The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1918-08-13
THE ALLIED AMERICAN ASSOCI-
ATOMS STATES VIEWS

Steps have been taken to check
the flood of population pouring into
the cities from the farms at the time
when the wars greatest need is to
increase the acreage producing farm
crops, an association having been
formed, with governors of many
States on the Advisory Board, to pre-
sent farm opportunities in a novel
and sweeping way.
The announcement that the Allied
American Association, with head
quarters in Chicago, has completed
the enlisting of over thousand
daily newspapers and over a thous-
and motion picture theatres in the
task of arousing communities to take
up locally and vigorously as Liberty
Bond campaigns, efforts to increasing
food production, is another victory
won at the same time that Pershing's
armies and the French drove the
Germans drive backward in smash
ing defeat.
THE rush to the cities has become
an ominous flood when already the
urban population of the United States
has increased to IS per cent. of the
total instead of the 80 per cent. in
1880, the "A per cent in 1890, and,
to go back to early days, to the 10
per cent. of Colonial days." said Pres
ident Ward D. Williams, of the Alli-
ed American Association. The
trouble is that people do not realize
that farm life to-day can be alto
gether different to farm life ten or
twenty years ago, to say nothing of
primitive times. When we have pro-
duced a motion picture epic which
the Committee on Public Information
will release it will be possible for
city people to visualize what they
can have and how they can live on a
farm. By our distribution of that
and other pictures and the publicity
which has been agreed to by our
newspaper membership, check will
be given the rush to the cities in
mistaken search for better living and
greater opportunities. There will be
dozens of other films which the en-
listed newspapers will announce to
their communities and which will be
used to make the feature of public
and patriotic occasions.
The great war problem of labor
is to create an incentive to greater
efforts and this can be done, we know
from experience, by means of motion
pictures provided there is co-opera-
ton by the daily newspapers in get
ting great audiences to see the pict-
ures and at the same time hear the
story told of the need for more acre
age in crop and more crop per acre.
What we need is public co-opera-
ton with the work which already has
been done quietly in getting our
great regiment of newspapers, and
our regiment of movie theatres en-
listed for the more food drive.
Let us not forget that the signs
with which Uncle Sam has plastered
public buildings from the Atlantic
to the Pacific Food Will Win the
War will have significance after the
victorious conclusion of the war,
whenever that may come. The world
is short of foodstuffs and it is to the
United States and Canada that the
hungry and starving nations must
continue to look for years and years
High prices of all that the farm pro-
duce will continue and are right now
filling the banks with farmers
money. Farmers are prospecting as
never before and their prosperity is
the foundation stone of our national
future in commerce and industry.
1.-THE great campaign to show the
opportunities of States in the East,
West, North and South, to the mill
lions of people who will be reached
by the Allied American Associations
regiments of enlisted institutions will
serve as means by which to arouse,
as they need to be aroused, the COM
munities in the United States to gen.
uine, wartime zeal in campaigning
for more food as they have campaign
ed for Liberty Bonds. Communities
have been leaving the crop problem
too much to Uncle Sam.
LET it not be forgotten that the
newspapers of America are trying to
make their public realize that the
future of those communities, for
growth or decline, depends upon