There is another form of sacrifice which the American people will inevitably be called upon to make, and that is to accept without complaint the heavy restrictions which the Government will find it necessary to put on their private activities. The Government must have the first call on coal, iron, steel, timber, chemicals, on supplies of every kind, and particularly on transportation and labor. The sooner the public gets over the idea that we must have “business as usual,” the better. The country must immediately awake to the fact that we cannot carry on a war like this with one hand and continue to do all the business we did before with the other. We can no more expect to change from peace conditions to war conditions without business inconvenience and loss than we can expect to send an army into battle without having killed and wounded. We must, therefore, adjust our business and personal affairs so as to support the army with the greatest possible efficiency, and we must do it with the least possible delay. The woman who orders a gown which she does not need is not helping labor to find employment, as she likes to think; she is preventing a soldier from having a uniform--for how is labor to be had for making uniforms unless it is released from making other clothes? Our soldiers must have blankets--but how are those blankets to be had unless the looms are released from something else? How is steel to be had for food-ships and field-guns and destroyers unless there is a prompt curtailment of its use for other purposes? If one of your pet trains is suddenly discontinued, don’t grumble, but just stop to remember that the Government needs that train and its crew for the purpose of moving troops and munitions. If your favorite restaurant curtails its menu, bear in mind that it has been done by order of the Government, which recognizes the imperative necessity for food control. It is a stupendous task that we have undertaken, and it will require every particle of grit and staying power that we possess to see it through. I would that every man and woman in these United States might show the spirit which led the third-year cadets at West Point, who were this summer entitled by law and custom to the one furlough a cadet has in four years, to unite in waiving their right to these two months to which they had looked forward so long and so eagerly and for the spending of which they had made so many plans, and to offer their services to the Secretary of War in any work for which he thinks them fitted. In writing to his parents to explain why he would probably not be home on the long-talked-of furlough, one of these cadets said:-- “You know, as cadets, we haven’t anything but these two months to give, so we thought if we offered all we had it would maybe be worth while, even if it wasn’t much.” How about it, my friend? Have _you_ offered your country all you have to give?