Atlanta semi-weekly journal., 1918-02-05


has come The achievements of this year
the one side or the other must determine the
issue. 1t has turned out that the forces that
fight for freedom, the freedom of men all
over the world as we'll as our own, depend
upon i'm extraordinary and unexpected
degree for sustenance. for the supply of ma
ter:als by which to live and to fight.
We are fighting as truly for the liberty
and self government of the United States as
If the of own revolution had to be
fought again; and every in every
business i'm the United States must know by
this time that his whole future fortune lies
in the balance. We must win. therefore; and
shall win
There are warning and inspiration alike in
these stirring words from President Wilson's mes
sage to the farmers of the country, a message in
which he speaks less earnestly to men and
women all stations and pursuits than to tillers
of the soil. Upon the latter, he makes plain,
rests the peculiar responsibility of producing food
but upon the housekeepers of the patton rests the
equally important duty of conserving food; and
upon every American rests the solemn charge of
standing stanch in the crucial days which
upon u.s. and of doing his patriotic utmost to win
the
When the President says that the "culminat
ing crisis has come and that 'the achievements
of this year will determine the ISSUE he is refer
ing, take it to economic and moral more than
influences rather than to actual conclusion.
1t is not improbable that the of the next
eight or ten months the decisive military blow
will be struck; certainly shall have good rea-
to expect it if, now seems likely, million
more American troops, fully equipped and as
sured Of constant increments, are placed at the
battle front But it may be many a day, after
the decisive blow is struck, before its full force,
rolling to the inner Businesses of Prussianism,
brings the victorious end for which fight
ing. The more cautious observers speak still in
terms of years rather than months seasons in
hazarding an opinion to how much longer the
will last
There is a possibility, TO be sure, that internal
trouble in the Central Empires may bring
expectedly early end. On that contingency, how
ever we dare not rest plans give a moments
pause to any activity in any sphere of the wars
prosecution. The only safe and patriotic course
for the individual for the nation, is to proceed
in accordance with the Presidents warning
sci that the time of supreme test is at hand and
that upon the zeal and steadfastness with which
the American people do their duty in the present
and oncoming months, depend a victorious peace
and world worth living in.
The army and the navy will rise to all that is
gloriously expected of them; in their valorous
keeping American honor is forever secure But
theirs after ALL is but the shining point Of the
spear whose shaft is the labor and faith of the
whcle American people. Therefore it is that the
President urges with intense earnestness that
farmers produce all the food they possibly can,
that housewives all the food they possibly
can, that each man and woman and child within
the nations bounds meet every duty that faces
them and seize every chance they find for the i'm
perative and noble labor of winning the