T1IK OMAHA SUNDAY HKK: NKITKMHKII 27, 1P0.
MnBfrialJPower to jpalha, SotSIb (Omaha " and Wteiiiilly
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Omaha Electric Light and Power Company
ass
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President Roosevelt's Plan to Improve Conditions of Life on the Farm
A8HINOTON, Sept. 28. People
W wno nav, had best opportunities
to know and understand Theo-
m dore Roosevelt have said that
nlB Brent distinguishing, dom-
'lnatlng Intellectual character
istlc Is his highly developed social sens.
It Is this that makes him resolvs all prob
lems of government and administration Into
terms of ethics; that makes him preach
sermons In stute papers and from the
stump; that Inspires his mirvelous resource
fulness of Ideas for bettering the condition
of his fellow men; that leads him Instlnot
Ively to gather around him men who under
stand what he Is trying to do, and sym
pathize with the ambition.
It Is this dominating social sense that
moves him one day to order prosecution of
some aggregation, of selfish Interests whloh
lie has become convinced Is unsocial; on the
next, to press for passage legislation to
prevent discrimination by publlo service
corporations, the next to call a congress
of governors to consider the Immense prob
lem of conserving natural resouroes, and
that finally has reoently moved him to ap
point a commission of experts for the study
of means to Improve the country life, to
make It better, fuller, broader and more
attractive.
The project thus stated may seem a bit
vague and academic; but resolved Into Its
elements It Is a great enterprise which In
Its development win be found to Involve
the most practical handling of a number of
Kperlftc problems. It Is In one way a oorol.
lary to the proposal for effective conserva
tion of natural wealth; but It Is a more
complex and difficult problem because It
Involves dealing with people, rather than
, with things; with souls, rather than with
acres and corporations.
This problem of the farm and Its
economics and Its life has for a long time
been interesting the president. He laid the
foundation of the present movement in the
speech at Lansing over st year ago, when
he told his hearers that, beyond the very
Important business of producing good crops,
the farm must be made to produce the
vastly more Important output of good man
hood and good womanhood, all of which
sounds well, but still exceedingly vague.
To be speolflo, the movement for the uplift
of the rural population Involves such prob
lems as these:
Improvement of country schools so that
It shall not be necessary for farmers to
"move to town" In order to "give the
children some schooling;" a process which
generally takes both parents and children
away from the farm, to the ultimate mis
fortune of pares, children and farm.
Improvement of country roads.
Establishment of social centers In rural
communities and development of a doclal
life which shsll be attractive enough tj
counteract the gregarious Instinct always
tending to draw peoplo together Into towns.
Improvement and broadening of the prac
tical usefulness of the church In the
country.
Establishment of libraries, lectures, farm
ers' Institutes, etc., arid general promotion
of Intellectual Interests.
Promotion of co-operative buying and
marketing among farmers, which shall free
them from the Impositions of the middle
men end transportation Interests.
Propagation of intelligent Interest In, un
derstanding of and demand for the parcels
post, so that it may be brought about.
Encouragement of such forms of co
operation as the mutual insurance com
pany, the community creamery, etc.
Improvement of farm life from both the
sanitary and the esthetic sides by inducing
Interest to better arrangement of the farm
Members of Commission Appointed to Study Rural Social Life in America
i 4-:r -f . ; I 1
'Sk'
OIFFOKD PINCHOT",
Washington.
I
Dcs Moines.
KENTON1 BUTTKRnEIJ,
Massachusetts.
'
WALTER H. PAOB,
North Carolina-
home plat, construction of more attractive
residences and more economical farm build
ings, with more general diffusion on the
"modern conveniences" than the farm has
thus far known.
Helping the woman of the farm to
Improve the conditions of her life, which
by all the students of the problem Is con
ceded to constitute the most difficult pro
blem of all.
These are only a few of the questions
which the president's country life commis
sion must consider. They are mentioned
as among the most striking, and as sug
gestive of the great scope of work for the
farming population which Is proposed lo
be taken up.
President Roosevelt believes, and so do
the gentlemen whom he has designated as
his commissioners, that the city has bad
Its share of attention; that the country
needs and Is entitled to Intelligent con
sideration. To keep the people from desert
ing the farm for the city Is a great pro
blem nowadays all over the world. Eng
land has grappled with It and been hope
lessly defeated; It presents a decadent
asricultuie and overcrowded cities full of
Ignorant and vicious elements, as a result
of this defeat. Germany faces the problem
with misgivings; her defeat has not f yet
been made so signal and overwhelming as
that of England, but the tendency to con
centrate In the cities Is marked and alarm
ing. Austria and Italy confront like con
ditions, especially northern Italy. France
hss best stemmed the tide towari the cUlo,
France being a country of small holdings
of land, while tiie others are countries of
land'n rd proprietors and tenant farmers;
and as one cf the dangerous aspects 1t U
urged thst the United States strongly
tends in the s&me direction.
At the outset. It is the opinion of the
commissioners that such projects as the
"homecroft'' and Salvation army enter
prises, to Induce people to leave the city
and go back to the country, present a use
less and Ineffective waste of effort. The
one trouble is that the people will not move
In that direction; at least, not till the coun
try Is made more attractive to them than
now. It is useless to moralise and preach
about it. "The people whom we regard as
unfortunates, on New York's lower East
Side, would rather stay right there and
continue living the life of the city, than
to move away to the really better condi
tions of the country; and there's the end of
It," said Glfford Plnchot, one of the com
missioners. "We must make our effort to
keep the people on the farm, once they are
there; not to toll them away from the city
to the farm."
