The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1917-04-20
THE PRESIDENTS APPEAL
THE Supreme Need of Our Nation An
Abundance of Supplies, Espec-
tally of Foods"

lowing appeal to the country:
"My Fellow ountrymen: The en-
trance of our own beloved country in
to the grim and terrible war for dem
ocracy and human rights, which has
shaken the world, creates so many
problems of national life and action
which call for immediate considera-
ton and settlement that | hope you
will permit me to address to you
few words of earnest counsel and APP
peal with regard to them.
eve are rapidly putting our navy
upon an effective war footing, and are
about to create and equip great ar
my, but these are the simplest parts
of the great task to which we have adj
dressed ourselves. There is not sim
gle selfish element, so far as l can see,
in the cause we are fighting for.
eve are fighting for what we be-
lieve and wish to be the rights of
mankind and for the future peace and
security of the world. To do this
great thing worthily and successfully
we must devote ourselves to the SER
vice without regard to profit or mater
ial advantage and with an energy and
intelligence that will rise to the lev
ell 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 self-sacrifce it involves.
"These, Unen, are the things we
must do, and do well, besides fighting
the things without which mere
fighting would be fruitless:
eve 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.
Lists Things to be Needed.
eve 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 ev-
cry day be needed there, and abund-
ant 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 fire going in ships at sea and the
furnaces of hundreds of factories
across the sea; steel out of which to
make arms and ammunition, both here
and there; rails for wornout railroads
back of the fighting fronts; locomo-
tives and rolling stock to take the
place of those everyday going to
pieces; mules, horses, cattle for la
Dor and for military service; every
thing with which the people of Eng
land and France and Italy and Rus
STA have usually supplied themselves,
but cannot now afford the men, the
materials or the machinery to make
them.
at is evident to every thinking man
that our industries, on the farms, in
the ship yards, in the mines, in the
factories, must be made more prolific
and more efficient than ever, and that
they must be more economically man.
aged and better adapted to the par
ticular requirements 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 freedom just as truly
and just as effectively as the men on
the battlefield in the trenches.
"Great Service Army"
"The industrial forces of the coun-
try, men and women alike, will be a
great national, a great international
service army-a notable and honored
host engaged in the service of the ma
ton and the world, the efficient
friends and saviors of free men every
where.
Thousands, nay hundreds of thou
sands, of men otherwise liable to mil
itcry service will Of right and of ne
cessity be excused from that service
and assigned to the fundamental, sus-
tanning work of the fields and factor
les and mines, and they will be as
much part of the great patriotic fore
cs of the nation as the men under
fire.
II 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
nation and of the nations with which
we are cooperating, is an abundance
of supplies, and especially of food
stuffs.
"The Importance of an adequate
food supply, especially for the pres
ent 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
fall. The worlds food reserves are
low.
"Not only during the present emer-
gency, but for some time after peace
shall have come, both our own people
and 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.