The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1918-06-28
WHAT KANSAS DID.
Nearly a Hundred-Thousand Town
Men I'm Harvest Fields.

Nearly ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IOWn
Men I'm Harvest Fields.
Something like 100000 men,,
maybe few thousand less-aIe out
IN the Kansas wheat fields, or will
be before June and July have passed,
harvesting this years war winning
crop.
Where does this army of harvest
hands come from? Well, where
does Pershing's army of lighters
come from?-from stores and banks
and farms and offices and shops,
from every trade, every profession,
every walk of American life. Just
so in Kansas. The army of harvest
ers comes from the villages and
towns and cities-men of every cal
ling, men of every kind, who left
their town affairs for few weeks
and flocked to farms for precisely
the same reasons that their relatives
and friends came to the colors-to
play part in winning the war.
Kansas is using as much outside
farm labor as could be secured, OF
course, but that supply is sufficient
to fill only small part of the need
Kansas is doing what every State
has done or must do-harvest its
own crop with it's own labor, for the
most part.
Kansas towns have "shut up
Oh To r. mi, he
period of the harvest. Men from
towns and cities have left their
comfy jobs and professions and are
putting in few weeks of the tough
est work they ever tackled doing
it for sheer patriotism, although, of
course, they earn harvest-hand
wages-doing It to save food crop,
the saving of which is as necessary
as the holding of a sector on the
firing line.
1t is an inspiring picture of
patriotism. First the young man.
hood of free people freely march
ing away to fight for the worlds
freedom; now the home remaining
manhood leaving desk and shop and
turning to the harvest fields, in
order that the fighters, and the civil
ian sustaining the fighters, may be
fed and the fight continue to vic
torius end.
1t really means that the Allies
have won another great battle-that
is the true appraisal of this scene in
Kansas, where men from every town
and city went into physical training
classes for a few weeks hardening,
and then swept across the grain
fields, toiling determinedly-no be-
cause of compulsion, not because of
wage inducements, not because of
anything under the shining sun ex-
cept that they are Americans, and
therefore are willing and eager to
work until they drop if that will
help crush the Hun.
The town women of Kansas volun-
teered for the harvest army, and so
did the boys. And they are work
ing-the women pealing potatoes
S1hu washing ulSu0S ana COOKING
food for the harvesters; the boys
fitting in at every sort OF odd job for
which they are sufficiently strong or
skillful-the men thus being free to
devote their entire energy to the
actual harvest.
For months the United States De-
partment of Agriculture has advo-
Gated for every community and
county the policy which Kansas has
given statewide application. The
people of Nebraska, Minnesota,
North and South Dakota plan SINH
lar concert of action as the harvest
swings northward. In every State
and for every harvest, or crop emer-
gency, this is the safe and certain
and patriotic solution of the farm
labor problem-the utilization of
town volunteers to the extent that
farm-labor needs may require.
-O-