Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1918-10-28

was discovered in January that the
corn that was saved would not grow,
or that at least a very large part of it
would not, the governor instituted a
campaign in which every farmer was
%canvassed to find out the amount of
seed corn he had, whether it had been
tested, the number Of acres he expected
to plant and the amount Of old corn
he had on hand. Out of the informa-
ton so gathered practically all of the
old corn was Communicated and a price
fixed on seed corn which saved hun
dredS of thousands of dollars to the
farmers, the result being that practi-
ca1ly every farmer planted tested corn,
and the stand was better this year than
it had been for many years. This cam
paign entailed a large amount of work
but 1.-THE results are so gratifying that
credit should be assigned to the per-
son who is responsible for it. which in
this case is the governor. Surely TO
thing that could have been done at that
time could have resulted in greater good
to the state and to the nation than tNe-
sight and Judgment such as was used in
the seed corn campaign.
Governor Harding has devoted prac-
tically all Of his time to the various
war activities has devoted a large
amount of time to organizing the var
ious counties, and has kept in close
touch with the organizations.
The governor has always found time
to interest himself in the welfare of
the Iowa boys wherever they may be;
whenever complaint has come as to the
treatment they e receiving in any
camp or cantonement, he has taken the
matter up with the war department,
and seen to it that they We're given pro-
per care and attention. He has con-
stantly been on the lookout to assist
Iowa boys in securing the places that
they were qualified to fill in the army
~
and to get promotions whenever merit
ed; in this respect he has been. helpful
to literally thousands of boys. The gov
ernor adopted this policy when war
was declared That he would help any
Iowa citizen who was qualified to get
into the service, would help him to get
promotion, but would not use his in
fluence to keep anybody out of service.
This rule has been followed to the let
ter.
He has interested himself in seeing to
it that the business interests Of the
state were taken care of; through his
influence Iowa was the first state to
have a factory representative in Wash
ington. He has assisted the manufac-
turers in every way possible to secure
their legitimate share Of war contracts.
If Iowa has not secured it's fair share
it is no fault Of the governor, for he
has used every power and argument
possible to see that Iowa was treated
as other states. Just recently he made
a trip to Washington, after calling a
statewide conference of all of the in
terests of the state, to protest against
shipping laborers out Of Iowa. The re-
suit of this trip has been to stop the
exporting of labOrers and to get war
contracts for the manufacturers, and
save the necessary labor to carry on
farm work.
This is a running survey of some of
the war activities Of the state, and but
a hint of the part the governor has had
in all of them. He has been out max
ing speeches at least three days a week,
and sometimes seven days a week, max
ing from seven to eight a day. He has
not compromised with slackers or pro-
Germans, but from the very beginning
has taken the position that there are
only two places where citizens can be
classed, either as patriots or traitors.
llull III lilsB 81 vi SiSht Va
the war he was severely criticised by
many people, they arguing that he was
too vigorous: but the vigOr with which
he presented the resulted in the
splendid organization which the state
has, and this has given expression in
Iowa going over the top in every call
that has been made upon her, either for
men or money.
A VAIN OLD MAN.
|. Denison Bulletin (DemOcrat) : James
Pierce of the Iowa Homestead is still
cracking away at anybody's head. 1T
is a pitiable spectacle this-an old man
with but about ten years to live, seek