Omaha daily bee., 1917-05-24
vRO0MAN TELLS
What j. s. MUST
Do TO Win WAR
Assistant Secretary Of Agri-
culture Fires the Opening
Gun at Nebraska's Con-
Servation Meeting.

The women of the kitchens of
America waste $700,000000 worth of
food products in year, according to
expert statisticians; and the farmers
of the land allow 81 100000 worth
of manure togo to waste annually"
said Carl S. Vrooman, assistant sec
rotary of agriculture, in his address
at the opening of the Nebraska Food
Conservation conference at the
Omaha Auditorium last night.
Chancellor Samuel Avery of the
University OF Nebraska presided.
Governor Neville stated the purpose
of the conference, and declared he
hoped definite committees would be
appointed to furnish ready sources
of information at all times for the
State Defense Council. -
Mayor Dahlman welcomed the
delegates to Omaha and announced
that the purpose of the conference
is to develop the brain, energy and
thought of the people OF Nebraska
to help win the great war in the
cause OF world democracy.
Right to Regulate Prices.
George COPELAND, member Of the
executive committee of the State
Council for Defense, declared it is
officially just and economically
proven proper to regulate the prices
of food products, and urged that, the
federal government do this as soon
as possible to get price control out
& t,,,Is r,f ,,1a,,rttla mud
spectators. w. J. Taylor of Merna,
Neb., farmer, member OF the legis-
lature and grain man, held the high
price OF foods to be the natural re-
suit of the movement from the farms
to the cities and declared the high
price of foods is not the fault Of
anything the farmer has done.
More than $500 people, a majority
of them delegates to the conference,
heard the speeches. Secretary Vroo-
man was held for the last number on
the program. Though it was after 10
o'clock when he began, the crowd sat
motionless throughout the address of
this government official, who brought
a serious, straightforward message
from Washington.
When he had discussed waste, the
lessons England and France have
learned, the need for soldiers and
money to buy the $7,000,OO0,00O lib!
erty" loan bonds, he concluded by
saying:
BE Man."
"If you haven't done anything yet;
if you haven't enlisted, or bought a
bond, or done anything else for the
cause, then go home tonight, throw
yourself on your knees and pray Az
mighty God to give you strength to
get up in the morning and be man."
Earlier in his talk he reviewed the
troubles of the allies and the lessons
they learned of the need of food, the
need of quantities of ammunition, the
need of training fighting men, and the
gradual readjustment necessary III
dustrially for two years to make Eng
land an effective fighting machine.
"And then" he said, when it had
done all this, she came face to face
with the great world-old, primeval
problem, the problem of mankind to
iced itself. Thus this became food
war, with famine fighting on every
battle front. We hardly realize yet
what this war means to us.
Slowly, but surely, we are going to
get the sleep rubbed out of our eyes
and begin to see the situation as it is.
When they begin to send our boys
back in little pine boxes We will just
begin to awaken.
Must Realize Situation.
when we find it necessary to put
100000 more men into the trenches,
as we will if Russia should go to
pieces, then we will begin to realize
the seriousness of the situation.
"We cannot send an army of any
consequence over there in less than
nine months. We cannot get real
big army equipped and trained in less
than a year. We are going to send
one division, to be sure, for moral eff
feet, but there it will end.
But when we decided to make the
$7,000,000,000 loan, we served notice
on mankind that we had underwritten