New Iberia enterprise and independent observer. (New Iberia, La.) 1902-1944, 1917-10-27
rs DEMOCRACY WORTH
WHILE.

The half million volunteer mem
bers Of the Food Pledge Enroll
ment organization who will dur
ing the week Of October % tt
! November 4 visit every household
in America and endeavor to have
Ievery family Of the nation regis,
ter for food conservation are as
truly supply division as that half
million which will stand back of
the American army in Europe and
see that the soldiers rations reach
them on the line and in the trench
es. America must send to Eu.-
rope the food on which our allies
subsist while they fight with us
the war for democracy, or the
war will be lost. We have. plen-
! ty; they hover on the brink of
starvation. Fosd will win the
war; the lack Of it will lose the
war.
We have plenty if we choose to
send it. But we. can not send it
unless we take concerted action
to gather it and make it available.
And we can send only certain
kinds of food-those that concen-
trate the most nutritive value into
the least shipping space. Wheat,
beef, pork, dairy products, sugar.;
these we must send. Seventy per
cent of our people, Herbert Hoov
err says, live on SO economical a
margin that it is impossible for
them to save any food in the ordi-
nary acceptance Of the term. The
other thirty per cent of us are
food MASTERS to a greater or less
degree and they must eliminate
that waste or be responsible for
increasing the difficulty of the
fight for freedom in the world.
But all Of us can help to amass
the store of food that must be
sent to our allies if their armies
and ours are to win. We can do
this by eating less Of the foods
that we mrst send to Europe and
more of those that we have n
abundance. We must substitute
other cereals for wheat; poultry
and fish for meat; vegetable oils
so far as possible for butter and
lard; syrups for sugar, and eat
freely potatoes, fruits and fresh
vegetables.
That is the gospel which the
Food Administration is reaching
to. democratic nation, It is en-
deayoring to persuade Americans
to do by democratic methods
what never before in history has
been done except by autocratsc
methods. Food control by ukase,
by command from above, is q com
paratively simple matter. Food
control from below, by the vol
untary decision Of the individuals
of the nation, is a far more diff
cult. accomplishment. When the
United States succeeds in doing
this, we shall have proved that
the ideal on which our Govern
ment is based is sound. If we
should fail we would prove that
for such q crisis as the world now
faces only the methods of autoc-
racy are effective. Democracy
would be exposed as failure I'M
the supreme test. Cane we prove
that democracy is safe for the
worldf
The half million Food Pledge
Campaigners who have volun-
teered to gain the allegiance Of
the twenty-five million. families
Of the nation to this standard Of
American ideals are workers for
q world cause, and every Ameri-
can man and woman who per-
ceives what lies behind the simple
pledge to carry out the direc-
tions and advice Of the Food Ad-
ministration in my own home, In
so far as my circumstances per-
init, !" win be ready and eager to-
sign when the Food Pledge solicit
tor offers the pledge card.
Deafness Cannot b Curod
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