EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART II 113 



REMARKS OF THE GOVERNOR. 

 HON. W. L,. HARDING. 



Hon. W. L. Harding: Gentlemen: It was my privilege, and I felt it 

 also a duty, to visit the troops down at Camp Cody. In fact, I am trying 

 to visit the Iowa troops wherever they may be stationed in this country, 

 once at least before they leave for across the water. (Applause). I saw 

 25,000 American soldiers on that parade ground on Sunday morning — 

 8,000 of them from Iowa — and when you look at that body of young men, 

 the suggestion made by Mr. Wallace of what they are doing and how 

 little we may be doing here at home as compared with what those young 

 men are doing, comes home all the more strongly. It seems to me there 

 ought not to be a single, solitary person in all this state that is not a 

 member of the Red Cross. While at Camp Cody I visited the hospitals. 

 The work that the Red Cross is doing there is remarkable. These boys 

 are a long ways from home. They are just as far away from home there 

 as if they were in France, because Nature never picked that place as a 

 training camp. I understand that to be a brave man you must have a 

 lot of "sand", and after you have been there for twenty-four hours you 

 have plenty of it. 



I visited the hospitals, and one lad was very sick, but the smile that 

 came over his face when he saw somebody from home was pathetic. Be- 

 fore I left he turned on his pillow, and I know there were tears in his 

 eyes (but nurses were about) as he told me of the good treatment he had 

 received from the Red Cross. The money that we are going to give to 

 this Red Cross is to see that the sick boys are taken care of, and I think 

 if that message can be carried all over the state into every home there 

 will be no question about the success of this campaign. Now, the thought 

 I want to leave with the fair association — and I think' it is fhe thought 

 that ought to be brought home to you people — is that it is not necessary 

 for men to change their occupation in order to help win this war. Too 

 many men and women think, now that we are at war, that they must 

 change their occupation and get into some other line — some branch of 

 the service in order to help their country in this hour of need. What we 

 do need is every man with his shoulder to the wheel in his own business 

 pushing harder than he has ever pushed before. If your business was 

 important in the days of peace as a producer, then it is doubly im- 

 portant in the time of war. These other matters that we take on, such 

 as the Red Cross, the Liberty Bonds, and the Y. M. C. A. are simply 

 additional burdens but it does not mean that a man should let up in his 

 usual and ordinary avocation. 



We have a great deal of trouble in our office because of those who want 

 to organize home guards or something of that kind. They think it 

 would be nice to have a body of men training in their town. It would 

 be, but we don't want men training as home guards when we have a war 

 on our hands. They had better be training in home-gardens and home- 

 farms rather than marching around with a broomstick trying to be a 

 trained soldier. And the message that must somehow get to our people 

 8 



