The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1917-10-25
Volunteer CanvasserS to
Work for the Food Card
Pledges Next Week
PLANS TO EXPLAIN
CONSERVATION IDEA
Not an Effort to get the People to Eat
Less, But to Substitute Foods Which
Are Abundant for Those Needed
Urgently by Our Allies.

WASHINGTON. Oct. 25.-With Ma
tional Food Pledge Week only a few
days Off. the food administration today
announced that its army of half mil
lion men and women volunteer can
vassers is mobilized and ready for the
campaign under the various state food
administrators.
Food Pledge Week begins Sunday,
October - and ends November g..
The 100000 canvassers reported on
Ia preliminary survey several days ago
that they were sure to get the sigma
lures of approximately 100000 Amer
lean housewives to the food pledge.
\ million and a quarter of the eoun-
try 22.00o,ooo housewives already
have signed the card promising to con-
serve food. This leaves between seven
and eight million unaccounted for. and
the food administration today expressed
the conviction that all of them will be
pledged before the campaign ends.
Reports show that school children are
organized in many places as volunteer
assistant units to help in the campaign
20 enlist all the country S twenty-five
million housewives in the work of con
serving "war foods Of which there Is
= world shortage
Among the 100000 workers who will
visit every home in the country is a
large number Of "war Mothers wom-
en- whose SONS or other male relatives
have gone to the front or are in train
ing III this country.
Sunday, the opening day of the cam
paign, will be marked by war-food con
servation sermons by the country s 1O0.-
GOO ministers in churches all over the
land. The food administration states
That the response of the ministers has
been extraordinarily generous in this
respect.
State, city, county and local organiza-
tons constitute the working machinery
Of the campaign. Beginning and con
tlnWng until Saturday, these workers
viii make house to house canvass of
the country, inquiring of each house
wife of the 22,O0o.00O families in the
United States whether she has enrolled
as a member Of the food administration
by signing the food pledge card.
The workers will carry cards for
those housewives who have not vet en-
rolled. To each housewife who hasn T
a " Home Card, telling what foods the
government would like to have them
conserve and why, they will present
one
The workers will explain briefly and
clearly what the government s food con
Servation idea is and what is asked of
each housewife.
The food pledge is not. food admin.
iStration officials pointed out today. an
ehoft to get people to eat less, but to
substitute those foods of which the
country has an abundance for those that
are urgently needed by the peoples of
the allied countries in Europe and their
armies and ours.
president Wilson, in a letter to the
food administrator has said: ssIn no
other way can they american women)
so greatly assist as by enistinp in the
service OF the food administration and
cheefully accepting its direction and
advice. BY so doing, they will increase
the surplus of food available for our
own army aud for export to our allies
ITO provide adequate supplies for
the coming year is of absolutely vital
Importance to the conduct of the war.
and without a very conscientious elm
nation OF waste and very strict econo-
my IN our food consumption, we can
not hope to fulfill this primary duty. |