Chapter XXV: “food Will Win the War”

Upon my return to this country, after having lived as I did abroad, the billboards with the caption, “Food Will Win the War,” was one of the first things that caught my eye, and I was deeply impressed with its significance, but a few days after arriving I was also destined to learn very soon how little these words seemed to mean to the average American. I visited, of course, several of the leading cafés and hotels, and from the menus one could hardly believe that this country is at war and allied with people and armies that are badly in need of food.

No army can fight efficiently, laborers cannot toil in the manufacture of equipment and supplies for the armies in the field, unless they have the proper and sufficient food.

America little realizes what France has accomplished along lines of conservation. Reflect, for the moment, on the following facts. Before the war, France depended largely on this country for many foodstuffs, even when all of her tillers of the soil were following their agricultural work daily. Upon the outbreak of war, all her able-bodied men of a military age were called to the colors. There was no one left to work the farms but women, old men and young boys, and naturally their domestic production fell off, though the demand for food was ever greater. Moreover, one must consider the territory that has been devastated into regions of barren wastes, for, in August, 1914, when the German armies swept through northern France to the very gates of Paris, all the stock on farms were driven off and confiscated for their troops. Then in the retreat everything that was productive was destroyed.

It is not difficult to understand why the internal production of France has suffered a material decrease, and she must now lean just that much more on our assistance in the providing of foodstuffs. With conservation working in this country we can give them that which is really unnecessary to us, but vital to them. An order has just been issued to the French Army from Headquarters to cut down the daily bread ration of each soldier, and I want to say that I know what this means, for I have lived on it, and for nourishment, at the best, it is nothing to brag about.

Some people think they are making a supreme sacrifice in submitting to our wheatless day regulation, but they should dwell a moment on the thought that for over three years the soldiers, to say nothing of the women and children of France, have not seen a loaf of white bread. Their wheatless day is seven days a week and fifty-two weeks a year.

I think I know the American people well enough to feel that they would not stand aside and selfishly see men, women and children go without food, especially when they can give it without any great inconvenience to themselves. I feel it is the lack of a proper understanding that is the basic cause of food wasting in this country, and not a disregard for the suffering of others.

Every time we sit down to a meal, either in the home or in a restaurant, and order more food than we can consume or need, we are taking from the reserve which does not morally belong to us and thereby depriving the man at the front of sufficient food. I think everyone will agree with me when I say that if there is anyone entitled to a decent meal once in a while it’s the fellow who is ready to give up his life for his country—and all we are asked to do is to give up those habits which are unnecessary and wasteful.

The great problem of winning this war rests with the American people, and if each one does his and her part, that will prove the deciding factor in defeating the Germans.

A noted statesman of Germany is credited with saying that Germany has not the slightest fear of the American Army or Navy. But when the hundred million people rise up as a unit with undivided aim—that day will be the undoing of Germany. Now, this simply means that it is the American people that Germany is afraid of.

It is very difficult to bring the nearness of the war home to each and every one of us. It is difficult, indeed, for each to realize that we are just as much a part of this war as the boys who wear the uniform abroad. The only difference is that they have given everything they have to give and we can only approach their one hundred per cent liberality by conserving and rendering every assistance that is within our power to do by word, deed, and particularly money.

Everyone should do his part as an individual patriot, so that when our hundred million are working as a unit, the sledge hammer blows of our nation will be the undoing of a monster that will be swept from this earth with such force that it will never again menace liberty and freedom.