The Parma herald. (Parma, Idaho) 1903-1917, 1917-04-19
PRESIDENT APPEALS
TO LOYAL CITIZENS
AMERICANS URGED TO STAND TO-
GETHER FOR COMMON GOOD
IN WAR WITH GERMANY.
Special Appeal Made to Farmers and
industrial Forces of the Country
to Give Freely of Service for
Benefit of Country.

Washington.-In a personal appeal
addressed to his fellow countrymen,
President Wilson, on April II, called
upon every American citizen to join
together TO make the nation a unit
for the preservation of its ideals and
for triumph Of democracy in the world
war.
Putting the navy on war footing
and raising a great army are the
simplest parts of the great task ahead,
the president declares, and he urges
all the people with particular en-
phasis on his words to the farm to
concentrate their energies, practice
economy, prove unselfishness and
demonstrate efficiency.
The president declared that ut is
evident to every thinking man that
our industries, in farms, in shipyards,
in the mines, in the factories, must
be made more prolific and more eff
cient 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 | want to say is that
the men and the women who devote
their thought and their energy to
these things will be serving the coun-
try and conducting the fight for peace
and freedom just as truly and just as
effectively as the men on the battle
field or in the trenches. The indus
trial forces of the country, men and
women alike, will be a great national,
a great international service army
a notable and honorable host engaged
in the service of the nation and the
world, the efficient friends and sayiors
of free men everywhere. Thousands,
nay, hundreds of thousands of men
otherwise liable to military service
will, of right and of necessity, be ex-
cused from that service and assigned
to the fundamental, sustaining work
of the fields and factories and mines, |
and they will be as much part of the
great patriotic forces of the nation as |
the men under fire.
Il take the liberty, therefore, of |
addressing 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 cooperating is an abun-
dance of supplies, and especially of
foodstuffs. The importance of an ade-
quate food supply, especially for the
present year, is superlative. Without
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 emergen-
cy, but for some time after peace shall
have come, both our own people and
a large proportion of the people of
Europe must rely upon the harYests
in America. Upon the farmers of this
therefore, in large measure
rests the fate of the war and the fate
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
of their food products?
The time is short 1t is of the most
imperative Importance that everything
possible be done and done Immediate
y to make sure of large harvests.
,all upon young men and old alike and !
Upon the able-bodied boys of the land
o accept and act upon this duty-to
urn in hosts to the farms and make
certain that no pains and no labor is
acking in this great matter.
81 particularly appeal to the farm
MS of the south to plant abundant
oodstuffs as we'll as cotton. They can
,how their patriotism in no better or '
more convincing way than by resist
ng the great temptation of the pres 8
mt prics of cotton and helping, help q
ng upon a great scale, to feed the q
ation and the peoples everywhere
Who are fighting for their liberties and
or our own. The variety of their +
rops will be the visible measure of
heir comprehension of their national Il
uty. t
ITO the men who run the railways t
f the country, whether they be man t
gers or operative employees, let me Q
ay that the railways are the arteries
t the nations life and that upon them
ests the immense responsibility of
eeing to it that those arteries suffer p
o obstruction of any kind, no inef- b
cency or slackened power. To the il
Merchant let me suggest the motto: ii
small profits and quick service and 8
, the shipbuilder the thought that the
fe of the war depends upon him. The
nod and the war supplies must be IL
lrrie6 across the seas no matter how W
Iany ships are sent to the bottom. t,
he places of those that go down must it
? supplied and supplied at once To d.
lie miner let me say that he stands :,
here the farmer does; the work of ~,
lie world waits on him If he slack ~
Is or fails, armies and statesmen are =,
slpless. He also is enlisted in the "'
'eat service army"