The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1918-04-19
Friday, April 10Th, 1918
THE WAR, THE FARM AND THE
FARMER.

Inc farmer. everywhere loFcS
peace: the American farmer es-
pecially loves peace. But the
farmer everywhere is a warrior
when war is the only thing
which will make and keep him
free-either a warrior or a serf.
He cannot rally to the colors
as quickly as can the jewellers in
the cities, because it takes long,
err to send to the farms than to
the cities the fiery cross of the
call to arms. Many do not hear
the first blast of the triumph,
and others do not at first under
stand it's meaning.
1t is impossible to set the
farmers of the United States on
fire by means of any spark of
rumor; but when the farmers do
ignite, they burn with a slow,
hot fire which nothing can put
our. In a long fight they are
always found sturdy, carrying
the battle across No Mans Land
to the foe. The American farm
er will give all that he has and
all that he is to win this great
war against war.
This war was at first hard to
understand. We did not then
realize that a monster had arisen
with a thousand arms, who could
reach across the seas, and could
take from us three-fourths of
everything we grew without our
being aware of it, and could fol-
low up this robbery with invas-
ion, subjugation, and national
death. We did not at first real
ize this; but finally we saw that
it was so.
If the Imperial German Gov
eminent had made and enforced
an order that no American farm
er should leave his own land,
that he could not haul a load of
grain or drive a head of stock to
town-if, in fact, the Kaiser had
laid an interdict on all inter-
course between farm and farm
and between farm and town, he
would have done only a little
more than he accomplished by
his interdict against American
farmers use of the sea. Look
at the condition of the American
farmer in the latter part of 1914
and the first half of 1915, and
see.
We know farmer who sold
his 1914 crop of $4,000 bushels
of wheat for seventy cents a
bushel. Farmers in the South
sold their cotton for half the
cost of producing it. All this
time those portions of the world
whose ports were open were
ready to pay almost any price
for our products; and wherswe
finally rallied and set once more
in motion the ships of the world,
prosperity returned to the farms
of America.
Why did we draw the sword?
Was it to keep up the price of
wheat and cotton, and to protect
trade only? If someone sho'1ld
order you to remain on the farm,
and not to use the public high
ways, would your resistance be
based only on the fear of loss in
property, the profits from fail
ure to market your crops. the
inconvenience in not being able
to buy your supplies in town?
By no means! You would fight
to the last gasp, not to make
money, but to be free.
What the Imperial German
Government offered the farmers
of America in its ruthless sub
marine warfare was not the loss
of profits, but slavery to the
saber-rattler of Potsdam. He
purposed to make us slaves by
numbering the people who take
our products to market. These
are the murders that stain the
hands of the Kaiser and his ad-
visers and minions. And these
murders were committed in Or
der that we might be ensIaved!
To have submitted would have
cost US dear in prosperity; but
that would have been the least
of our loss. We should have
had to grovel before the German
Government. We should have
had to accept murder as a thing
against which we could not de-
fend ourselves.
We might have accepted the
seventy cents or less for wheat,
the six cents for cotton, but we
could not do it merely because
we were commanded to do it.
By 80 doing we should have ac-
cented DEGRADATION. We should