THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM 15 



city which take the boys and girls from the farm. 

 Not so. Since our first parents were driven from the 

 Garden of Eden, men have been driven, not lured, 

 from country life. Remove artificial handicaps from 

 agriculture, so that reasonable profits, modern con- 

 veniences and comforts are possible on the farms, and 

 they will be filled with intelligent, industrious people, 

 and our teeming millions fed better than ever before, 

 and this at a price not prohibitive to the most common 

 laborer. 



Why should Congress be so solicitous concerning the 

 wage of all other labor, so considerate of the profits 

 of commercial interests, and ignore those of the 

 farmer, practically assuming that, if he fails to accom- 

 plish the impossible, it will be because he lacks patriot- 

 ism? 



Had there been an adequate number of farm labor- 

 ers available even when war was declared, or had it 

 been possible to have left the meager supply then there 

 undisturbed, the tremendous extra exertion now being 

 made by men, women and children upon the farms 

 would have gone a long way toward supplying the tre- 

 mendously increased demand for food stuffs brought 

 about by war conditions. But they are gone. Their 

 places must be filled if this increased demand for food 

 stuffs is met, and a food crisis averted. How shall 

 this be done if not by such increase in price of farm 

 products as will enable the farmer successfully to bid 

 for labor in the open market ? Two ways are pointed 

 out. First: That organized labor, emulating the 

 farmers' example, shall, during the war, abandon fixed 

 hours of labor, or at least make ten hours instead of 



