Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1918-06-27
KANSAS HARVEST HANDS
ENTER WHEAT FIELDS

Something like 100000 men, may
tc few thousand more, maybe few
thousand less, are out in the Kan.
gas wheat fields, or will lie before
June and July have passed, harvest
ing this years war-winning crop.
Where does this army of harvest
bands come from? Well, where does
Pershing's army of fighters come
from? From the 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 harvesters
comes from the villages and towns
and cities, men of every calling, men
of every kind, who left their town
affairs for a few weeks and flocked
to farms for precisely the same rea-
sons that their relatives and friends
came to the colors-to play a part in
Winning JHe war
Kansas is using as much outside
farm labor as could be secured, OF
course, but that supply is sufficient
20 fill only a small part of the need.
Kansas is doing what every state
has done or must do-harvest its
own crop with its own labor, for the
most part.
Kansas towns have "shut up shop"
30 to speak, during the heavy period
Of the harvest. Men from towns and
cities have left their comfy jobs and
professions and are putting in few
weeks of the toughest work they ever
tackled, doing it for sheer patrio-
tism, although, of course, they earn
harvest-hand wages, doing it to save
a food crops, the saving of which
is as necessary as the holding of
sector on the fighting line.
1t is an inspiring picture of patrio-
tism. First the young manhood Of
free people freely marching away
70 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 civilian sustain
ing the fighters, may be fed and the
fight continue to a victorious end.
1t really means that the allies have
won another great battle, that is the
true appraisal of this scene in Kan
sas where men from every town and
city went into physical training class
es for few weeks hardening. an1
then swept across the grain fields,
toiling determinedly, not because Of
cCmpulsion, not because of wage in
ducements, not because of anything
under the shining sun except 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 81
did the boys. And they are working
the women peeling potatoes and
washing dishes and cooking food for
the harvesters; the boys fitting in a.
every sort of odd jobs for which they
are sufficiently strong or skelled-
the men thus being free to devote
their entire energy to the actual har
vest.
For months the United States de-
partment of agriculture has advocat-
ed for every community and county
the policy which Kansas has given
statewide application. The people of
Nebraska, Minnesota and South Da-
kota plan similar concert of action as
the harvest swings northward.
In every state and for every har-
vest or crop emergency this is the
safe and certain and patriotic solu-
tion of the farm labor problem
the utilization of town volunteers to
the extent that farm labor needs may
require.