Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1917-04-19
NV Fellow-C ountrymen:

The entrance of our own beloved coun-
try into the grim and terrible war for
democracy and human rights which has
, shaken the world creates so many prob
! lens of national life and action, which
calls for immediate consideration and set
Element, that hope you will permit me
to address to you few words of earnest
counsel and appeal with regard to them.
We are rapidly putting our navy upon
an effective war footing and are about to
create and equip great army, but these
are the simplest parts of the great task
to which we have addressed ourselves.
There is not single selfish element, so
far as can see, in the cause we are fight
ing for. We are fighting for what we
believe and wish to be the rights of man.
kind and for the future peace and secur-
ity of the world. To do this great thing
worthily and successfully we must devote
ourselves to the service without regard
to profit or material advantage AZ d 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 SER
vice and self. sacrifice it involves.
These, then, are the things we must
do and do well, besides fighting the
things without which mere fighting would
be fruitless.
We must supply abundant food for our
selves and for our armies and our seamen
not only 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.
We must supply ships by the hundreds
out of our shipyards to carry to the other
side of the sea. submarines or no subma-
rines, what will every day be needed
there and abundant materials out of our
fields and our mines and our factories
with which not only to clothe and equip
our own forces on land and sea but alse
to clothe and support the people for
whom the gallant fellows under arms can
no longer work, to help clothe and equip
the armies with which we are ro-operat-
ing 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 furnaces of hundreds of
factories across the sea; steel out of which
to make arms and ammunition both here
and there; rails for WORKOUT 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 military
service; everything with which the peo-
pie of England and France and Italy and
Russia have usually supplied themselves
but cannot now afford the men, the ma
terials or the machinery to make.
1t is evident to every thinking man that
our industries on the farm, in the 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 adapt
ed to the particular requirements OF our
task than they have been; and what
want to say is that the men and the Wom-
en- who devote their thought and their
energy to these thing 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.
The industrial forces of the country,
men and women alike, will be great
national and international service army
"a notable and honored host engaged in
the service of the nation and the world,
the efficient friends and saviors of free
men everywhere. Thousands, nay, hun
dreds of thousands of men otherwise La
BILE to military service, will of right and
of necessity be excused from that service
and assigned to the fundamental, sus-
tanning woIk of the fields and factories
and mines, and they will be as much part
of the great patriotic forces of the ma
ton as the men under fire.
take the liberty, therefore. of ad-
dressing this word to the farmers of the
country and to all who work on the farms:
The supreme need of our own nation and
of the nations with which we are coop
Grating is an abundance of supplies, and
especially of foodstuffs. The Importance
of an adequate food supply. especially
for the present year, is superlative. With
out abundant food, alike for the armies
and the peoples now at war, the whole
great enterprise upon which we have
embarked will break down and fail. The
worlds food reserves are low. Not only
during the present emergency but for
some time after peace shall have come
, both our own people and large proper
ton of the people of Europe must rely
upon the harvests in America. Upon the
, farmers of this country, therefore. in
large measure, rests the fate of the war
and the rate of the nations. May the
nation not count upon them to omit no
step that will increase the production of
their land or that will bring about the
most effectual cooperation in the sale
and distribution of their products? The
time is short. 1t is of the most impera-
tue Importance that everything possible
be done and done Immediately to make