The Colville examiner. [volume] (Colville, Wash.) 1907-1948, 1917-05-12
THE PRESIDENT
APPEALS TO
EVERYBODY

grim ana 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 l hope you will permit me to ad-
dress 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 great army,
but these are the simplest parts of the
great task to which we have addressed
ourselves There is not single sell
fish element, SO far as l can see. in
the cause we are fighting 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 successfully We must de-
vote 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 enter
prise itself. We must realize to the
full how great the task is and how
many things, now many kinds and ele-
ments of capacity and service and self
Sacrlnce, II involves.
These, then, are the things we must
do and do well, besides fighting-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 large
part of the nations with whom we have
now made common cause, in whose sup
port and by whose sides we shall be
fighting.
We must supply ships by the hum
dreds out of our shipyards to carry to
the other side of the sea, submarines
or no submarines, what will every day
be needed there. and abundant ma
terials 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 gal
liant 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 material;
coal to keep the fires going in ships al
sea and in the furnaces of hundreds
of factories across the sea; steel out
of which to make arms and ammuni-
tion 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 go
ing to pieces; mules, horses, cattle for
labor and for military service; every
thing with which the people of Eng
land and France and Italy and Russia
have usually supplied themselves but
can not now afford the men, the ma
terials. 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 he made more prolific
and more efficient than ever and that
they must be more economically man
aged and better adapted to the partc-
ular requirements of our task than
they have been; and what l 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 or in the trenches. The in
uuSlTldl lOICtS VI tHe country men anu
women alike. will be a great national,
a great international, service army--a
notable and honored host engaged in
the service of the nation and the world,
the efficient friends and saviors of free
men everywhere. Thousands, nay,
hundreds of thousands, of men other
wise liable to military service will of
right and of necessity be excused from
that service and assigned to the fun
damental, sustaining work of the fields
and factories and mines and they will
be as much part Of the great patriotic
forces of the nation as the men under
fire.
l take the liberty, therefore. of ad-
dressing this word to the farmers of
the country and to all who work on the
farms: The supreme need Of our own
nation and of the nations with which
we are cooperating is an abundance of
supplies, and especially of foodstuffs.
The Importance of an adequate food
supply, especially for the present 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
VI icdh w" IL anu IHc "oilu . lOOh
reserves are low. Not only during the
present emergency but for some time
after peace shall have come both our
own pople 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. May
the nation not count upon them to omit
no step that will increase the prOduc-
tion of their land or that will bring
about the most effectual cooperation
In the sale and distribution of their
products? The time Is short 1t Is
of the most imperative Importance that
everything possible be done and done
Immediately to make sure OF large
harvests. I call upon young men and
old alike and upon the ablebodied boys
of the land to accept and act upon this
duty--to turn in hosts to the farms and
make certain that no pains and no
labor is lacking in this great matter.
l particularly appeal to the farmers
of the south to plant abundant food
stuffs as we'll as cotton. They can
show their patriotism in no better or
more convincing way than by resisting
the great temptation of the present
price of cotton and helping. helping
upon a great scale. to feed the nation