Mexico Missouri message. (Mexico, Audrain County, Mo.) 1899-1918, 1917-04-26
PRESIDENT WILSON
ISSUES AN APPEAL
TO THE COUNTRY
Executive in Personal Message
Urges United Action in War
for Liberty.
FARMERS HOLD NATION STATE
Asks Them to Make Every Possible
Effort to Supply Abundant Food
for Ourselves, Our Army and
Navy and for the Nations
Whom We Are Now
Allied With.

Navy and for the Nations
Whom We Are Now
Allied With.
Washington, April 17.-President
Wilson on Sunday night addressed u
personal appeal to his fellow country
men and called upon every American
citizen-man, woman and child-tO
join together to make the nation u unit
for the preservation of its ideals and
for triumph of democracy in the world
war.
1.-THE supreme test of the nation has
come" says the address. I'VE must
all speak, act and serve together"
Text OF Address.
The address follows:
MY fellow countrymen:
1.-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 consideration
and settlement that l hope you will
permit me TO address to you a few
words of earnest counsel and appeal
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 army,
but these are the simplest parts of the
great task to which we have addressed
ourselves.
There is not a single selfish ele-
ment, 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.
'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 supply abundant food for
ourselves 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.
MUST supply SnIPS.
"We must supply ships by the hun
dreds out of our shipyards to carry
| to the other side of the sea, subma-
rines or no submarines, 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 also to
! clOthe and support our people for
whom the gallant fellows 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 across the sea; steel out Of
which to make arms and ammunition
both here and there; rails for worn
out railroads 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 people Of
England and France and Italy and
Russia have usually supplied them
selves, but cannot now afford the men,
the materials or the machinery to
make.
Need Greater Efficiency.
ut is evident to every thinking man
that our Industries, in farms, in ship
pards, 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 want to say is that
the men and the women who devote
their thought and their energy to these
things will be serving the country and
conducting the fight for peace and free
dom just as truly and just as effective
" as the men on the battlefield or In
the trenches.
Appeal to Farmers.
Thousands, nay, hundreds of thou
sands of men otherwise liable to mill.
tary service, will of right and of neces-
slty be excused from that service and
assigned to the fundamental, sustain
ing 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.
~ take the liberty, therefore, o.