EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART III 161 



best is a slacker. The time will come when every able-bodied man will 

 have to get into active service of some kind, and it will be a sacrifice on 

 the part of some of us. Last summer I said something about the retired 

 farmers getting back into service, and a friend of mine up in northwestern 

 Iowa, himself a retired farmer, got the paper when he arrived downtown 

 and showed it to some of his friends on the street, and he said: "See 

 here, you have all got to go back and get to work; see what Curtiss says?" 

 And then some of them looked at the paper and said: "Who is that Cur- 

 tiss?" We have been inclined to take it in a, light and jovial manner, but I 

 don't believe we are going to be able to man the farms and maintain pro- 

 duction unless we put forth the most strenuous effort that possibly can 

 be made, and even then we will have great difficulty. 



The fairs have an important part to do. I think that the fairs and 

 the fair managers ought to cooperate with every organization in their 

 community to help solve the problem of stimulating production and help 

 raaintain force upon the farms in order to furnish the food products that 

 are needed and absolutely necessary. One of the marks of a progressive 

 civilization is organized and cooperative work — team-work, and the fair 

 is a good illustration of that. The community that has a live, progres- 

 sive fair, that is well supported and backed by its people, is more able to 

 do things than the community that has not. And that community profits 

 by it immensely. It tends to increase the value of farm lands and the 

 entire resources of that community, and there is no better illustration of 

 the temper of the community than the manner in which it supports the 

 fair. 



I listened a few days ago to the rendering at a public meeting of that 

 famous production, "A Man Without a Country," and I thought it was 

 one of the most pathetic things I had ever heard, and in some way I 

 couldn't help associating the fate of that man with that of the mayor of 

 one of the great cities of this country — but not in this state, I am 

 pleased to say. And then this pleasing contrast came to my mind of 

 a mother with three sons of military age, and a friend of hers said: "Will 

 you permit your sons to enlist in the army and risk their lives by going to 

 France?" and this noble mpther replied: "All that I have and all that 

 my sons have belongs to this country, and God forbid that I should find 

 it in my heart to keep them from meeting their obligations to this 

 country in its time of need." It is that kind of support that gives this 

 country a fine army, and while it formerly was said that this was a 

 rich man's war, you don't hear that any more. The rich men's sons, in 

 . common with others, have met their responsibility and are going forward 

 with us, and the thing to do, as President Wilson has said, is for every 

 citizen of the United States to get into line and stay there till the end. 

 This is not a war of the army or the navy alone. We sometimes hear it 

 said that this or that will win the war, and that the farm products will 

 win the war, or even that the producer can win the war, or that industry 

 can win it; but it is not going to be won by one of these things alone. It 

 will be won only by all of them working together; it is teamwork on the 

 part of the entire nation that will win this war. It is not my work any 

 more than it is work that you are engaged in that will win. I am satis- 

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