FLYING WEDGE OF BANKERS AND FARMERS 



An Address Before the American Bankers' Association at Atlantic City, September 24, 1917, by Charles Lathrop 



Pack, President of the American Forestry Association and the National 



Emergency Food Garden Commission. 



HOOD CONSERVATION is as important and vi- 

 tal as food production. In the work of the Na- 

 tional Emergency Food Garden Commission, our 

 Washington offices have concentrated their efforts 

 for the last three months on a nation-wide drive for 

 winter preparedness. W'e have conducted a campaign 

 of education intended to reach every town and city home 

 in America. How well this has succeeded is shown by 

 the circumstance that our manuals on home canning, 

 home drying, home storage and home pickling of vege- 

 tables and fruits have been circulated by millions of 

 copies, in every part of every state in the Union. The 

 daily lessons and helpful hints prepared by our experts 

 on food conservation have been published constantly in 

 nearly two thousand newspapers throughout the coun- 

 try. As a result the Commission feels that the homes of 

 America are acciuiring familiarity with the subject of 

 food conservation hitherto unknown, and this familiarity 

 has brought about an unprecedented activity in ])rei)ar- 

 ing foodstuffs for winter uses. 



This brings us, naturally, to the general question of 

 eliminating the middleman as far as may be possible. 

 The town people who have been gardening and who have 

 been storing away food in their cellars and on their pan- 

 try shelves have been striking a telling blow at the prices 

 that have made the cost of living so prohibitive. An 

 economist tells us that the price of garden vegetables 

 has risen only about twenty-two per cent the past year, 

 while the increase in grain and some other products has 

 been several times as great. 



Let the l^ankers and the farmers of America now unite 

 in a flying wedge against the middleman and the food 

 problem will be near solution. The farmer is the best 

 friend the country has, and the more thoroughly we show 

 recognition of this fact the better off we will be. If he 

 is prosperous you bankers and all the rest of us are [jros- 

 perous. The thing for you to do, for us to do, is to get 

 together-^bankers and farmer,s — and smash the corner- 

 stone of high i^rices. The man who is carrying the ball 

 in this great home game of supplying food is the town 

 and city farmer, who, as a result of the country-wide 

 campaign of the National Emergency Food Garden Com- 

 mission and the work of the Department of Agriculture. 

 has planted three million food gardens during the current 

 year — most of them where none were planted before. 



The town and city farmer has not merely produced 

 three hundred and fifty million dollars' worth of food 

 F. O. B. the kitchen door. In the football game of food 

 he has tackled !\Ir. Middleman, thrown him for a loss, 

 and is driving him back from the goal of high prices. 

 Now, with a flving wedge of banker and farmer as a 



further help, a touchdown for conservation is certain. 

 Your part, Mr. Banker, is to work with even greater 

 zeal with the farmer. Aid him over the rough spots, so 

 that next year he can produce more foodstuffs than ever 

 before. 



We must all wake up to the fact that this country is 

 at war. No one knows when the end will be. This is 

 not a parlor game, nor the annual maneuvers. It is 

 war. If Sherman lived today, he would probably say 

 that war is — supplies. Secretary Baker says that we 

 will have two million five hundred thousand men under 

 arms by spring. Uncle Sam's board bill for his soldiers 

 and sailors will very soon be one million dollars a day. 

 What are you doing — going to do — towards keeping 

 those men fed. that the world may be made safe for 

 Democracy ? 



Let me give you a quick picture of the food problem 

 as I see it. At breakfast in New York I noticed on the 

 bill-of-fare : "Cantaloupe, half portion, fifty cents." In 

 my morning paper I read what the newspaper boys call 

 a "Page One Freak," which told that a newspaper in 

 Denver was giving away free, with every want adver- 

 tisement placed in its Sunday edition, a cantaloupe of 

 one of the most famous brands. There you have it. 

 Half cantaloupes fifty cents in New York City, and 

 whole ones nothing in Denver. The metropolis is far 

 from the source of supply. Denver is its center. That 

 tells the whole story. 



You do not now have to be told again the need of food 

 F. O. B. the kitchen door. The town and city gardener 

 who can raise even half his winter supply of vegetables 

 is able, as a result, to accomplish much as a construc- 

 tive citizen, to leave his savings account untouched and 

 to add to it. He can buy a Liberty Bond and he can keep 

 his children in school instead of at work. In other 

 words, we must make a big drive to produce food as 

 near the point of consumption as possible, rout the ex- 

 cessive profits of the middleman, and help the railroads 

 in the tremendous transportation problem that confronts 

 them while the country is at war. 



Glass jars and other containers for food must be con- 

 served this wititer and their mamifacturers nmst next 

 year be prepared to meet the largest demand for them 

 the country has ever seen. Front every section of the 

 United States and Canada comes report that the produc- 

 tion of vegetables and fruits suitable for canning will 

 next year far exceed the high-water mark of this year. 

 If twenty-five per cent of war gardeners failed, owing 

 to inexperience, to get a good crop this year, not ten per 

 cent will fail next year. People who did not plant this 

 vear have been so impressed with the nation-wide success 



590 



