The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1917-04-20
WILSON URGES
UNITED ACTION
President Appeals to All TO
Render Nation Aid.
FARMERS HOLD NATIONS FATE


serve Food-Those Who Serve Ma
ton as Workers at Critical Time as
Effective as Soldiers.
WASHINGTON. d. c. The whole
nation was called upon for war serV-
ice in a formal proclamation issued by
President Wilson.
U. S. Attitude Unselfish.
The address follows:
'My Fellow Countrymen:
"The entrance of our own beloved
country into the grim and terrible war
for democracy and human rights
which has shaken the world creates
so many problems of national life and
action which call for immediate con-
centration and settlement that | hope
you will permit me to address you
few words of earnest counsel and ap-
peal with regard to them.
1--WE are rapidly putting our navy
upon an effective war footing and are
about to create and equip a great ar
my, but these are the simplest parts
of the great task to which we nave
addressed ourselves. There Is not
single selfish element, so far as [ can
see, in the cause we are fighting for.
We are fighting for what we believe
and wish to be the rights of mankind
and for the future peace and security
of the world.
'To do this great thing worthily and
successfully, we must devote our
selves to the service without regard
to profit or material advantage, and
with an energy and intelligence that
will rise to the level of the enterprise
itself. We must realize to the full how
great the task is and how many
things, how many kinds and elements
of capacity and service and self-sacri-
fee it involves.
Must Do Many Things.
"These, then, are the things we
must do and do well, besides fighting
the things without which mere fight
ing would be fruitless.
I'VE must not only supply abundant
food for ourselves and for our armies
and our seamen, but also for large
part of the nations with whom we
have now made common cause, in
whose support and by whose sides we
shall be fighting.
I'VE must supply ships by the hun
dreds out of our shipyards to carry to
the other side of the sea, submarines
ria uhnt will To-
be needed there, and abundant mater
tails out of our fields and our mines
and our factories, with which not only
to clothe and support our people for
whom the gallant fellow under arms
can no longer work, to help clothe and
equip the armies with which we are
cooperating in Europe, and to keep
the looms and manufactures there in
raw materials; coal to keep the fires
going in ships at sea and in the fur
naces of hundreds of factories across
the sea, steel out of which to make
arms and ammunition both here and
there, rails for wornout railways back
of the fighting fronts; locomotives and
rolling stock to take the place of those
every day going to pieces; mules,
horses, cattle for labor and for mill
tary service; everything with which
the people of England and France and
Italy and Russia have usually sup
piled themselves but can not now af-
ford the men, the materials or the ma
chinery to make.
Industrial Army to Do Service.
cit is evident to every thinking man
that our industries, in farms, in ship
yards, in the mines, in the factories,
must be made more prolific and more
efficient than ever and that they must
be more economically managed and
better adapted to the particular re-
quirements of our task than they have
been; and what l want to say is that
the lien and women who devote their
thought and their energy to these
things will be serving the country and
conducting the fight for peace and
freedom just as truly and just as eff
fectively as the men on the battlefield
or in the trenches.
1.-THE industrial forces of the coun-
try, men and women alike, will be a
great national, great international
service army-a notable and honored
host engaged in the service of the ma
ton and the world, the efficient friends
and saviors of free men everywhere
Thousands, nay, hundreds of thou
sands of men otherwise liable to mill
tary service will of right and of ne
cessity be excused from that service
and assigned to the fundamental, sus-
tanning work of the fields and factor
les and mines, and they will be as
much part of the great patriotic forces
of the nation as the men under fire.
81 take the liberty, therefore, of ad-
dressing this word to the farmers of
the country and to all who work on
the farms:
1.-THE supreme need of our own ma
ton and of the nations with which we
are cooperating is an abundance of
supplies, and especially of foodstuffs.