EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VH 365 



I "want to call your attention in passing, and as a preliminary to 

 what I consider the most important and critical problem which faces 

 us as we are entering this world war. This war' is going to be won 

 with food, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, and none in 

 the mind of any real red-blooded American, that this war is going to 

 be won with American soldiers, with American money, with the prod- 

 ucts of the American farm, and with American spirit and heroism. We 

 don't realize yet, friends that we are in the midst of war. Only those 

 of us who have some boys over at the front, or going to the front soon, 

 are conscious of that intimate touch which is felt by the home from 

 which a hoy has gone out to serve his country. I wish every man in 

 America, and particularly every farmer, could understand that our 

 country is in the midst of the greatest war that history has ever known 

 — a war upon which not only the future of this country and the future 

 of every farmer in America, but of all humanity, depends absolutely. 



This is no time to stop and argue about the wisdom of having en- 

 tered this war. It is no time to indulge in any half-hearted loyalty 

 to this government. We are in this thing from the purest and highest 

 and holiest of motives, and the quickest and shortest and cheapest way 

 to end it is to go right straight thru to victory; and we are going thru. 

 Upon the farmer rests the greatest burden of this war. He is the man 

 who, by his energy and toil and the sacrifice of his family, must fur- 

 nish the last ounce of food that is necessary to feed the armies of this 

 country and its allies, and our government recognizes that fact abso- 

 lutely. You are called upon to speed up your production to the highest 

 possible limit. You are going to be called upon in every conceivable 

 way which will intensify the products of American farms and bring 

 this thing to a conclusion as quickly as possible. That means vastly 

 increased expenditures for the farmers of Iowa. It means that this 

 tremendous burden of over a half billion dollars of farm mortgage in- 

 debtedness which now rests upon the broad acres of this state must 

 be extended over a period of years long enough, at a rate and upon 

 terms reasonable enough, to enable you to handle your farming opera- 

 tions with safety and profit, and to do your duty to your country and 

 at the same time support your families in reasonable comfort. That 

 is the biggest job that the American farmer has ever faced. We have 

 to face, too, the probable reaction which will come after the war. So 

 that if there ever was a time in the history of this country when the 

 American farmer needed to look with extreme care in his financial 

 operations, that time is right now. 



When the federal farm loan act was passed, nearly tw'o years ago, 

 it was almost inconceivable that our country would enter this war. 

 The passage of the farm loan act, and the movement that led to its 

 adoption, were not founded in any sense upon the possibility of this 

 war. The act was founded upon the absolute need of the American 

 farmer, who was paying charges larger than ordinary business pro- 

 cedure and profit would permit, in order to relieve him from those 

 charges in the financing of his future operations. The farmers of this 

 country were borrowing money on the average at about QYs per cent, 



