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NOTE: Click here for the 34
illustrations for this chapter.
CHAPTER XIX
COÖPERATION OF THE PRESS
Vital Help Given by the Newspapers and Periodicals of America
The printed word, the most powerful force known to civilization, made war
gardens possible. In no other way could they have been made to multiply so
rapidly in all parts of the land. From printer's ink to parsnips and parsley is
a long jump; but the newspapers and magazines made that jump along with the
others which they made for Liberty Loans, the Red Cross, and various other
war-work campaigns. When the shadow of war fell across America, and before the
actual declaration of war, the National War Garden Commission sent out the first
rallying call to the home food producers. The newspapers and magazines spread
the call freely. General Pershing later said, "Keep the Food Coming"' and the
publications heard that call, too, and relayed it to their readers.
The "Soldiers of the Soil" wanted instruction and they
wanted it quickly. Prompt action was necessary that their service in the "garden
trenches" might be effective. There was only one way in which the message of the
war garden and the necessary instructions could be carried to all the people
with the speed demanded. This was through the press of the country and the
printed page. Any other plan of distributing the appeal and the instructions
would have been far too slow to be effective and furthermore would have involved
prohibitive expense, if it could have been done at all.
How much of a debt of gratitude the nation owes to its
patriotic editors it probably will never be able to realize fully, but it does
know that without their wholehearted support and their loyal assistance it would
never have been able to arouse the people of the United States as a whole to the
strenuous efforts which they exerted to back up the government and the fighting
forces. No note of appreciation to the editors of the country could be
over-generous in its praise or too liberal in its expression of heartfelt thanks
for their substantial aid.
 THE
KNIGHTS OF PRINTERS INK HEARD THE CALL FOR FOOD
Throughout the land every sort of publication coöperated with the National War
Garden Commission in the drive for home food production. Here are but a few of
the headlines that show how the press patriotically responded to the call.
When the Commission began its campaign it realized that it
must depend largely upon the support of the newspapers and the magazines.
Well-planned and well-directed publicity was necessary to get its message to the
people of the United States, and the promptness of the editors in recognizing
the vital importance of home food production and their patriotic readiness in
conveying the appeal to their millions of readers should be recorded in letters
of gold among the nation's permanent records. The Commission has expressed its
appreciation to many of them individually and it takes this further and more
lasting means of acknowledging its thanks, and the thanks of the nation, for
their enthusiastic service.
While space became more and more at a premium as the war
progressed, the newspapers and magazines continued to contribute as liberally as
they could of their columns to the cause of food production "F.O.B. the Kitchen
Door." They stimulated and encouraged the "city farmer" to plant for freedom and
they furnished him with the necessary data and instruction, provided by the
Commission. The great majority of those who were eager to raise food and help
feed the army were amateurs at the business. They had to be shown how. They were
willing but they needed guidance. The number of competent instructors was
limited, and it became necessary for the war gardener to look to the daily press
for information telling him what to do. In this the press did not fail him.
Almost unanimously, from one end of the country to the other, the newspapers
daily published material furnished by the Commission. If this could be totaled
it would run into tens of thousands of columns.
After calling the attention of the country to the vital need
of war gardening, the Commission prepared a series of short garden lessons
telling the home food growers what, when, and how to plant. These lessons were
brief and shorn of technicalities but authentic, and gave the gardener all he
needed to know. They were sent to the newspapers on news-clip sheets, a dozen or
more lessons on each sheet, while a few short general stories on war gardening
were also included on the sheet. This method of sending out the material was
economical from every standpoint and effected a great saving of paper. It was
highly approved by the War Industries Board as a valuable conservation scheme in
paper economy.
