Brownsville herald. [volume] (Brownsville, Tex.) 1910-current, 1917-04-26
LABOR SHORTAGE
ON FARMS MUST
BE CARED FOR
DEAN OF AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
SAYS U. S. MUST MOBILIZE FOR
PRODUCTION OF FOOD.
URGES ORGANIZATION OF MEN DIS
QUALIFIED FOR MILITARY SER
VICE TO WORK ON FARMS.


mobilize for the production of food a. well
as for fighting, declared Eugene Daven-
port, dean of the University of Illinois
College of Agriculture in a statement
which he has issued defining a plan Of the
University to organize a vi-military SER
vice TO be composed of men disqualified
for military service at the front and of
boys. to work on farms rented by the gov
eminent.
To show the necessity for enlistment in
this service, Dean Davenport asserted that
there is not now enough labor left upon
the land TO produce what America should
consume and that unless this farm labor
is increased the food supply will drop to
a level that may esaily prove disastrous.
In his statement, Dean Davenport said :
For generations food has been 50
abundant that it has often been actually
cheaper TO waste than 10 save. But con-
ditions have suddenly changed-over night
as it were-and we having food riots not
only in hungry Europe, not only in con-
gested New York, but in Chicago, the very
heart of the greatest food producing re-
gion in the world. Those riots are attrib-
uted to high prices, but high prices mean
something. They do not come Of them
selves nor when there is an. abundance
of food. Therefore, when the police are
called 10 put down the riots, il is well that
statesmen and those in authority inquire
into the causes, particularly now as we
enter the greatest struggle in nj history.
"Peoplc do not generally know that n
real shortage of food exists. They do not
know that the last two years nave been
lean years upon the land, and hat a mat
tiers stand today. unless the coming season
should be extremely exceptional, a serious
situation would confront ~. When the
food supply of Europe was cut down by
war, thcy--the allies at ieast-could look
to Importation, but no such prospect i
held out 10 America. We are at the end Of
the line and if we fail that ends il.
"People generally do not realize the ex-
tent to which labor has ben deserving the
land for the last half dozen years and
erecting conditions of employment that
tend strongly TO cut off the food supply,
for the farmer cannot operate his farm on
the eight hour plan nor according 10 union
rules. BY the use of large and still larger
machinery, the farmer has done the best
he could to make good the loss. lie has
worked his boys early and hate and still
he cannot work his acres for high Yields.
some lands are being abandoned and turn
ed into cheap pasturage. The writer has
seen crops pIowed under. while he knows
of harvest ungathercd because labor could
not be had for the gathering. No wonder
the farmer works twelve to sixteen hours
a day, and no wonder a considerable num-
Der are forced back into the elf-sufficing
system with no hope of working the land
to the best advantage.
Gas we 90 into the greatest war of all
time, and a our mind is on enlistment for
service at the front, let every American
citizen understand-and realize what il
means if he can-that there is not now
enough labor left upon the land TO produce
what VIC ourselves should consume. What
then Of Western Europe whose fields -
devastated Shall we then be driven to
Importation! Very well, from whom shall
we importl and what! Argentina has al
ready placed an embargo upon wheat. The
Canadian yield must decline, for many a
man that ran a tractor on the plains of
Alberta and Saskatchewan two years ago
il now but a bundle of bones on the pat
tlefields Of France.
"ShalI we then limit the food supply of
The people? How then can we expect to
win, for energy and power come only from
food. A hungry people never has been and
never can be a victorious people, besides il