Shoshone journal. [volume] (Shoshone, Idaho) 1884-1931, 1917-04-20
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.


addressed to his fellow countrymen,
President Wilson, on April ~, called
upon every American citizen to join
together to make the nation 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 farmers to
concentrate their energies. practice
| economy, prove unselfshness 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-
qulrements of our task than they have
been; and what l want to say is that
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 great national,
a int U
a notable and honorable host engaged
in the service of. the nation and the
world, the efficient friends and saviors
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 album |
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 harvests
in America Upon the farmers of this
country, 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
cooperation in the sale and
distribution of their food products?
The time is short. 1t is of the most
Importance that everything
possible be done and done immediate
ly to make sure of large harvests. l
call upon young men and old alike and
upon the able-bodied boys of the land
to accept and act upon this duty-to
turn in hosts to the farms and make
certain that no pains and no labor is
lacking in this great matter.
Il particularly appeal to the farm
ars of the south to plant abundant
ioodstuffs as well as cotton. They can
show their patriotism in no better or
more convincing way than by resist
ng the great temptation of the pres
snt price of cotton and helping, help
ng upon great scale, to feed the
nation 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
luty.
ITO the men who run the railways
If the country, whether they be man
gers or operative employees, let me
ay that the railways are the arteries
Il the nations life and that upon them
'ests the immense responsibility of
eeing to it that those arteries suffer
10 obstruction of any kind, no inef-
icency or slackened power. To the
merchant let me suggest the motto:
Small profits and quick service and
o the shipbuilder the thought that the
ife OF the war depends upon him. The
God and the war supplies must be
arried across the seas no matter how
many ships are sent to the bottom.
he places of those that go down must
e supplied and supplied at once. To
he miner let me say that he stands
here the farmer does; the work OF
he world waits on him. II he slack
ms or fails. armies and statesmen are
elpless. He also is enlisted in the
reat service army"