Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1918 — INDIANA TO HAVE 5,000 FOOD CLUBS [ARTICLE]

INDIANA TO HAVE 5,000 FOOD CLUBS

Hoosier Housewives to Co-Op-erate More Efficiently to Aid Nation. ORGANIZATIONS ARE FORMED Four Hundred Thousand Persona In th* State, Who Signed Food Saving Cards, Compose Nucleus. ( (By Don Herald.) In your neighborhood • there soon will be a United States food club. It may be No. 3or No. 3883. Whatever its number, it wiU be oae of about 5,000 such chibs, which will cover every inch es Indiana before long. The purpose will be te make food do its part toward vanning the war. -Great heavens!” you say, “another organisation?” Yes, another organisation. But wait This organization already has 400,000 members in Indiana, which is a pretty good nucleus with which to start That many persons in the state signed the food saving pledge card during the food pledge campaign in November. Individually, each pf them pledged himself or herself to help make food win the war. But wars aren't won by individual

good will or individual effort The food clubs which the food administration is forming will enable these 400,000 persons, mostly women, to get acquainted. They will help them to do work as a team. When 400,000 persons push together the same way the resultant force is noticeable. Incidentally, the food clubs will enable the 400,000, each representing a family, to learn the 300,000 families in Indian* who did not sign the food saving pledge card. And that in itself is of some importance just at this time. If you signed the food pledge card you will automatically become a member of your neighborhood food club whan it is formed, or if any member of your family signed the card your whole family will be entitled to membership in the club. If no one in your family signed the card, the fact will be recorded bn the books of your neighborhood food club, and an effort probably will be made to ascertain why. These food dubs are an Indiana idea. The food administration at Washington seized on the plan and has recommended it to the other states, and similar organizations already have been started in perhaps a dozen states other than Indiana. Before long there will be, not a standing army, but a fighting army of food fighters throughout the United States representing practically every family in the country. The Fundamental Facts.

Get this fundamental fact into your head: That while food is a quiet and prosaic and everyday thing, it is a far more effective agent in the winning of a war than all the bayonets on one side or the other or all the busiest of the busiest Berthas. That’s a pretty hard thing for us to imagine over here. Hunger is slow and gnawing, and works from the inside out. Bullets are swift and noisy and cause the loss of brilliant red blood. So, as usual, we look at the spectacular and get the habit of thinking of war in terms of steel. Wheat has won mere wars than steel. Now the United States food administration, on whose shoulders at this time rests practically the entire food problem of the world, does not propose to be content with "putting pieces in the paper” about the sen<m*neas of the food situation and trusting the people to respond to the complex demands of the complex situation in any way their individual consciences happen to dictate. There is no doubt that the public means weU. But response, now, must be quick, unified, consistent. It must be tee *em* kind of response all over the United States, from every neighborhood. It must have punch. It must n*t be a hit-and-miss response, a to4ay and tomorrow response, an I will” and “I will think it over” response. It must "click," as they say in the army. So the food clubs. By all means you . must join—and push—inyour neighborhood. The clubs will be formed around schoolhouses and other central meeting places. It is expected that from 100 to 200 families will constitute each club. There probably will be monthly meetings. There will be a county president of clubs in each county (about sixty of which have already been appointed), township presidents, ward presidents, precinct presidents and local club presidents. And each club will be divided into squads of fifteen members each, with a lieutenant for each squad. The first dub ; in Indiana was formed the other day near It will be known as United States Food Club No. 1. In territory it will oover, for the present, about two souare miles of Ohio township, in Spencer county, and the "clubhouse will be the Silverdale schoolhoute, in which the charter will be hung. The first county president to be appointed in the new movement is Mrs. H°ward S. Cottey, of Kokomo, who will head the dubs in Howard county. ~ Joining your neighborhood food dub is just one of the patriotic things there are to do, it is true (joining and pushing), but it is one thine that you should positively net MgScttodo. For “food will win the WA*.”