The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1918-01-05
OUR PROBLEM.
BY DR.. Ray Lyman Wilbur, President
Stanford University.

II is surprising how few of our Ameri
cans have grasped the significance of tn,
| fact that in Australia, a country tina
has contributed materially TO this war
there is, as the result of at least tw,
harvests, piled up very large quantity
of cheap and practically government
owned wheat, much of it in the open air
where it cannot be adequately protected
from various kinds OF damage. Yet W,
have had an unprecedented call upon oul
wheat supply in this country and il
Canada, resulting in great increase in
prices, due to the fact that the Euro
pean nations absolutely required wheat
for the sustenance of their people. The
answer to this apparent anomaly is that
it takes three times as long for ship
to go to Australia for food as it does to
90 to Canada or the United States. and
the world has not the shipping available
for the long hauls because of the subma-
rine menace and the eXigencies of war.
Oil and other food stocks are also piled
upon the Asiatic and African coasts
awaiting shipment, while we are using
get at these stores.
The most pressing problem before the
Ul.ited States and the nations engaged
with it in the war against the Hohenzol
lern dynasty, is to supply food and ships
and thus defeat the German submarine
attack upon the left flank of the west
ern front.
The western front simply must be
maintained and must eventually be
pushed forward by Americans, or there
will be no final conclusion TO the great
aiany of our people do not seem to
realize that we have entered into the
great struggle of autocraey versus de-
and that President Wilson has
said that we cannot conclude peace
with any but a constituted representa-
tive of the German people. That means
that we must defeat, and absolutely de-
feat. the most powerful war lord in all
who has at his command the
most wonderful war machine that has
ever been devised. We cannot defeat him
With a pounding of drums or waving of
lags or with any form of national by
,teria. We can only do it by concerted
lction in food saving, shipbuilding, mu |
litions making, and soldier training. The |
ooner we settle down to this terrible |
ask the sooner it will be over. Every |
lay that we delay in our grasp of our re-
means the loss OF SO many |
hundred or so many thousand of our
wn boys, who will have TO 90 TO the /
renehes for that much longer period of
ime If we can resolutely and success
uly meet this problem in the next IL
1onths, it is probable that we can by
hat time see what its conclusion is
kelly to be.
At the present time no man can say
hat will be the outcome. Germany now
couples the position OF a victor. We
are not let her remain So Every ounce
energy that we can put into the fight
e must use, whether it be in the pro
nction of food, in the suppression of
erman propaganda, in the building Of
rships, in sustaining our embargo or in
irrying on our productive forms of in
lstrial and agricultural life in the best
ay possible. Until we begin as a people
individually take a personal interest
every phase of this war, and until the
ost interesting thing to every Ameri-
n when he rises in the morning is what
lppened on the western front the day
fore, we are not only in danger, but i'll
i'm and serious danger, that autocratic
rms of government will replace those
which we now take such pride and
tisfaetion.