As occasion demanded news stories which were of interest
only to a particular city, locality, or state were sent out to the papers of
that section but not duplicated throughout the country. Thus New York did not
receive material in which none but Illinois or California readers would be
interested. In similar manner short lessons telling how to can and dry
vegetables and fruits, and items of news value calling attention to the urgent
need for this form of food conservation, were sent to the newspapers of the
country; and they met with the same generous response from the editors. One of
the most helpful features of the newspapers was the coupon box which hundreds of
them ran during the entire garden and canning season, in which the readers were
informed that by filling out the coupons and mailing them to the Commission they
would receive free copies of the war vegetable gardening or the canning and
drying books. Hundreds of thousands of newspaper readers took advantage of this
opportunity and were sent copies of the instruction books.
In addition to printing the short garden and canning lessons
and numerous items of news value, the papers published Sunday feature stories.
The Commission furnished pictures and data for these articles, with photographs
showing types of gardens and how the war gardeners were getting to work in
various parts of the country. Soon after the Commission was organized it began
to receive requests from feature and magazine writers and editors throughout the
United States for illustrations and material which could be used in stimulating
the home food-growing enterprise throughout the territory in which their
publications circulated. These requests were promptly met. The Commission was
able to do this because it gathered in a short time and had on file in the
Washington office a large collection of interesting photographs as well as much
data about war gardens, showing what they could do and were doing. Many of the
magazine writers called personally at the headquarters and were delighted and
surprised at the readiness with which their needs were filled. They went away
with envelopes filled with pictures and materials for their stories.
 TYPICAL
HEADINGS FROM NEWS SHEETS
The Commission in sending out garden data to the newspapers helped the editor by
preparing the copy in as near the style desired as possible. This was a big help
to busy "copy" desks.
Some of the publicity matter went out to the newspapers in
"mat" or matrix form, so that it was necessary for the paper to make only the
stereotype from which the printing was to be done. The material which the
Commission sent out in this way included reproductions of its several posters,
little comics on gardening and canning, a step-by-step series of illustrations
explaining in detail the cold-pack process of canning vegetables and fruits;
initials to be used in dressing up the garden page; and a number of prose poems
with small illustrations inserted. All this material was used very widely.
 HOW
NEWSPAPER "COPY" WAS SENT OUT
This is a sample of the way in which the Commission sent out "clip sheets" to
the newspapers of the United States. A number of short lessons on gardening,
canning and drying and a few news items were contained on each sheet.
The news-service organizations and illustrated-feature
syndicates used many stories on war-garden work. In this way thousands of papers
were served by the Associated Press, the United Press, and
International News Service, the Western Newspaper Union, the
Newspaper Enterprise Association, the News Feature Service, the
International Syndicate, and other important agencies. The Washington
correspondents of the leading dailies of the country sent to their home papers,
by wire and mail, items of national or local interest telling of the activities
of the war gardeners. The value of this patriotic service in furthering home
food production cannot be over-estimated. Some of the largest and most
influential newspapers in the country gave most prominent place on many
occasions to the Commission's call to the home food producers and conservers of
America. The Philadelphia North American, for instance, reproduced the
"Can the Kaiser" poster on the front page in a space covering nearly
one-quarter of the entire page. The Boston Post used both this and the
"Sow the Seeds of Victory" poster on one page, devoting a large part of the
space to these striking designs. The Garden Magazine used reproductions
of the posters as cover illustrations on two of its monthly issues. The
Forecast also made use of the Verrees poster as a cover design. The
Diario de la Marina, of Havana, Cuba, one of the foreign papers to which
copies of the posters and several articles on war gardening in the United States
had been sent, published a "smash" layout of the
Flagg Victory Garden poster
covering almost the entire front page. Zig-Zag, of Santiago, Chile, also
used it as a cover design.
During the campaigns of both 1917 and 1918 the newspapers of
this country gave the Commission loyal backing. They knew the need of food and
they saw what an asset the "city farmer" could be in this direction.
The most remarkable coöperation was given in New York City
when virtually every one of the big metropolitan dailies was running the
commission's garden hints and suggestions simultaneously. The papers thus
helping included the Evening World, the Globe, the Evening Post,
the Journal, the Evening Telegram, and the Brooklyn Eagle.
