BETTER FRUIT 



AN ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE PUBLISHED MONTHLY IN THE INTEREST OF MODERN, PROGRESSIVE FRUIT GROWING AND MARKETING 

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Wi}t mi\)itt blouse 



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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 trorld creates so many problems of national life and action 

 tchieh 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 nary upon an effective tear foot- 

 ing and are about to create and equip a great army, but these 

 are the simplest parts of the great task to which we have ad- 

 dressed ourselves. There is not a single selfish element, so far 

 as 1 can see, in the cause we are fighting for. We are fighting 

 for what tee 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 ive must devote ourselves to the 

 serrice without regard to profit or material advantage and with 

 an energy and intelligence that will rise to the level of the enter- 

 prise 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 tvell, besides 

 fillhting. — 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 note 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, subniarines or no s«6- 

 inariius. what will every day be needed there, and abundant 

 materials out of our fields anil 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 utnler arms ran no longer work, to help clothe 

 and equip the armies with u-hich ice 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 sen; steel out of which to make 

 arms and ammunition both here and there; rails for worn-out 

 railways back of the figliting fronts: locomotives and rolling 

 stork to take the place of those every day going to pieces; mules, 

 horses, cuttle for labor and for military serrice; everything with 

 which the people nf England and Erance 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 better adapted to the 

 partirulnr requirements of our task than they have been; and 

 what I leant to say is that the men and the ivomen 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 

 trulyiind just as effectively as the men on the battlefield or in 

 the trenihes. The industrial forces of the country, men and 

 women alike, will be a great national, a great international, 

 Service .irnry, — a notable and honored liost engaged in the ser- 

 vice of the nation and the world, the efficient friends and saviors 

 of free men everywhere. Thousands, nny, hundreds of thousands, 

 of men otiierwisc liable to military service ivill of right and of 

 necessity be excused from that service and assigned to the funda- 

 mental, sustaining work of the fields and factories and mines, 

 and Ihry irill br as much part of the great patriotic forces of 

 flic 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 

 toe are co-operating is an abundance of suyplies, and especially 

 of foodstuffs. The importance of an adequate food supply, espe- 

 einllii for ttie present year, is superlative. Without abundant 

 food, alike for the armies and the peoples now at war, llie whdie 

 great enterprise uyon which we have embarked will break dotrn 

 and fail. 'I'he world's food reserves are low. Xot only during 

 the present emergenry but for some time after peace sliall liarc 

 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 rounlry. therefore, in large measure, rests the 

 fate of the war and the fate of the nations. May the nation not 

 count upon th<in lo omit no step that will increase the produc- 

 tion of their land or that will bring about the most effectual 

 co-operation in the sale and distribution of their produetst 'The 



time is short. It is of the most imperative importance that 

 everything possible be done and done immediately to make sure 

 of large tiarvests. 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 tliis great matter. 



I particularly appeal to the farmers of the South to plant 

 abundant foodstuffs as tvell as cotton. They can show their 

 patriotism in no better or more convincing icay than by resisting 

 the great temptation of the preesnt 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 oivti. 

 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 every- 

 thing 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 ferti- 

 lizers and farm machinery, as ivell as of the crops themselves 

 when harvested. The course of trade shall be as unhanvpcred 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 demon- 

 strate the efflciency 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 leill be especially upon you. This is your opportunity 

 for signal serrice, efficient and disinterested. The country ex- 

 pects you, us it expects all others, to forego unusual profits, to 

 organize and expedite shipments of supplies of erery 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 de- 

 serve 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 employes, let me say that the 

 railways are the arteries of the nation's life and that upon them 

 rest tlic 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 sup- 

 plies 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 ivorld waits 

 on him. If he slackens or fails, armies and statesmen are help- 

 less. He also is enlisted in the great Service Army. The manu- 

 facturer 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 employes that their service is absolutely indispensa- 

 ble and is counted on by every man who loves the country and 

 its liberties. 



Let me suggest, also, that everyone who creates or cultivates 

 a garden help-'i. and sclps greatly, to solve the problem of the 

 feeding of the nations; and that erery housewife who practices 

 strict economy puts herself in the ranks of those who serre the 

 nation. Thi.t is the time for America to correct her unpardon- 

 able fault of H^astefulness and extraragancc. Let every man 

 and every woman assuyne the duty of careful, prorident 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. 



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 n'hom it comes and to 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 crerywliere will give 

 as prominent publication and as wide circulation as possible to 

 this appeal. I renture lo suggest, also, to all advertising agen- 

 cies that they would perhaps render a very substantial and 

 timely service to the country if they would gire it u'idesprcad 

 repetition, .ind 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! 



WoODROW WiLSOM. 



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