Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-08-19

and field kitchen drudgery and had been
replaced by women in khaki.
These women. II Is well to remember.
are only one detail of the feminine most
that serves the British cause In France.
There are hundreds of woman chauf-
feurs driving cars and ambulances az
tho base hospitals. Yo unjust also
reckon with the army of nurses-tha.
intrepid array who's esacrifice is one OF
the epics of the war. Woman has mace
good in this war.
No less striking was the great back
to the land" movement. which grew
out of the national service awakening.
The merciless sinking of food ships
brought England bang up against me
alternative that she must culoivtte
more ground or face internittcnt
crises so long as the U-boa-s ravaged
the seas Sir Arthur Lee. NJ. r. who
had been the British military attache
with the American troops IN our CUBAN
war, and a close friend of Col. Roose-
welt, was made director of food pro-
duction. Lee is stalwart and upstaHd-
ing: he has real punch in him, and
he started a rapid fire campaign that
woke up the English farmer
One of the first things that he aid
was to issue the following dramatic
appeal;
ITO all plowmeu and workers on Inc
land:
I'm the trenches. German shells come
over on Sunday as on week days.
German submarines are just as &C
tive on Sundays as on any other dayi
The enemy takes no holidays. He
uses every hour TO destroy your coun-
try and kill your brothers.
will You not work every hour from
daybreak to dark-week day and sum
day-for the next few weeks! Your
work now may make just the diner-
ence between winning the war and
losing il.
put in your best work. Inferior
work means poor crops
nj
over the farm situation that clergymen
not only preached the gospel of Sum
day blowing from the pulpit, but went
out in the fields on Sunday afternoons
and worked with their hands them
selves.
Mai Lee went further. The time for
spring planting was already Wen ad-
vanced Every hour counted. He moh-
iltzed the land ownerS-the so-called
Gentry-and il was no uncommon sight
during February and March to see
landlord and tenant working side bv
side in the fields day and night. war
agricultural committees sprang up and
the twenty-four hour ploughing day
became the regular agricultural thing.
In order to speed up things Lee In
troduced hundreds of tractors on the
farms. The British farmer for the -hrsr
time in his life is using the latest
scientific aids to farming
Not the least interesting phase was
the communicating of a host of woman
.
have become very efficient workers.
-
More ground Is under cultivation in
Great Britain today than at any other
time in its history. Although the
country can never raise enough wheat
and corn TO sustain itself. she has at
least taken out definite insurance
against future shortage in the grain
import.
One great blessing brought by the
farm upheaval is a shattering of the
illusion that the week end in England
is sacred only to pleasure Until the
realization that the war was fight
for life the average Englishman re-
garded work from Saturday to Monday
as a sacrilige and a proclamation. Now
he has converted his tennis court or his
park into a small garden or farm
and he devotes all his spare time to It,
What has happened in farming has
been duplicated in practically every
other industry. Thanks to national
service the "funkhole"-the one time
unassailable refuge of young men who
escaped fighting because they held down
government jobs-has been cleaned out.
Older individuals have succeeded them
The national service campaign in
England WAS QtNt4tPGu Up " a NcA -
point and then suspended. 1t had awak-
ened the country to the facts that All
human power was necessary to peat
the German. This task was accomplish
ed But it did more 1t brought the war
home to the whole people. 1t made the
war every mans war. 1t heightened and
intensified the whole national spirit.
What is the lesson for America? Sins
ply this Unless some miracle happens.
The war will last a very long time As
Europe's human resources-new under
ceasless drain for three years-fail.
our own men must I'LL the depleted
ranks and at the same time. our mills
and farms must feed and clothe civilian
and fighter The whole nation viii in
evitably be drafted for this work. Now
is the time to build the superstructurs
for our own national service.
1t is one guarantee of complete vic-
tory over the enemy,
Copyright. 1917. by The Bell Syndicate. rne.p
The concluding article In this seriess
by Isaac +. MarcOsson, will appear next
sunday 1t is called ..America and the.
Future"