Europe, and to keep the looms and manufactories there in raw material; coal to keep the fires going in ships at sea and in the furnaces of hundreds of factories across the sea; steel out of which to make arms and ammunition both here and there; rails for worn-out railways back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and rolling stock to take the place of those every day going to pieces; mules, horses, cattle for labor and for military service; everything with which the people of England and France and Italy and Russia have usually supplied themselves but cannot now afford the men, the materials, or the machinery to make.

It is evident to every thinking man that our industries, on the farms, in the shipyards, in the mines, in the factories, must be made more prolific and more efficient than ever and that they must be more economically managed and better adapted to the particular requirements of our task than they have been; and what I want to say is that the men and the women who devote their thought and their energy to these things will be serving the country and conducting the fight for peace and freedom just as truly and just as effectively as the men on the battlefield or in the trenches.  The industrial forces of the country, men and women alike, will be a great national, a great international, Service Army,—­a notable and honored host engaged in the service of the nation and the world, the efficient friends and saviors of free men everywhere.  Thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands, of men otherwise liable to military service will of right and of necessity be excused from that service and assigned to the fundamental, sustaining work of the fields and factories and mines, and they will be as much part of the great patriotic forces of the nation as the men under fire.

I take the liberty, therefore, of addressing this word to the farmers of the country and to all who work on the farms:  The supreme need of our own nation and of the nations with which we are cooeperating is an abundance of supplies, and especially of food-stuffs.  The importance of an adequate food supply, especially for the present year, is superlative.  Without abundant food, alike for the armies and the peoples now at war, the whole great enterprise upon which we have embarked will break down and fail.  The world’s food reserves are low.  Not only during the present emergency but for some time after peace shall have come both our own people and a large proportion of the people of Europe must rely upon the harvests in America.  Upon the farmers of this country, therefore, in large measure, rests the fate of the war and the fate of the nations.  May the nation not count upon them to omit no step that will increase the production of their land or that will bring about the most effectual cooeperation in the sale and distribution of their products?  The time is short.  It is of the most imperative importance that everything possible be done and done immediately to make sure of large harvests.  I call upon young men and old alike and upon the able-bodied boys of the land to accept and act upon this duty—­to turn in hosts to the farms and make certain that no pains and no labor is lacking in this great matter.