Norwich bulletin., 1917-04-28
THE FARMERS MUST REALIZE UPON THEIR
 PRODUCTS
PRODUCES

(Written Specially for The Bu.ietin.)i
 Democracies have their advantages, which are undeniably great and don't need defense or application from you and I.
 But they certainly do not shine in times of crisis, as practical and ac- tualIy eff1cient in accomplishment
 We are, just now, facing a crisie. There need be no doubt about it, Tor not only have the president and the congressman and the seiectman and the minister told us so, but we have received even more authentic inforrna- eion about it from our store and feed bills, from the canty stock of pro- Satoes etc. in our cellar bins, and From the empty echoes of the tenant house whose one-tme occupant has now gone to town to earn more money per month,-and pay out more per day!
 We are facing this crisis, just about as we have faced some others in the past, by Tapping about in front of 1t. shouting and screaming out directions or suggestions or advice or exhorta- .ion to everybody else, pumping into each other and tumbling over each other in our aimless divagations, each man with his own pet theory or whim- Sy which he is preaching at the top sf his voice to seething crowd, ey- cry other individual member of which Is aLIGnO1nB thereto nOI HI tAC AC<AStp but busy at the same task of laying down a different law from ten thous- and, other stumps or fence corners.
 Instead of approaching it deliber- ately, mastsrfuily, in an orderly and but talk an awful lot about what we are going to door induce others to do.
 hal hi.aRaelmH nA a way through, in the course of time, just as we did in the civil war, when we finally won out, after expending in lives and treasure more than twice the waste which we might have saved had government been efficient and the people behind the government inteili- gently awake to the situation.
 But just now. while the national executive and some organizations are really doing such things as lie imned- lately before them and within their competence, the rest of us, including our anna zing congress and our even more amazing volunteer associations of eleven thousand different names are initiating a hen fight more close iy than a nation at actual war with the greatest military power the world has ever seen.
 The air is full of sabhIe and feath- CTS, and the executive aim, which would really be swinging at some
 
 Ing 1t by the placid ciaqnishness of a congress whose prevalent idea of statesmanship is a reverberant mouth. operated by set of leather lungs, cunning. and voicing the local preju- dices of the home deestrict" rather than the needs of the whole broad land.
 To eompiieate this already unpieas- ant enough situation, come the leaders and representatives of the 'levcn } thousand different and differing com each with it's own way of getting somebody else to meet the crisis.
 All full as ticks of talSee- talkee- ness. and all chasing each other round the hen-yard. vociferating frantic ad- Jurations to the rest to get out of the way and do something.
 There ia an apparent hysteria in the air, especially among certain of our city friends, who are able to see the danger of a food crisis and who sin cerely want to prevent 1t from reaii- zation, if possible.
 I don't mean that they are panicky, yet, but they are more or less hys- terical. Perhaps they see the real danger more vividly than others I don't want to be unjust to them. They are certainly sincere and most of them are not only unselfsh but are self f-sac- rif1cingly patriotic in their devotion of their own time and strength and means to the objects which attract them.
 Nevertheless working not in unity but often at cross purposes; working not in full comprehension of produc- ing conditions but often in sorry mis- understanding and always in techi- cal ignorance of them, they are filling the air with proposals and suggestions and counter propositions the result of which tends to confusion rather than to efficiency.
 As usual in such cases, they, while meaning to be wholly fair and just to the farmer, and while honest and eager in their glowing zeal to aid him, if so be they may, in his seasonal warfare against nature for the feed ing of the world and it's armies-as usual. they are mistaking an effect for the cause, and are trying to cure disease by plastering over one of it's symptoms
 They are not a bit like the ancient Pharieees who laid heavy burdens on others which they themselves made no ettempt to lift. Far from it; they are honestly eager to aid in lifting the burden, so eager that they too often fail to make intelligent note of where the burden really lies and how it's weight can be more equitably distri- buted.
 They are all around the edges of the problem. ,%