6: "Speak, Act and Serve Together"
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Message to the American People
April 15, 1917
My Fellow Countrymen:
The entrance of our own beloved country into the grim and terrible war
for democracy and human rights which has shaken the world creates so
many problems of national life and action which call for immediate
consideration and settlement that I hope you will permit me to address
to you a few words of earnest counsel and appeal with regard to them.
We are rapidly putting our navy upon an. effective war footing and are
about to create and equip a great army, but these are the simplest
parts of the great task to which we have addressed ourselves. There is
not a single selfish element, so far as I can see, in the cause we are
fighting for. We are fighting for what we believe and wish to be the
rights of mankind and for the future peace and security of the world.
To do this great thing worthily and successfully we must devote
ourselves to the service without regard to profit or material
advantage and with an energy and intelligence that will rise to the
level of the enterprise itself. We must realize to the full how great
the task is and how many things, how many kinds and elements of
capacity and service and self-sacrifice it involves.
What We Must Do
These, then, are the things we must do, and do well, besides
fighting—the things without which mere fighting would be fruitless:
We must supply abundant food for ourselves and for our armies and our
seamen, not only, but also for a large part of the nations with whom
we have now made common cause, in whose support and by whose sides we
shall be fighting.
We must supply ships by the hundreds out of our shipyards to carry to
the other side of the sea, submarines or no submarines, what will
every day be needed there, and abundant materials out of our fields
and our mines and our factories with which not only to clothe and
equip our own forces on land and sea, but also to clothe and support
our people, for whom the gallant fellows under arms can no longer
work; to help clothe and equip the armies with which we are
co-operating in Europe, and to keep the looms and manufactories there
in raw material; coal to keep the fires going in ships at sea and in
the furnaces of hundreds of factories across the sea; steel out of which
to make arms and ammunition both here and there; rails for worn out
railways back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and rolling-stock to
take the place of those every day going to pieces; mules, horses,
cattle for labor and for military service; everything with which the
people of England and France and Italy and Russia have usually
supplied themselves, but cannot now afford the men, the materials or
the machinery to make.
Greater Efficiency
It is evident to every thinking man that our industries, on the farms,
in the shipyards, in the mines, in the factories, must be made more
prolific and more efficient than ever, and that they must be more
economically managed and better adapted to the particular requirements
of our task than they have been; and what I want to say is that the
men and the women who devote their thought and their energy to these
things will be serving the country and conducting the fight for peace
and freedom just as truly and just as effectively as the men on the
battle-field or in the trenches. The industrial forces of the country,
men and women alike, will be a great national, a great international,
service army—a notable and honored host engaged in the service of the
nation and the world, the efficient friends and saviors of free men
everywhere. Thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands, of men otherwise
liable to military service will of right and of necessity be excused
from that service and assigned to the fundamental sustaining work of
the fields and factories and mines, and they will be as much part of
the great patriotic forces of the nation as the men under fire.
I take the liberty, therefore, of addressing this word to the farmers
of the country and to all who work on the farms: The supreme need of
our own nation and of the nations with which we are co-operating is an
abundance of supplies, and especially of foodstuffs. The importance of
an adequate food-supply, especially for the present year, is
superlative. Without abundant food, alike for the armies and the
peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise upon which we have
embarked will break down and fail. The world's food reserves are low.
Not only during the present emergency, but for some time after peace
shall have come, both our own people and a large proportion of the
people of Europe must rely upon the harvests in America.
The Responsibilty of the Farmers
Upon the farmers of this country, therefore, in large measure rests
the fate of the war and the fate of the nations. May the nation not
count upon them to omit no step that will increase the production of
their land or that will bring about the most effectual co-operation in
the sale and distribution of their products? The time is short. It is
of the most imperative importance that everything possible be done,
and done immediately, to make sure of large harvests. I call upon
young men and old alike and upon the able-bodied boys of the land to
accept and act upon this duty—to turn in hosts to the farms and make
certain that no pains and no labor is lacking in this great matter.
I particularly appeal to the farmers of the South to plant abundant
foodstuffs, as well as cotton. They can show their patriotism in no
better or more convincing way than by resisting the great temptation
of the present price of cotton and helping, helping upon a great
scale, to feed the nation and the peoples everywhere who are fighting
for their liberties and for our own. The variety of their crops will
be the visible measure of their comprehension of their national duty.
The Government of the United States and the Governments of the several
States stand ready to co-operate. They will do everything possible to
assist farmers in securing an adequate supply of seed, an adequate
force of laborers when they are most needed, at harvest-time, and the
means of expediting shipments of fertilizers and farm machinery, as
well as of the crops themselves when harvested. The course of trade
shall be as unhampered as it is possible to make it, and there shall
be no unwarranted manipulation of the nation's food-supply by those
who handle it on its way to the consumer. This is our opportunity to
demonstrate the efficiency of a great democracy, and we shall not fall
short of it!
The Duty of Middlemen
This let me say to the middlemen of every sort, whether they are
handling our foodstuffs or the raw materials of manufacture or the
products of our mills and factories: The eyes of the country will be
especially upon you. This is your opportunity for signal service,
efficient and disinterested. The country expects you, as it expects
all others, to forego unusual profits, to organize and expedite
shipments of supplies of every kind, but especially of food, with an
eye to the service you are rendering and in the spirit of those who
enlist in the ranks, for their people, not for themselves. I shall
confidently expect you to deserve and win the confidence of people of
every sort and station.
The Men of the Railways
To the men who run the railways of the country, whether they be
managers or operative employees, let me say that the railways are the
arteries of the nation's life and that upon them rests the immense
responsibility of seeing to it that those arteries suffer no
obstruction of any kind, no inefficiency or slackened power. To the
merchant let me suggest the motto, "Small profits and quick service,"
and to the shipbuilder the thought that the life of the war depends
upon him. The food and the war supplies must be carried across the
seas, no matter how many ships are sent to the bottom. The places of
those that go down must be supplied, and supplied at once. To the
miner let me say that he stands where the farmer does: the work of the
world waits on him. If he slackens or fails, armies and statesmen are
helpless. He also is enlisted in the great Service Army. The
manufacturer does not need to be told, I hope, that the nation looks
to him to speed and perfect every process; and I want only to remind
his employees that their service is absolutely indispensable and is
counted on by every man who loves the country and its liberties.
Let me suggest also that every one who creates or cultivates a garden
helps, and helps greatly, to solve the problem of the feeding of the
nations; and that every housewife who practices strict economy puts
herself in the ranks of those who serve the nation. This is the time
for America to correct her unpardonable fault of wastefulness and
extravagance. Let every man and every woman assume the duty of
careful, provident use and expenditure as a public duty, as a dictate
of patriotism which no one can now expect ever to be excused or
forgiven for ignoring.
The Supreme Test
In the hope that this statement of the needs of the nation and of the
world in this hour of supreme crisis may stimulate those to whom it
comes and remind all who need reminder of the solemn duties of a time
such as the world has never seen before, I beg that all editors and
publishers everywhere will give as prominent publication and as wide
circulation as possible to this appeal. I venture to suggest also to
all advertising agencies that they would perhaps render a very
substantial and timely service to the country if they would give it
widespread repetition. And I hope that clergymen will not think the
theme of it an unworthy or inappropriate subject of comment and homily
from their pulpits.
The supreme test of the nation has come. We must all speak, act and
serve together!
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