF those
things needed by the allies and
which could be most easily shipped
to them.
Each new undertaking is spoken
Of as q drive, and we have just
finished the Y. M. c. A. drive for
money. The next drive is for men,
bership in the Red Cross, and every
body in the United States is asked to
become a member this week, and put
dollar into the fund.
So far as people understand the
purpose of this drive and the need
of having the whole nation behind
it, they will cheerfully join the
undertaking IL they are able. When
people hesitate or decline to act, it
is due to a mis-conception of the
work. The United. States thru. its
Red Cross work has been acting as
father and mother to millions of suf-
fering and destitute people in
Europe, and now that we are send
ing hundreds of thousands of our
own men into the conflict at great
distance from home, it becomes
necessary to redouble and multiply
our activities to carry food and care
and comforts and good clean moral
influences to them all. We have
thought we were doing more than
anyone else, and we have been doing
more than others who were not in
the fight, but England and France,
Canada and other British possessions
have been doing so much the figures
put us to shame. Now we are wax
ing to the fact that il every one OF
our hundred million people aputs in
his or her dollar. and becomes a
partner in this biggest of American
partnerships, it will supply the funds
needed for all emergencies for many
months, and will have an influence
in winning the war that isf worth
more than many divisions of vet
Grams in the trenches. Think what
it will mean to the stream of Ameri-
can soldiers pouring into France, to
know that ten, twenty or fifty mil
lion of the home people have put
up money to secure hospital seHyice
and comforts for them over theHe!
Think of the impression it will make
on the belligerent countries to know
that all America is behind every
move that is made over here for the
successful prosecution Of the war