WOODROW WILSON. THE WHITE HOUSE, April 15, I9I7
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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. 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.
THE THOUSAND NEEDS FOR VICTORY 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 cooperating 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. 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 letter
adapted to the particular requirements of our tasks that 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.
SOLDIERS BEHIND THE FIRING LINE 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 cooperating is an abundance of supplies, and especially of
foodstuffs. The importance of an adequate food supply, especially for the present years 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.
WHERE THE FATE OF THE WAR RESTS 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 ? 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
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.
A DEMOCRACY' S CHANCE TO MAKE GOOD 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 ! This let me say to the middlemen of every
sort, whether they are handling our foodstuffs 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 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.
STATESMEN AND ARMIES HELPLESS WITHOUT MINERS 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 HAS COME 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