On Sundays some of the papers regularly ran an entire page or two of war-garden
material.
In the United States a large number of the foreign-language
newspapers, Italian, French and others, told their readers of the service they
could perform through war-gardening and the conservation of the surplus products
thus grown. Several summaries of the war-garden movement in the United States
were translated into French, Spanish, Italian, and Portugese and sent by the
Commission to leading publications throughout Latin America, Canada, Australia,
Europe, and the Orient. They appeared, for instance, in such widely separated
papers as the Alexandria (Egypt) Gazette, and Le Messager de São Paulo,
Brazil; and were published from Calcutta, India, and Tokio (sic), Japan, to
Montreal, Canada. The Asahi News, a Japanese newspaper of Seattle, gave
hearty support to the Commission and published much of its advice and
instructions to gardeners and home canners.
 WITH
PICTURE AND TYPE THE PRESS URGED GARDENING
The coöperation of the newspapers and magazines in national service was one of
the greatest patriotic demonstrations of the world war. This reproduction of
clippings shows how data from the National War Garden Commission was printed.
Magazines of general interest and many house-organs
coöperated in the campaign and published articles dealing with various phases of
war gardening. This applied to conservation as well as to the productive phase
of the work. As an illustration, the Ladies' Home Journal published an
entire page of pictures of women who had been blue-ribbon winners and had
received the Commission's National Capitol Prize Certificates for excellence in
canning garden products. The Outlook printed from time to time a number
of appreciations of the value of home food growing. The Garden Magazine,
of Garden City, Long Island, use a number of stories on the subject and printed
a monthly page summarizing important and inspiring war-garden activities
throughout the United States. The Country Gentleman, in addition to
regular garden lessons, published several articles commending highly the work of
the Commission. Similar helpfulness was extended by the Nation's Business,
official publication of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States; the
Manufacturers' Records, Baltimore; the American City, New York; the
Journal of the American Bankers' Association; the Missouri, Kansas &
Texas Railway, Employés' Magazine; American Industries, and
many other trade and business papers. House and Garden, Vogue, and
the Touchstone were among other high-class magazines which printed
illustrated war-garden stories supplied by the Commission. The World Court
Magazine is another example of this editorial coöperation. The Century,
Good Housekeeping, the National Magazine, the Survey, the
Illustrated World, the People's Popular Monthly, the
Illustrated Sunday Magazine, the Woman's World, the Rotarian,
the Lone Scout, Forbes' Magazine, American
Forestry, the Southern Lumberman, the Christian Endeavor World,
the Forecast, and the Peoples' Home Journal, and many
others were among the publications that carried war-garden stories. The
Literary Digest printed a summary of the work accomplished and showed what
Daylight Saving had done to further the efforts of the war gardener.
The manufacturer of plows or soda fountains, as well as
the editor of a general-interest magazine, realized the value of home food
production to his employés; and through their house-organs the heads of many
industrial and business concerns spread the gospel of "Food F.O.B. the Kitchen
Door." Trade publications of all kinds throughout the country carried garden
lessons and inspirational articles urging their workers to produce food and thus
help themselves and their country at the same time. Some of them reproduced the
Commission's posters in their magazines and used other material furnished them.
The work of coöperation with newspapers and periodicals was
conducted by Russell T. Edwards, under the direction of Secretary Ridsdale.
Thus the magazines and the newspapers of the United States
coöperated in making a success of the war-garden movement. Without their help
this could not have been accomplished. What was brought about with their aid
shows the power of the printed page. It spread the message of the war garden to
the millions. It made possible the enlistment of a vast army of war gardeners
and of home canners and dryers. It brought into action the patriotic will of the
American people to do full share in the battle for international freedom and
world-wide democracy. In short it was through the printed page that the war
garden and home conservation were given their proper place among war-time
activities.
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