The Grenada sentinel. [volume] (Grenada, Miss.) 1868-1955, 1917-04-20
PRESIDENT WILSON APPEALS TO THE FARMERS.
Asks that Every Available Acre. Possible Be Planted In Food
stu#-Army Can't Fight Without Being Fed-South.rn
Farmer Holds the Key-War Shortened by
Wise Farming
My Fellow Countrymen:

The entrance Of our own beloved
country into the grim and terrible
war for democracy and human rights,
which has shaken the world, creates
so many problems of national life
and action which call for immediate
consideration and settlement that
hope you will permit me to address
to you few words of earnest counsel
and appeal with regard to them.
We are rapidly putting our navy
upon an effective war footing and
are about to create and equip a great
army, but these are the simplest
parts for the great task to which we
have addressed ourselves. There is
not single selfish element. so far
as can see, in the cause we are fight
ing for. We are fighting for what
we believe 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 sue
cessfully we must devote ourselves
to the service without regard to
profit or material advantage 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 self-sac-
rifice it involves.
These, then, are the things we
must do, and do well, besides fight
ing-the things without which mere
fighting would be fruitless:
We must supply abundant food for
ourselves and for our armies and
our seamen not only, but also for a
large part of the nations with whom
we have now made common cause, in
whose support and by whose side we
shall be fighting.
We 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 abun-
dant 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
SiOthC aio -HdiP tnC WIN
which we are cooperating in Eu-
rope, and to keep the looms and
manufactures there in raw material;
coal to keep the fires going in ships
at sea and in the furnaces Of hun
dreds of factories across the sea j;
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 every 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 can
ut now afford the men, the materials
or the machinery to make.
1t is evident to every thinking
man that our industries, on the farms,
in the shipyards, in the mines, in the
factories, must be made more prolific
and more efficient than ever and that
they must be more economically
managed and better adapted to the
particular requirements of our task
than they have been; and what !
want to cav is that the mon and the
women who devote their thought and
their energy to these things will be
~ ~ sah+ for neaca snd freedom insf
as ~ tr1iv and inst ne effectively as the
n,on ON tbe battlefield or in the
+non.has o Tbs Industrial forces Of
~ connt,.y ren and women alike
',;I, Lo 9r.a+ n.t;on., a great in
torn m ationai service armv-a notable
and m bonored host engaged in the
ean,,;na COW of the na+;on and tho world
tbe eficient friends and saviors Of
fmoo noan averywhere Thousands
ra,, h,nd,ads &c Thousands Of men
10y nt L,,r,,;so ] I;ab,o 70 m;l;tarv service
iii U,;II " T1 ,.;cbt and Of necess;tv he ex.
omsad fron, tba+ eerv;ce and assigned
~ the f,,ndamentai snsta;ning work
of [f tho G foldS and factor;es and mines
81 '"I III, % lii i'i ha as ro,,ch nart If The
Inv noat '"aS ~ r;nt;o forces Of fha nation