Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 55, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1918 — SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT [ARTICLE]

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Boys, Are You Working or Loafing In These Busy Days of War? One of the Very best Liberty loan ■ advertisements we have seen in the campaign now on appeared |in last week’s Youth’s Companion, it being the great meat packers, Swift & Co’s, contribution to the loan cause, and it appealed to the ’young boys and girls to work and earn money tQ help our great cause by buying these bonds. The advertisement said: WORSE THAN THE TURKS This Story is True. An Armenian peddlar was displaying his wares to one of his customers. This lady was eager to hear what he knew about the war. The Armenian’s dusky face grew darker. His eyes began to smolder. In simple, pitiful language he told that he had learned from survivors how '‘the home of his parents in Armenia had been burned to the ground, how the old people had been murdered, how ,his brother had been tortured and I then shot, and how his two young sisters had t been carried away as [slaves. His story made the listener tremble with horror | “Madam,” concluded the Armenian, “youi can hardly believe the brutality of those Turks. Why, they are almost as bad as the Ger-

mans! ’’ I Remember, you boys and girls who read this, that the cruelty of the IHiun sttps at nothing. His track is red with butcheYy. Your country needs your help. The fellows at the front are helpless without your help. . Your time has come to earn money and save money to help buy Liberty Bonds. Help your parents cut down household expenses. Don’t holler every day- for pie. Look around for odd jobs. Make every Saturday count. Earn all the money ydu can. Save every penny you can. The best thing you can say to your father is: Dad, here’s some money I’ve saved. Put enough with it to buy me a Liberty Bond, won’t you?” Now, as a matter of fact, are our boys and girls, as a rule, helping very much these days to win the war by doing what this advrtisement asks them to do? Do ten per cent of the young boys and girls actually realize that we are at war and that 2,000,000 of America’s sons are now in the war zone and 2,000,000 more are in the training camps in this country?

Do realize that there is an alarming shortage of labor all ovej the land because so many of our young men have gone to war or are employed in the munition factories? Do they realize that ,the harvesting of the greatest corn crop our country has ever raised is right now upon us and that the farmers need the help of the big, husky school boy to husk this corn and needs him badly? That he will gladly pay a liberal price for this work and that the corn is sorely needed to feed our allies and to fatten more hogs and more cattle that we may ship more meats to our soldiers and to the starving people of war-stricken Europe? If they do not realize these serious matters it is indeed time (that tney did so, and instead o. J chasing about every Saturday, (burning up gasoline, attending or playing football —something that does no one any good whatever — j they will cut out this useless sport for the time being and put their sturdy young shoulders to the wheel and thus help to keep things moving at home and invest the money they earn in Liberty Bonds and War Savings stamps, which in turn will bring them in a good interest on their investment and instill im them habits of thrift that will be of untold benefit in later years.

Besides, they can proudly say to the returning soldiers, to their children and their children’s children in the years to come, “I was too young to fight, but I did my bit’’ in this great struggle for human liberty by working at some useful occupation every spare moment I had and placed the money I earned at the disposal of. my country rather than spending; my time in loafing and inducing others to loaf or engaging in useless sports and pastimes when my labor was so sorely needed.. I did all I could.”