Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 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 li» the State, Who Signed Food Saving Cards, Compose Nucleus. # (By Don Herold.) In your neighborhood there soon will be a United States food club. It may be No. 3 or No. 3333. Whatever its number, it will be one of about 5,000 such chibs, which will cover every inch of Indiana before long. The purpose will be to make food do its part toward wjnning the war. “Great heavens!” you say, “another organization?” ' Yes, another organization. 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 of 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 w?- 1 . enable these 400,000 persons, mostly women, tn 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 fpod clubs will enable the 400,000, each representing a family, to learn the 300,000 familiesin Indiana who did not sign the food saving pledge card. -And that in itself is of some importance just at this tipie. If you signed the food pledge card you will automatically become a member of your neighborhood food club when 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 on the books of your neighborhood food club, and an effort probably will be made to ascertain why. These food clubs 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 outBullets 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 more waps 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 seriousness of the food situation and trusting the people to respond to tiecomplex demands of the complex situation in any way their individual consciences happen to dictate. There is no doubt that the public means well. But response, now, must be quick, unified, consistent. It must be the same kind of response all over the United States, from every neighborhood. It must have punch. It must not be a hit-and-miss response, a today 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 —in your 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. Andeach club will be divided into squads of fifteen members each, with a lieutenant for each squad. The first club in Indiana was formed the other day near Rockport. It will be known as United States Food Club No. 1. In territory it will cover, for the present, about two square miles of Ohio township, in Spencer county, and the “clubhouse will be the Silverdale schoolhouse, in which the charter will be bung. The first county president to be appointed in the new movement is Mrs. Howard S. Cottey, of Kokomo, who will head the clubs in Howard county. Joining your neighborhood food club ,is just one of the patriotic things there are to do, it is true (joining and pushing), but it is one thing that you should positively not neglect to do. Foi “food will win tho war.”