THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
61 
given territory, would deliver suj)plies to every nieinber 
at a ininiinuin eost. 1 am eoiiviiieed that lliis is entirely 
praetical, and 1 would expert to see a saving of .$12,000.00 
to $16,000,00 effeeted during the tirst year of the inau¬ 
guration of this plan of huying. This would certainly 
go to make a more etfective trade organization. 
OUR IDEAL 100% EFFICIENT 
Walking down my street a few days after the nation’s 
successful Red Cross memhershi[) drive, I was interested 
in noting the cross of patriotism appearing in the promin¬ 
ent door or w indow of every home and business house 
along the street and the words, “100% patriotic,” and I 
thought, “if old Bill Kaiser could see this evidence of pa¬ 
triotism it would cause a shiver to play up and down his 
hackhone.” This is an hour in the history of our be¬ 
loved America when patriotism demands that business he 
100% efficient. Less than our veiy best is unworthy of 
us at all times, hut less than our best to-day would he 
treason. The challenge which comes to each of us to¬ 
day is to make our business contribute to the nation’s 
weal 100% in patriotic seiwice. 
We can scarcely bring our minds to compass the dire 
necessity of maximum production in all lines of food, as 
this question is presented by our leaders, for America has 
always been a land of plenty. In the fall of 1914 the 
wise ones told us that it was only a question of a few 
months until the Imperial German Government would he 
staiwed into submission, and that has been more than 
three years ago. Shut in from the outside w orld, it w as 
only a question of a few months until her food supply 
would be exhausted. James W. Gerard, in his hook, 
“My Four Years in Germany,” makes this astounding 
and, I judge, dependable statement: “There is far 
greater danger of the starvation of our Allies than the 
staiwation of the Germans. Eveiy available inch of 
ground in Germany is cultivated, and cultivated by the 
aid of old men, the hoys, and the women, and the two 
million prisoners of war. The arable lands of northern 
France and of Roumania are being cultivated by the Ger¬ 
man army with an efficiency never before known in these 
countries, and most of that food will be added to the food 
supply of Germany. Certainly the people will suffer; 
but still more certainly this war will not be ended be¬ 
cause of the starvation of Germany.” I do not know" how 
that statement from our Ambassador to Gennany im¬ 
presses you, but to me it is a call to service on the part of 
America in behalf of our Allies, such as should cause us 
to redoulile our efforts in food production, and your 
products are as certainly food products as wheat, corn, 
meat, and all the rest, I have not the heart to speak to 
you to-day concerning your pecuniary interests, for we, 
as a nation, are to-day vastly more interested in giving 
than w^e are in getting. The business of the nation at 
this hour is not commerce, for the first time in the lives of 
most of us,—the business of the nation is war, and war 
on the most gigantic scale ever dreamed of. 
The transportation lines of the nation are needed and, 
by executive order, billions of [iroperty and millions of 
men are commandeered, w hile the most cosmoiiolitan na¬ 
tion on the face of the earth looks on w ith approval. A 
hundred million free people, boastful of individual rights 
Riid privileges, are directed to obseiwe “meatless Tues¬ 
day and whealless Wednesday,” and because of pure pa¬ 
triotism such days are religiously observed by all. The 
boast of our civilization has been and is our iudusti ii's. 
We have built here in free America the most gigantic in¬ 
dustrial enterprises on the face of the (‘artb, giving em¬ 
ployment to millions of workers, turning out finished pro¬ 
ducts worth daily many millions of dollars. It has been 
said by experts in the industrial w orld that to shut dow n 
the industries of the nation for a day would jiaralyze 
commerce and thrown the nation into panic, but bow liltb* 
the experts know of the real facts. The engines of com¬ 
merce, through executive order, are commamb'd to stapd 
still for live consecutive days, that cargoes of food, sup¬ 
plies, ammunition and men may move across the w aters. 
Rowing to the mandate of t}ie government, the doors of 
thousands of places of business are c1os(m1 as if by magic, 
and the only note of disapiiroval comes from the pol¬ 
itician—the people bow" in humble submission. The bus¬ 
iness of the nation is war. 
Think of the sacrifice the jieople representing both cap¬ 
ital and labor are making to-day, of the many thousands 
of the nation’s brainiest and busiest men w ho have turned 
their backs on borne and on pecuniary interests, with 
their faces toward the flag, and meditate uj)on the in¬ 
credible, immeasurable, unimaginable power of jiatriot- 
ism. I know the heart of the nurserymen of America 
and I know that I speak for all of them when I say that 
all we have and all that w e are is to-day at the command 
of our government. We stand ready to do our jiart, even 
to the dedication of our fortunes and our lives on the 
altar of our country. You have only to call the roll to 
prove my wmrds. Our beloved President, Lloyd C. Stark, 
set a worthy example and correctly interpreted the atti¬ 
tude of the nurserymen of x\merica w hen he voluntarily 
gave up the comforts of home and the emoluments of 
business ,choosing rather the arduous duties of army 
life at the call of his country, and many of your sons 
have followed in his footsteps. Many of us by reason 
of age or infirmity w ill not be called to the front. Few" 
of us will be called into service to sit in council w ith our 
leaders, but there is a service each of us can and w ill 
render. The home fires must be kept burning, and this, 
my friends, is the patriotic service you and I must ren¬ 
der. One would be simple minded indeed who could 
view the future with equanimity. We have problems 
to-day such as we have not bad in the years gone by, and 
each day adds new" ones. No man’s o{)inion concerning 
the future would be worth recording. We know not 
what any hour may bring forth. 
Costs, labor, transjiortation are but the beginning of 
the enumeration, and our problems are aggravated be¬ 
cause our commodity it perishable. I tell you candidly 
that you cannot make money under these conditions, few" 
of us, perhaps, expect to, and I tell you just as candidly 
that if the nursery business lives through these trying 
times, and it certainly has a right to live, we should be 
satisfied. 
We must live close together. I think of a word here 
that expresses my thought—close-band(‘d. We muAl 
band our interests, our problems, w e must foi'get for the 
time being, at least, much of individualism. Acting as 
a unit, we must send a message to the world concerning 
ourselves about which the world knows not; that ours is 
one of necessary business enterprises of the nation. That 
any serious interferimce in the movement of nursery pro¬ 
duets means a curtailment in food products, the one thing 
