OCR Text |
Show EXEMPTION BOARDS AND FARM BOYS. What an Iowa farm mother thinks of her local exemption ex-emption board is voiced in a communication to the editor of The Wisconsin Farmer. She says in part: I cannot close my letter without saying that I would like to clasp your hand and say, "God bless you" for the little sermons you have given us about the draft taking our farm boys. How on earth are we going to furnish food for our allies? Here in our neighborhood the farms are stripped of young men. We have a good, productive farm, well improved. im-proved. Our only boy is all we had to work this . farm. His father is past 63, cannot work much on account of rheumatism, while I am 55. We are left to get along as best we can and depend on such help as we can find, and that very poor. Our boy regrets that he ever asked for exemption. I read where General Crowder says "Farm boys will be shown no favors." Bless me, farm boys never asked for any favors; they were told they were needed to produce more foodstuffs. On a farm adjoining ours an only boy is called; his father is obliged to give up the farm; he is past 60. This is the case all over the grain belt; old men and cripples are left to do the work. Either these high officials do not realize what it means to farm without these boys or they must think the war will end before another crop is raised God grant that it does ! I was disappointed in our exemption board. They certainly do not understand how things are going. Thus it goes. Exemption boards do not understand. In many cases they are extremely partisan, and in some cases arbitrary and narrow. Yet they have the power and the law in their hands, so it becomes necessary to bear the yoke uncomplainingly. This good mother's words are a benediction. Would that she might be comforted, com-forted, and all others in her condition, as they fix up their boys to send them to war, so that their hearts would quit aching, and peace come to their" troubled minds. The happy day, when peace is declared, is the only condition that satisfy such mothers. |