The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1917-10-26
FOOD PLEDGE WEEK
BEGINS SUNDAY
Nation Wide Movement in Which Ev-
erybody Can Help-NOt to Eat
Less But More Wisely.
(By Associated PresS)


off, the Food Administration today
announced that it's army of half mill
lion men and women volunteer canvas u
sers is mobilized and ready for the
campaign under the various State
Food Administrators.
Food Pledge Week begins Sunday,
October % and ends November 4.
The 100000 canvassers reported on
a preliminary survey several days ago
that they were sure to get the sigma
lures of approximately 100000
housewives to the Food Pledge. A
million and quarter of the country's
22,OOO,OOO housewives already have
signed the card promising to conserve
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 vol-
unteer assistant units to help in the
campaign to enlist all the country's
twenty-five million housewives in the
work of conserving "war foods" of
which there is a world shortage.
Among the 100000 workers who
will visit every home in the country
is large number of "war mothers,
women whose sons or other male rel
atives have gone to the front or are
in training in this country.
Sunday, the opening day of the cam
paign, will be marked by war-food
conservation sermons by the country's
100000 ministers in churches all over
the land. The Food Administration
states that the response of the min
listers has been extraordinarily gener-
Gus in this respect. ~
State, city, county and local organi-
cations constitute the working ma
chinery of the campaign. Beginnink
and continuing until Saturday, thee
workers will make house to hou6e1
canvass of the. country -inquiring Ia
each housewife of the 22,000,000 fem
lilies 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 yet
enrolled. To each housewife who
hasn't "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 governments
food conservation idea is and what is
asked Of each housewife.
The Food Pledge is not, Food Ad-
ministration officials pointed out to-
day, an effort 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 Eu-
rope. and their armies and ours.
President Wilson, in letter to the
Food Administrator, has said: "In
no other way can they (American wo-
mem so greatly assist as by enlisting
in the service of the Food Admins
tration and cheerfully accepting it's d.
rection and advice. Ry so doing, they
will increase the surplus of food avail
able for our own army and for ex-
port to our allies.
"To provide adequate supplies for
the coming year is of absolutely vital
Importance to the conduct of the war,
and without very conscientious elm
ination of waste and very strict econ
omy in our food consumption, we can
not hope to fulfill this primary duty
l trust, therefore, that the women of
the country will not only respond to
your appeal and accept the pledge to
the Food Administration which you
are proposing, but that all men also
who are engaged in the personal dis
tribution of foods will cooperate with
the same earnestness and in the same
spirit"
The obligation assumed in enroll
ing as a member of the Food Admin
istration is simple. 1t involves no dues
or other fees.
Following is the briefly worded
pledge each housewife is asked to
sign:
81 am glad to join you in the SER
vice of food conservation for our ma
tion and / hereby accept membership
in the United States Food Admins
tration, pledging myself to carry out
the directions and advice of the Food
Administration in my home, in so far
as my circumstances permit"
"A Membership Window Card will
be delivered to each enrolling men,