CHAPTER XIV

THE CALL TO THE COLORS

THE call to arms found our country ill prepared for the great work which lay before it. Vast sums of money must be raised. A great army must be gathered and trained. Industries must be mobilized. A peace-loving people must be aroused to a due sense of the meaning of their entrance into the world

war.

Not a moment was lost. No sooner had the President signed the joint resolution declaring that a state of war had been thrust upon us than the news was sent by wireless and by telegraph to every fort and army post; to every warship, navy yard and naval station in our country and insular possessions; and to our Ambassadors, Ministers and consuls the world over. Every German vessel in our ports was seized, and scores of Germans, leaders in plots, were arrested in New York, Chicago and San Francisco; orders went out for the immediate mobilization of the navy, and the taking over of privately owned motor boats and yachts already enrolled; the naval militia and naval reserve were called to the colors, and the work of enlisting was taken up with renewed ardor.

The Council of National Defense and its Advisory Commission went seriously to work. Created by Act of Congress, the Council consisted of the Secretaries of War, Navy, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, and the Advisory Commission of seven men drawn from civil life, and put in charge, one of transportation, another of munitions, another of food, clothing and supplies in general; another of raw materials, minerals and metals; another of labor; another of engineering; another of medicine, surgery and sanitation.

To aid them in their work there at once sprang up a host of Boards and Committees, each to play a special part in the mobilization of our resources and industries. At the request

of the Council the presidents of the great railroads met and named five men to put the railroads on a war basis. Mr. Hoover was invited to become Chairman of a Committee on Food Supply and Prices, charged with the duty of securing the coöperation of all food distributing agents, preventing if possible speculation and waste and increasing production of food. A general medical board of physicians, surgeons, dentists and hygiene and sanitation experts was appointed to mobilize the medical resources of the country. An Economy Board was organized, and April 15 the President made an appeal to the people to increase the output of war materials and raise food in abundance.

We must, he said, not only supply ourselves, our army and our navy but a large part of the nations with whom we had made common cause. We must build ships by the hundred "to carry to the other side of the seas, submarines or no submarines," whatever would be needed there, but which England, France, Italy, Russia could not spare the men, materials or machinery to make. Our industries, therefore, our farms, mines, shipyards, factories must be more prolific, more economically managed than ever before.

To the farmers he urgently appealed. The "supreme need" of our own country and of our Allies was "an abundance of supplies and especially of foodstuffs." The importance of a sufficient food supply was "superlative." Without it "the whole great enterprise upon which we have embarked" would fail. On the farmers rested "in large measure the fate of the war and the fate of the nations." Might the nation depend on them to leave nothing undone that would increase the yield of their land. He called on "young men and old alike," on "able-bodied boys," to "turn in hosts to the farms." Farmers in the South were urged to "plant abundant foodstuffs as well as cotton"; middlemen were told the eyes of the country were on them; that the country expected them, as it expected all others, to "forego unusual profits," and organize to hasten shipments. Every one who cultivated a garden helped "to solve the problem of feeding the nations." Every housewife who practiced strict economy put herself in the ranks of those who served the nation.

The response was quick. Thousands of young men and lads left the universities, the colleges, the high schools and the home and volunteered for work on the farms and in munition plants and factories. Vacant lots in the cities were turned into little gardens with children for cultivators. The front lawns and flower beds of suburban residences were plowed and sown with every sort of vegetable seed and farmers, the land over, increased the acreage of corn and wheat, and potatoes.

The Secretary of Agriculture declared the problem was not how to secure more acreage, but how to obtain more labor. In the cities and towns there were more than 2,000,000 boys from fifteen to nineteen years of age not engaged in work vital to the nation. These should be used. High schools and colleges in rural districts, he thought, should suspend their work and resume later than usual in the autumn, that the students might go to the farms. Industrial plants should do their repair work during the harvest, and certain public and private undertakings of lesser importance to the nation should shut down for the time being and so set free additional labor. To upwards of two thousand Boy Scouts, gathered on the plaza before the Department of Agriculture in Washington, and carrying garden tools of all sorts, the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture said: "Arm yourselves with pick and hoe. Till every scrap of vacant lawn. Raise tomatoes, beans and peas, and you will do an immeasurable service to your country," and the promise was given that the message would be sent to all Boy Scout organizations in the country. The day, April 21, had been called "National Planting Day" and the boys marched to a three hundred acre plot donated by the Government for farming purposes.

