| OCR Text |
Show I OUR INDEPENDENCE AT STAKE. H We are fighting a race of people given to efficiency H and organization, desciplined for fifty years in develop- H ment and preparation for an hour of world domination If our loose democracy, if our ideals of individual liberty and action, cannot be co-ordinated in such a manner that H we may defend ourselves, our independence will surely H not survive for another 25 years. H The Germans have not only estimated our disintegra- tion, but they have calculated us as a people incapable of A organization. They have put 10,000,000 into the field V , -from a population of 05,000,000 and they have supplied H ' them with food supplies from an area not much larger than the state of Texas, and they have maintained their civil population in health and devotion during the same g time. They have been able to do this by their willingness H i ' to discipline on the one side and their imposition of au- thority by the rigor of law on the other. Every German farmer today plants exactly the seed and exactly the field in which he is directed. On harvest, at the instructed moment, he hands over his products at prices fixed for him and receives back his foodstuffs on tickets which are allowed him from day to day. We have no desire for such an organization. It is against every instinct of our people and it is opposed to H the instinct of democracy. To adopt it would be to yield H ourselves to autocracy within our borders. There is an- H i I other solution. There is a solution. Democracy can voluntarily vol-untarily organize itself from the bottom up; that by inspiration in-spiration as to the problems with which it is confronted, and as to the methods by which they may be solved by self-imposed discipline, by self-elected leadership and organization, or-ganization, it can find solution and defend itself. This is the ideal and the intention of the Food Administration. If we fail on this line, we fail because democracy does not possess in itself the efficiency to defend itself. Herbert C. Hoover. |
