The Cordova daily times., 1919-03-10
H0LIDAYF0R
 PLANTING OF
 FIRSTCARDEN

CHICAGO, March S.-A national holiday in honor of the soldiers of the soil was advocated here today by Charles Lathrop Pack, president o1 the national war garden commission of Washington in an address before the School Garden Association of America, which it meeting in connec- tion with the national superintendents convention.
 What more fitting" said MT. Pack' than to have a day set aside in the spring on which all of us will get out of doors and into the sunshine for the first garden planting of the year? On the last Sunday in March we will have an extra hour of daylight, which will mean millions of dollars in increased home food production. Think what it would mean if on the first Wednes- day in April every year the millions of your school garden army marched out into the furrows of freedom in the war for food?
 "The war for food is always with us. Machine gun and hand grenade we have seen our heroes set up the frontiers of freedom. How are those frontiers to be maintained? Only by working the furrows of freedom. The war for food involves many things. We hear much of discomfort and or this theory and that theory but the human race must have food and not theory. It is often much harder to hold a position gained in battle than to capture that position. The army and the navy of the greatest country in the world have answered the call made upon them What of the call Of unrest that follows war?
 'In the school garden army we have the making of the finest community spirit-the spirit of one flag and one language, the world has ever seen. What are we going to do with 1t? In the garden we have the making of the better and healthier citizen-the crea- tion of longing for a bit of land for the individual-the creation of a de- sire for the home. With the spirit implanted in those who will come after us we will have set this nation upon rock that none can shake the great American home.
 "A nation is no stronger than it's agricultural wealth. We see proof Of this in the glorious fighting of the poilu who made good when they said they shall not pass The poilu came from the land and it was for that land that he fought. We see proof of this again when the British Tommy ans vered the call of Marshal Haig who said we stand with our backs to the wall We see proof of this again when our own marines wont into Chateau Thierry and on into Belleau Wood and but a handful returned. The marine was fighting for that place he called home. He was fighting to stop the bombing Zeppeli1s and the marauding wolves hidden i1 the sea. On the other hand look at Russia. The answer to the present condition is that the peasant knows nothing Of land which he can call his home.
 "The garden does other things and ore of the most important of these is that the garden paths lead directly to the bank windows and the Christmas saving clubs. The gardener treads those paths every week. The bank knows him for good customer and that means a good citizen, one who is not racing off after red fiagc and soap box oratory.
 "We are in the midst of much dis cuss;on as to proper memorials TOT the men who gave their lives in order that autocracy might be done away with forever. What more fitting than the memorial gardens? What more fitting memorial to these men who gave their lives than that a better c1tl- zenship, better home, better coun- try be born of the wreck strewn bat tlefields on which they died? That is the sort of a monument to erect to them-a monument m which thelr which their children Shall be the cornerstone. By all means let us mark this continued building fer better citizenship with national holiday as a sign to the world that the frontiers of freedom will be maintained.
 nryrrNI,c NICCNI CVIYnDY