In New York City a mass meeting of Boy Scouts received a telegram from Mr. Hoover telling them that "America will have to feed the world for the next two or three years, even if the war should end this year," and Mr. Roosevelt urged them to "start a garden and thereby help to feed the soldiers." The Governor of North Carolina appealed to the County Commissioners to cultivate every idle farm and use every chain gang that could be spared from roadmaking to plant food crops, and three thousand women and girls, enrolled in clubs, pledged

themselves to can all surplus fruit and vegetables. The State Council of Defense in West Virginia took up the question how to increase the food supply. In Alabama the Superintendent of Education promised to release all boys in the high schools and district agricultural schools for farm work, if their parents made no objection. In Detroit, Mr. Henry Ford promised to release a thousand men from his motor plant to go on the farms, and to take them back in the autumn. In Connecticut, the State Food Committee called for boys to work on the farms. A bulletin from the Department of Agriculture at Washington urged everybody to make gardens. "Somebody has to raise everything you eat. Do your share." In Philadelphia the Bourse and the Commercial Exchange organized a Farm Work Enrollment Bureau to mobilize the war-farmer boys for work in the West. A Committee of men of prominence living in towns near Philadelphia along the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad formed the Main Line Food Supply Department of the State Committee of Public Safety and called for aid. Their purpose was to cultivate and maintain a series of Community War Gardens on all unused land one mile north. and south of the railroad from Merion to Villanova. No money was wanted, but land owners were asked to loan unused land in quantities from one to twenty-five acres; to donate labor then in their employ; to loan farm implements or horses, and give fertilizers and seed, potatoes, beans and cabbage, carrot, turnip and onion seeds. From information received, the Committee declared the need of cultivating every bit of unused land was more than urgent if the shortage of food sure to prevail in the autumn and winter was to be lessened. Vegetables raised in this way were to be sold at cost to the people of their towns. Not a cent of profit would be taken. Like appeals were made by Vacant Lot Associations, Community Gardeners' Associations, School Garden Associations, and scores of others. Hundreds of students at the University of Pennsylvania joined the farm and industrial volunteers. It was the same everywhere.

To raise food was not enough. Quite as important was the careful use of it. The American habit of wastefulness must be stopped, and this Mr. Hoover sought to do by an appeal to the women of the country. A nation-wide association, the

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United States Food Administration, was started and every woman above the age of fifteen was asked to sign a card and become a member. On the card were a few simple questions, and a pledge which bound all who signed to "accept membership in the United States Food Administration," and "carry out the directions and advice of the Food Administrator" in the conduct "of her household" in so far as "circumstances will admit." Each member was then told what to do, was given a card to hang in the window, and, if desired, a button. The first card, issued to the wife of the President, was hung in the window of the White House dining-room.

In Philadelphia they were delivered at the door of every occupied house by the police, one Monday in July, and gathered on Wednesday. Nobody signed unless willing to do so. Those who did not were then visited by members of the women's clubs and organizations and the object of the card explained.

That all might know how to save and what to save, Mr. Hoover sent out a food card to be hung in the kitchens. It called for the use of less wheat, meat, fats, milk, sugar and fuel; for a larger use of fruit and vegetables; for the canning or drying of surplus produce, and urged all to buy in the neighborhood and save the cost of carriage from places far away. One pound of wheat saved each week meant 150,000,000 bushels for our Allies. This would help them "to save democracy." Sugar was scarce. "We use to-day three times as much per person as our Allies. If every one in America saves one ounce of sugar daily, it means 1,100,000 tons for the year.' One-third of an ounce less animal fat each day would save 375,000 tons in a year. Every American was in duty bound not to eat a fourth meal; "preach the Gospel of the clean plate"; buy less, serve smaller portions, eat less cake and pastry, less meat and no young meat, serve no wheat bread at one meal a day, and "watch out for the wastes in the community."

The first step on the part of the Government was taken by the President. Acting under authority given him by an Act of Congress, he forbade the export of a long list of articles to any of fifty-six countries and their dependencies, save under licenses obtained from the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. The purpose of the Government, he said, was to