ly upon you. This is your opportunity for signal service,
efficient and disinterested. The country expects you, as it expects all
others, to forego unusual profits, to organize and expedite shipments of
supplies of every kind, but especially of food, with an eye to the
service you are rendering and in the spirit of those who enlist in the
ranks, for their people, not for themselves. I shall confidently expect
you to deserve and win the confidence of people of every sort and
station.

To the men who run the railways of the country, whether they be managers
or operative employees, let me say that the railways are the arteries of
the nation's life and that upon them rests the immense responsibility of
seeing to it that those arteries suffer no obstruction of any kind, no
inefficiency or slackened power. To the merchant let me suggest the
motto, "Small profits and quick service"; and to the shipbuilder the
thought that the life of the war depends upon him. The food and the war
supplies must be carried across the seas no matter how many ships are
sent to the bottom. The places of those that go down must be supplied
and supplied at once. To the miner let me say that he stands where the
farmer does: the work of the world waits on him. If he slackens or
fails, armies and statesmen are helpless. He also is enlisted in the
great Service Army. The manufacturer does not need to be told, I hope,
that the nation looks to him to speed and perfect every process; and I
want only to remind his employees that their service is absolutely
indispensable and is counted on by every man who loves the country and
its liberties.

Let me suggest, also, that everyone who creates or cultivates a garden
helps, and helps greatly, to solve the problem of the feeding of the
nations; and that every housewife who practices strict economy puts
herself in the ranks of those who serve the nation. This is the time for
America to correct her unpardonable fault of wastefulness and
extravagance. Let every man and every woman assume the duty of careful,
provident use and expenditure as a public duty, as a dictate of
patriotism which no one can now expect ever to be excused or forgiven
for ignoring.

In the hope that this statement of the needs of the nation and of the
world in this hour of supreme crisis may stimulate those to whom it
comes and remind all who need reminder of the solemn duties of a time
such as the world has never seen before, I beg that all e