The Republican journal., 1918-03-21
the war, THE FARM
and THE FARMER
BY Herbert Quick

Since the dawn Oh history tn0 IArm.
or has been the man who suffers
most from war. All that he poss-
esses lies out Of doors in plain sight,
and is spoil of war-his house.. his
grain, his livestock. But the farmer
everywhere is a warrior when war
is the only thing which will make
and keep him free-either a warrior
or serf. He is sometimes the last
to heat up but he stays hot, and IN
y long fight he is always found sturd-
ilv carving the battle across No
Mans Land to the foe, in the last
grim struggle.
This war was at first hard to I'M
derstand. No armed foe invaded the
United States. The night skies Were
not Redeemed by the burning byres
and farmsteads Of America. No raid
ing PARTIES harried us of our cattle OF
horses. No sabre-rattlers insulted
orr women. We did not then know
that monster had arisen with
thousand arms who could reach acr IS
the seas and take from rs three
fourths of everything we grew with
out our being aware of it, and who
could follow up his robbery with in
vasion, subjugation and national
death.
What the Imperial German govern
ment Offer : 1 the farmers of Amer
lea in it's ruthless submarine warfare
was not the loss OF profits, but
slavery to the saber-rattlers OF Pots
dam. by numbering the people who
take our products to market. By
all the laws of civilized warfare COM
merce under neutral flag was free
from any hindrance except the legal
Interference justified by war; but
the Germans not only stopped mer-
chant vessels, they sunk them with
out warning and without trace.
Having the right, according to the
laws of war, to take the sea with
his fleet and fight the thing out gun
to gun, but being afraid to do so for
fear he might lose his fleet, or I'M
able to\stop the selling of our pro-
ducts to his enemies or to open his
own ports to us by fair means, ne
declared his intention to do it by
the foulest methods ever resorted to
in war.
To have submitted would have cost
us dear in prosperity; but that would
have been the least Of our loss. BY
50 doing we should have accepted
DEGRADATION. We should have ac-
cepted, at the behest Of half crazed
autocrat in Europe, a lower standard
of living in America. We should
have basely yielded up our birthright
as Americans. Peace at such price
would not he peace, but only pre-
paration for future revolt against
subiugation Better any sort of war,
better war forever than that!
This, then, is the war In which
we are fighting. Whenever the time
comes Cor new sacrifices, let us re-
member that we fight not only for
the liberty of the Belgians, the
French, the ServiaAs, the Rus
slams, the British, the Montenegrlns,
the Roumanians, the Italians, but OF
all nations, even of the German peo-
ple themselves: and most of all, for
our own iberties-for our freedom
today! There is loss and sacrifice
in the war: but there would have
been far more in accepting the Ger
man terms. We should have lost
more in money than we shall spend
in the war; and something far more
precious than money-our souls!
This is the crucial year of the war.
Our soldiers-hundreds Of thousands
of them-are in the trenches, and a
million more are ready to go! Inc
whole burden of carrying on our own
mart in the war, and OF aiding our
sister nations in arms, rests on the
United States Treasury. therefore
every cent we can raise and scrape
together belongs to the treasury
that our boys may come back to us
victorious. We can whip the Ger
mans. not with the money In our
rockets or our bank accounts, but
with what we put into the Treasury
l. subscriptions to Liberty Bonds!
Never since the Turks threatened
to overwhelm Europe, perhaps not
even then. was the world in such
danger as now. Germany is not yet
defeated. We must defeat her this
year. We must withhold nothing
from the support Of the war. we
must give our sons. We must bring
forth food in abundance multiplying
our labor to that end. We must give
into the Treasury Of the United
States, in subscriptions to Liberty
Bonds, every cent we can spare.
This summer the support OF the
war is up to the farmers; and Uncle
Sam has never called upon the farm
ora in vain.