Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1917-07-05
TO THE FARMERS OF AMERICA
BY Theodore Roosevelt.

eDy lheoQore Roosevelt.
l make An especial appeal to the
farmers OF America. | do not merely
ask youto uphold and submit to the
draft, like loyal Americans, and pay
your taxes and do all other ordinary
work of good citizenship. do mere
~ ask you to use every energy and
every expedlent of practical science
TO Increase the food production of
the country; ask you in addition TO
volunteer for service during the war,
both by coming forward into the
armed forces of the nation and by
yourselves subscribing to the Liberty
loan. Remember that in loanine
money to the government you are
ioanIng it to yourselves and this is
prominently true of you farmers,
for the money which you loan to the
government, will, to large degree.
be at once paid back to the farmer
fof food products.
hope that you farmers will enlist
in this field with will. Make it a
peoples loan. Make the terms
"bandholders" and people" inter-
changeable. See that these bonds are
held by the families of every soldier
who enlists. And if you are one of
of the stay at-homes, why that is all
the more reason for helping to equip
those who go to the front by pur-
chasing as many bonds as you can.
Do not let Wall street monopolize
the financing of the war-and if you
do, then do not blame Wall street,
bnt admit that it is more patriotic
and farsighted than you are.
Finance the war yourselves you. i.
the farmers-you, the plain people;
buy Liberty Loan bonds; the security
is the best in the world, for it is good
unless our government is conquered
by 8 foreign power, and in that case
We shall be either dead or ruined
anyway-so the loss of the bonds
won't matter,
We have with supine inehiciency Y
failed to prepare for the war; and we
owe our unpreparedness to our own
folly in paying heed to the folly of
the pacilists. Unless we now exert
all our belated energy and latent
patriotism to remedy this folly, this
nation will meet with desperate mis-
adventure. Paciiism has proved q
most powerful possible anaestbet tic of
courage and manliness.
Our present business is to restore to
tue nation these virtues. The far
mer is the man of all Others through
whom the work of restoration can be
most quickly accomplished; for it is
upon his activities upon his success
and welfare that all the other activi-
ties Of the land and the success
and the welfare of the people as
whole, ultimately depend.
The farmer must grow our food;
his sons must form part of the arm les
by which the war is actually waged
and for his own sake as we'll as for
the sake of the nation, he ought to
loan to the nation of which be is a
part of the money without which the
food cannot be bought nor the troops
go to war.
Not only are we threatened, but all
the liberty loving peoples of the
world, all the free peoples, all the
democracies, are threatened by the
most powerful militaristic autocracy,
by one of the most ruthlessly brutal
barbarisms the world has
ever seen. We are engaged in war
for humanity. That war must be
financed. Don't let it be financed
purely from Wall street; let it be
financed by US, by the people them
selves and therefore largely by the
farmers.
The Liberty Loan is a ransom for
democracy. Let the people pay for
it from their earnings and savings,
they Will receive an investment back
ed by and in return they will give the
money without which the fight for
freedom the solid strength of our
government cannot be effectively
waged. The farmers who buy liberty
bonds, buy a first mortgage on the
United States; and while SO doing
they finance the fighting men in this
great war for world democracy.
WHY AMERICA FIGHTS