The sun., 1917-04-16
CALLS UPON ENTIRE NATION FOR SUPPORT IN WAR;
BRITISH FORCES IN LENS; GERMANS RETREAT IN BELGIUM
ROOSE PRESENTS ARMY DIVISION CONGRESS


WASHINGTON. April 15:-President Wilson to-day
United States
My FelloW Count,ymen:
The entrance of our own beloved country into the
grim and terrible for democracy and human rights
which has shaken the world creates problems of
sideraton and settlement that hope you will permit me
to address to you few words of earnest counsel and
with rcaS to he orr navx non an effective
war footing and are about to create and equip great
but these the simplest parts of the great task
to which have addressed ourselves. There is not
single selfish element so far as can see in the cause
fighting for. We fighting for what we believe
peace and security of the world To do this great thing
worthiy and successfully must devote ourselves to
tage and 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 service and
sefsacrifice it involves. .,
These then, the things must do and do well,
besides fghting-the things without which mere fight
ing would be fruitless.
We must supply abundant food for ourselves and
large part of the nations with whom have now made
cause in whose support and by whose sides
shall be fighting.
We must supply ships by the hundreds out of
shpyards to to the other side of the subma
rines submarines what will every day be needed
there and abundant materials out of fields and
mines and factories with which not only to cothe and
equip forces land and but also to clothe
and support people for whom the gallant fellows
under arms longer work. to help clohe and equip
the armies with which cooperating in Europe and
to keep the looms and manufactures there in
terias coal to keep the fires going in ships at and
in the furnaces of hundreds of factories the
steel out of which to make arms and ammunition both
here and there rails for worn out railways back of the
fighting fronts locomotives and rolling stock to take the
place of those 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 themselves but
not now afford the men, the materials or the machinery
to make.
1t is evident to every thinking man that our indus
tries the farms in the shpyards in the Mines in the
factories must be made prolific and more efficient
than and that they must be more economically
ments of task than they have been and what want
to say is that the and the who devote their
thought and their to these things will be serving
the country and conducting the fight for peace and
freedom Just as truly and just effectively the
on the battlefield or in the trenches.
The industrial forces of the country and women
alike, will be great NATIONAL great international
service army-a notable and honored host engaged
the service of the nation and the world, the efficient
friends and saviors of free everywhere Thousands
nay, hundreds of thousands Of otherwise liable
military service WILL Of right and of necessity, be
cused from that service and assigned to the funda
mental sustaining work of the fields and factories and
mnes and they will be much of the great patr
otic forces of the nation as the men under FIRE.
to the farmers of the country and to all who work
the farms The supreme need of nation and of
the nations with which cooperating is abun-
dance of supplies and especially of foodsuffs
The Importance of an adequate food supply, espe-
cally for the present year, is superlatve Without
abundant food, alike for the armies and the peoples
at the whole great enterprise which have
embarked will break down and fail The worlds food
reserves !ow. Not only during the present
gency but for time after peace shall have come
both people and large proportion Of the peo-
Upon the farmers Of th. country therefore in large
the fate of the and the fate of the
nations. May the nation not count upon them omit
step that will increase the production of their land