In Our First Year of the War Part 4

The Clerks of counties and of cities of over 30,000 population, in which numerous applications from the sick and from non-residents are expected, are authorized to establish such sub-agencies and to employ and deputize such clerical force as may be necessary to accommodate these applications.

THE WHOLE NATION AN ARMY

The Power against which we are arrayed has sought to impose its will upon the world by force. To this end it has increased armament until it has changed the face of war. In the sense in which we have been wont to think of armies there are no armies in this struggle, there are entire nations armed.

Thus, the men who remain to till the soil and man the factories are no less a part of the army that is in France than the men beneath the battle flags.

It must be so with us. It is not an army that we must shape and train for war--it is a Nation. To this end our people must draw close in one compact front against a common foe. But this cannot be if each man pursues a private purpose. All must pursue one purpose. The Nation needs all men, but it needs each man, not in the field that will most pleasure him, but in the endeavor that will best serve the common good.

Thus, though a sharpshooter pleases to operate a trip-hammer for the forging of great guns, and an expert machinist desires to march with the flag, the Nation is being served only when the sharpshooter marches and the machinist remains at his levers. The whole Nation must be a team, in which each man shall play the part for which he is best fitted.

NOT A DRAFT OF THE UNWILLING

To this end Congress has provided that the Nation shall be organized for war by selection, that each man shall be cla.s.sified for service in the place to which it shall best serve the general good to call him.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. It is a new thing in our history and a landmark in our progress. It is a new manner of accepting and vitalizing our duty to give ourselves with thoughtful devotion to the common purpose of us all. It is in no sense a conscription of the unwilling. It is, rather, selection from a Nation which has volunteered in ma.s.s.

It is no more a choosing of those who shall march with the colors than it is a selection of those who shall serve an equally necessary and devoted purpose in the industries that lie behind the battle-lines.

The day here named is the time upon which all shall present themselves for a.s.signment to their tasks. It is for that reason destined to be remembered as one of the most conspicuous moments in our history. It is nothing less than the day upon which the manhood of the country shall step forward in one solid rank in defense of the ideals to which this Nation is consecrated. It is important to those ideals, no less than to the pride of this generation in manifesting its devotion to them, that there be no gaps in the ranks.

DAY OF PATRIOTIC DEVOTION

It is essential that the day be approached in thoughtful apprehension of its significance and that we accord to it the honor and the meaning that it deserves. Our industrial need prescribes that it be not made a technical holiday, but the stern sacrifice that is before us urges that it be carried in all our hearts as a great day of patriotic devotion and obligation, when the duty shall lie upon every man, whether he is himself to be registered or not, to see to it that the name of every male person of the designated ages is written on these lists of honor.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Was.h.i.+ngton this 18th day of May, in the year of our Lord, 1917, and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-first.

By the President:

ROBERT LANSING, Secretary of State.

VI

CONSERVING THE NATION'S FOOD

(_May 19, 1917_)

It is very desirable, in order to prevent misunderstanding or alarms and to a.s.sure co-operation in a vital matter, that the country should understand exactly the scope and purpose of the very great powers which I have thought it necessary, in the circ.u.mstances, to ask the Congress to put in my hands with regard to our food-supplies.

Those powers are very great, indeed, but they are no greater than it has proved necessary to lodge in the other Governments which are conducting this momentous war, and their object is stimulation and conservation, not arbitrary restraint or injurious interference with the normal processes of production. They are intended to benefit and a.s.sist the farmer and all those who play a legitimate part in the preparation, distribution and marketing of foodstuffs.

A SHARP LINE OF DISTINCTION

It is proposed to draw a sharp line of distinction between the normal activities of the Government, represented in the Department of Agriculture, in reference to food production, conservation and marketing, on the one hand, and the emergency activities necessitated by the war, in reference to the regulation of food distribution and consumption, on the other.

All measures intended directly to extend the normal activities of the Department of Agriculture, in reference to the production, conservation and the marketing of farm crops, will be administered, as in normal times, through that department; and the powers asked for over distribution and consumption, over exports, imports, prices, purchase and requisition of commodities, storing and the like, which may require regulation during the war, will be placed in the hands of a Commissioner of Food Administration, appointed by the President and directly responsible to him.

THE END TO BE ATTAINED

The objects sought to be served by the legislation asked for are: Full inquiry into the existing available stocks of foodstuffs and into the costs and practices of the various food producing and distributing trades; the prevention of all unwarranted h.o.a.rding of every kind, and of the control of foodstuffs by persons who are not in any legitimate sense producers, dealers or traders; the requisition, when necessary for public use, of food supplies and of the equipment necessary for handling them properly; the licensing of wholesome and legitimate mixtures and milling percentages, and the prohibition of the unnecessary or wasteful use of foods.

Authority is asked also to establish prices, but not in order to limit the profits of the farmers, but only to guarantee to them, when necessary, a minimum price, which will insure them a profit where they are asked to attempt new crops, and to secure the consumer against extortion by breaking up corners and attempts at speculation when they occur, by fixing temporarily a reasonable price at which middlemen must sell.

THE FIXING OF PRICES

I have asked Mr. Herbert Hoover to undertake this all-important task of food administration. He has expressed his willingness to do so, on condition that he is to receive no payment for his services, and that the whole of the force under him, exclusive of clerical a.s.sistance, shall be employed, as far as possible, upon the same volunteer basis.

He has expressed his confidence that this difficult matter of food administration can be successfully accomplished through the voluntary co-operation and direction of legitimate distributers of foodstuffs and with the help of the women of the country.

Although it is absolutely necessary that unquestionable powers shall be placed in my hands, in order to insure the success of this administration of the food-supplies of the country, I am confident that the exercise of those powers will be necessary only in the few cases where some small and selfish minority proves unwilling to put the Nation's interests above personal advantage, and that the whole country will heartily support Mr. Hoover's efforts by supplying the necessary volunteer agencies throughout the country for the intelligent control of food consumption, and securing the co-operation of the most capable leaders of the very interests most directly affected, that the exercise of the powers deputed to him will rest very successfully upon the good-will and co-operation of the people themselves, and that the ordinary economic machinery of the country will be left substantially undisturbed.

NO FEAR OF BUREAUCRACY

The proposed food administration is intended, of course, only to meet a manifest emergency and to continue only while the war lasts. Since it will be composed for the most part of volunteers, there need be no fear of the possibility of a permanent bureaucracy arising out of it.

All control of consumption will disappear when the emergency has pa.s.sed. It is with that object in view that the Administration considers it to be of pre-eminent importance that the existing a.s.sociations of producers and distributers of foodstuffs should be mobilized and made use of on a volunteer basis. The successful conduct of the projected food administration, by such means, will be the finest possible demonstration of the willingness, the ability and the efficiency of democracy and of its justified reliance upon the freedom of individual initiative.

The last thing that any American could contemplate with equanimity would be the introduction of anything resembling Prussian autocracy into the food control of this country.

It is of vital interest and importance to every man who produces food and to every man who takes part in its distribution that these policies, thus liberally administered, should succeed and succeed altogether. It is only in that way that we can prove it to be absolutely unnecessary to resort to the rigorous and drastic measures which have proved to be necessary in some of the European countries.

VII

AN ANSWER TO CRITICS

(_May 22, 1917_)

In the following letter, addressed to Representative Heflin, Democrat, of Alabama, President Wilson replies to criticisms regarding his position with regard to the war and its objects: