The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1918-04-09
THE FARMERS FOR LIBERTY.

ready made llDeral SuDScrlpIIoIS W
the Third Liberty Loan, declaring
that they feel it their duty to in
vest a part of the good money they
have made in Liberty Bonds.
DR.. John E. White, the distin-
guished pastor of the First Baptist
Church of Anderson, and president
of Anderson College, has been so
moved by the patriotic statements
of the Anderson County farmers
that he has addressed the following
letter to James f. Shumate, county
chairman for the Third Liberty
Loan-and the letter ought to be
read and taken to heart by every
South C%arolinian:
"I have been much impressed by
the letters you have published from
well-known farmers of Anderson
county offering subscriptions in
large sums for Liberty Bonds, and
expressing their hearts along with
#, If these letters could be drop
ped among the country folk OF Ger
many, their eyes would be opened
to the hopeless tragedy on which
their mad kaiser is leading them, for
J it would show them the bottom splr'
# of America-the spirit OF the
! American farmer-which pledges
. the resistless resources of the might
! lest democracy on earth to the last
dollar and to the defeat of Germany
! eff I could enjoy in the good old
fashioned way a close Christian fel'
lowship around the. Preside of every
farmer in Anderson county, l would
beg fathers and mothers to make
all necessary sacrifices to buy Lib
erty Bonds. These are testing times
You need not tell me that there is
not a difference between folks; a
difference in the stuff they are made
of: a difference in decency before
God: and a difference in the way
neighbors and the general public
size up our characters. A Liberty
Bond, and as many of them as a
man can take, is pretty fair evil
dence of the sort of citizen a man
is: that is to say, and that is what
I want to say from the housetops OF
Anderson county, that the citizen
who SHES off on any excuse from
buying Liberty Bonds fails to show
his colors for his country and hu-
manity; and there is something
deeply wrong about that, and the
wrong is in him.
81 venture also to say that the
father of children who hasn't Liber-
ty Bond in his house to show them
when this war is over will be sorry
TO. it and his children will be sorry.
In a sort of way, that piece of vel
low government paper is a ticket to
the responsibility of the future in
this country, which shows that the
old fellow who has got n tried to
do his 'bit' of the fighting when the
holy interests of humanity were as
saulted, and that he was sorry ne
couldn't go with his boy to France.
eff I had a bale of cotton l would
exchange it for Liberty Bonds in
stead of greenbacks or silver. Why?
Because a Liberty Bond is the best
money now circulating in this coun-
try. You can not only use it as
currency, but all the time it is
drawing interest. But the main rea-
son for ~intesting in Liberty Bonds
is not that. 1t is that it is now the
test of the genuineness of our re-
liability as citizens in a tremendous
emergency, when what our nation
does in the next twenty-four months
will determine the hope or the de-
spair of democracy on this earth.
"Anderson county has the repu-
tation of being the home of a great
! high average class of successful
farmers. With Liberty Bonds in
every one of these homes, Anderson
county would be more than the
home of successful farmers; it