Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1918-04-05
THE WAR, THE FARM, AND THE FARMER
BY Herbert Quick, Member Federal Farm Loan Board

murder as thing against which we
could not defend ourselves.
We should have allowed this new
horror to become part of all future
wars, and have been responsible for
it's incorporation into international
law.
We should have proved that be-
cause the fire which burns up our
farms usefulness is beyond the hori-
zon, we will submit to the kindling
of it.
We might have accepted the 70
cents or less for wheat, the cents
for cotton, and the like in case of
misfortune, but we could not do it
merely because we were commanded
to do it.
BY so doing we should have ac-
cepted degradation. We should have
accepted at the behest of a half
crazed autocrat in Europe a lower
standard of living in America. We
should have given up at his COM
mand the hope for our children's ed
ucation. the payment of the mort
gage, the better school, the new
church, that whole scheme of better
rural life which is based on freedom
to produce and freedom to market
what we produce. We should have
begun, after winning our freedom in
our own revolution, after establish
ing a union on the foundation of lib
erty in the blood and tears of our
war between the states, after wrest-
jng these states from the wilderness,
after gaining religious freedom, and
freedom of speech and of the press
after all these victories won by a
people gathered from every nation of
Europe in the name of freedom, we
should have begun to knuckle under
to autocracy. We should have base
ly yielded up our birthright as Amer
leans.
Such a thought is intolerable,
when we come to understand it.
Peace at such a price would not be
peace, but only a preparation for a
future revolt against subjugation.
Better any sort of war, better war
forever than that. Let us remember
little Holland, which fought the great
empire Of Spain for 80 years and
finally won her liberty.
Fight for Liberty.
This, then, is the war in which we
are fighting. Whenever the time
comes for new sacrifices, let us re-
member that we fight for liberty. Not
only for the liberty of the Belgians,
, the French, the Serbs, the Russians,
the British, the Montenegrins, the
Rumanians, the Italians, but of all
nations, even for the German people
themselves. and most of all for our
own liberties. Not for our own lib
critics tomorrow, or next year, or 20
years from now, but for our freedom
today. Not for the right to live in
the future, but for the right to make
living this year.
German oppression had begun to
pinch us before we entered the war.
If we had not declared war, but had
accepted the conditions of life Or
dered for us by the kaiser, we should
today be poverty-stricken people,
our factories shut down, our work
men unemployed, our people starv-
ing, our farmers ruined by the pow
erty of those for whose consumption
we grew our crops. There is loss and
sacrifice in the war; but there would
have been far more of loss and sac
rifice in accepting the German terms.
We should have lost more in money
than we have spent in the war, but
we should have lost something far
more precious. We should have lost
our souls.
The farmers of this country could
carry the war to a victorious conclu.
sion even if all the rest Of the nation
should quit. The rest will not quit
but we could win 1t without them II
we had to do it.
The farmers of the United States
can whip Germany.
We can whip them with guns.
We can whip them with our prod
ucts.
We can whip them with our money
Every farmer in the United States
must remember that the war has 6
first mortgage on every cent he has
The last spare cent in the pockets o.
every farmer in America should b.
devoted to the war.
The kaiser began foreclosing hi!
mortgage on our farms when he de
clared ruthless submarine warfare
and the war is our answer to his bill
of foreclosure.
Our Contributions.
Our contribution is, first our son!