Poem Read by Four Minute Men:

“Attention, Mr. Farmer Man, and listen now to me,
and I will try and show to you what I can plainly see.
Your Uncle Sam, the dear old man who’s been so good to you,
is needing help and watching now to see what you will do.
Your Uncle’s in the great world war and since he’s entered in
it’s up to every one of us to see that he shall win.
He’s trying hard to “speed things up” and do it with a dash,
and so just now he’s asking you to aid him with your cash.
Remember, all he asks of you is but a simple loan,
and every patriot comes across without a single moan.
Should Uncle Sammy once get mad (he will if you get lax),
he then will exercise his right, and make you pay a tax.
Should Kaiser Bill and all his hordes, once get across the Pond,
d’ye think he’ll waste his time on you, and coax to take a bond?
Why no, siree. He’d grab and hold most everything he saw.
He’d take your farm, your stock and lands, your wife and babies all.
He’d make you work, he’d make you sweat, he’d squeeze you till you’d groan.
So be a man, and come across. Let Uncle have that loan.”


Speech by a C.P.I. “Four Minute Man”
Ladies and Gentlemen: I have just received the information that there is a German spy among us – a German spy watching us. He is around, here somewhere, reporting upon you and me – sending reports about us to Berlin and telling the Germans just what we are doing with the Liberty Loan. From every section of the country these spies have been getting reports over to Potsdam – not general reports but details – where the loan is going well and where its success seems weak, and what people are saying in each community.


For the German Government is worried about our great loan. Those Junkers fear its effect upon the German morale. They’re raising a loan this month, too. If the American people lend their billions now, one and all with a hip-hip-hurrah, it means that America is united and strong. While, if we lend our money half-heartedly, America seems weak and autocracy remains strong.

Money means everything now; it means quicker victory and therefore less bloodshed. We are in the war, and now Americans can have but one opinion, only one wish in the Liberty Loan.


Well, I hope these spies are getting their messages straight, letting Potsdam know that America is hurling back to the autocrats these answers: For treachery here, attempted treachery in Mexico, treachery everywhere – one billion.
For murder of American women and children – one billion more.
For broken faith and promise to murder more Americans – billions and billions more.
And then we will add:
In the world fight for Liberty, our share – billions and billions and billions and endless billions.
Do not let the German spy hear and report that you are a slacker.

Committee on Public Information, Four Minute Man Bulletin, No. 17 (Oct. 8, 1917).


BACK