Farmers! Housewives! Children!

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES APPEALS TO YOU PERSONALLY

These extracts from the address of President Wilson should be read carefully by every
one who produces or can produce food and by all who consume food:

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.

ABUNDANT FOOD SUPPLIES ESSENTIAL

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.

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
battlefield or in the trenches.

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.

MAKE SURE OF LARGE HARVESTS

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 cooperating is an abundance of supplies, and
especially of food stuffs. 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. 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 cooperation in the sale and
distribution of their products?

TO YOUNG MEN AND BOYS

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.

TO THE FARMERS OF THE SOUTH

I particularly appeal to the farmers of the South to plant abundant food stuffs
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 TO COOPERATE

The Government of the United States and the governments of the several
States stand ready to cooperate. 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!

TO THE MIDDLEMEN

This let me say to the middlemen of every sort, whether they are handling
our food stuffs or our 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.

TO EVERY HOUSEHOLD

Let me suggest, also, that everyone 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 OF THE NATION HAS COME. WE MUST ALL
SPEAK, ACT, AND SERVE TOGETHER!

Woodrow Wilson

POSTER SERIES, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

The Postmaster will display this circular conspicuously in the Post Office lobby. -- A. S. BURLESON, 
Postmaster General.