Mr. Pinchot is that rara avis, a practical
altruist; he la a millionaire, who instead of
driving a coach and six over the beautiful
roads of England, or automoblltng In
France, for mete pleasure, rolls up his
sleeves and works without vacations for
the government at a per annum salary
which represents his private income for a
week or two, and then pays a good slice of
the salary to piece out the meager allow
ance made by the government for a private
secretary, in order -that he may have the
secretary he wants. He has been studying
these problems for years. As chief forester
he has lived much smong the poorest coun
try people. He knows their conditions and
their needs. He can tell of nights spent
In the effort to sleep on the floors of their
humble but hospitable homes; of meals of
"sowbelly" and pone; of the deadly monot
ony of their lives and the unending drudg
ery of their work. He believes that this
work Is one of education as well as of institution-creating;
of making the people
understand; of Instilling a social conscious
ness, gn ambition and aspiration for better
things. He believes that new institutions
must Indeed be created; but before these
can be secured, there must be aroused an
aspiration for them and for tne better con
ditions which they will bring. Bring ths
people to know what better road laws, bet
ter school laws, better corporation laws,
better transportation and communication,
co-operation in buying and selling, elimina
tion of the middleman, establishment of
social centers, libraries, lectures, etc., edu
cation in the things which come close to
the farm and Its life; better houses and
more conveniences, with bigger profits and
therefore a larger margin to spend In bet
ter living; bring the people to understand
what all these things will mean to them,
and that these things are what the new
movement seeks to give them, and Mr.
Pinchot believes there will be short delay
about getting It under headway.
President Roosevelt has named as his
rommia&loners, Prof. L. H. Bailey of New
York Agricultural college at Ithaca, who
Is one of the recognized experts In these
studies; Henry Wallace of Dea Moines,
a practical farmer, who knows actual farm
ing conditions all over the country; Presi
dent Kenyon I. Butterfield of the Massa
chusetts Agricultural College; Gifford
Pinchot, forester of the government; and
Walter H. Page, editor of The World s
Work. These gentlemen will rrwet shortly,
probably In this city, and prepare for their
work, on which the president has asked
tUem to report before January 1 so that he
may have opportunity to make recommen
dations to congress as to aspects which
may necessitate legislation.
This report will be merely preliminary.
It Is deslgued to have a great, permanent,
organized movement developed from this
beginning. It Is recognized as a work of
years, of decades; Indeed, a work I hat w.ll
never he finished, If It Is rightly begun and
well prosecuted.
Social and economic changes of utmost
significance may readily be forcast si
results of this work. Thus, the commission
will make most careful Inquiry Into the
benefits and the need of co-operation. Co
operation among farmers means nothing
less than the death-knell of the country
town. Primarily a trading center, and
secondarily a social and eductlonal center,
It Is supported by the population imme
diately surrounding it. The Indictment
against the country town charges that it
Is economically wasteful In that it takes
heavy toll from the producing community
without any adequate compensation; that
It la socially demoralising, and that as an
Industrial center It is a failure. Its schools
are better than those of the country dis
trict; but they are not good, and are In
nowise adapted to the education of the
boys and girls who are to be farmers.
Bo, Inevitably, the extension of practical
co-operation In buying and selling the
farm's necessaries and products, and better
transportation, means the decay of the
country town. It means, if such careful
students as Prof. Bailey, who has gone
deeply Into this problem, can be taken as
authority, that the farmer would get more
nearly what he Is entitled to from his
products, while the people who now make
up the population of the country town
would themselves be gradually redistributed
back to the ranks of economic producers;
some would become farmers, some would
go to the Industrial centers. Thax'dlsinte
gration of the country town is Inevitable
when rural free delivery shall remove ex
cuse for maintaining Its postoffice, when
postal savings batiks shall enable the
farmer to handle his money most easily,
when co-operation shall have reduced the
amount of business for the country "gen
eral store," and when parcels post shall
have brought the markets of the olty to
the farmer's door. Then the Improvement
of country schools will make It possible
for growing families to be educated with
out leaving the farm; and the establish
ment of social centers, libraries, halls. In
stitutes, lecture courses, etc., will remove
the social excuse for the country tuwn'a
existence.
This Is rsther a big problem with which
to grapple. It involves running counter to
a vast power of Interest and prejudice; a
power which has thus far been success
fully appealed to in the effort to prevent
adoption of the parcels post adjunct to the
postal service, for instance. But, urge those
who believe the country town an excuseless
Institution, when it Is abolished the farmer
will co-operate In marketing bis producta
HIb huiu-r and eggs Instead of being pro
duced at home and marketed at the country
store by the pound and dozen and paid
for "in trade," will be marketed directly
tc the city. In quantities; the butter will
be made at the co-operative creamery and
bold for cash; the grain will pay no ex
cessive tolls to the elevator combine, but
will be bandied at coet by the co-operative
elevator And so on through the list of the
farm's output.
Bo much for the economic revolution a
quiet and gradual one, of course, and one
which In truth would finally benefit all
concerned. If those who advocate It are
right. The educational changes would be
no less striking. It Is in mind that, Instead
of having subdlstrtct schools scattered all
over each rural township, a system should
be developed under which a single central
school should be for the township, with a
good, sanitary, modern school building. In
tlus should be conducted an organized and
graded school, with better paid teachers and
with facilities for real educational work.
Instead of having ons teacher at 135 a month
teaching the three "r's" to a half score
of Infants In summer, and to a half hundred
youth of ail ages in winter, there would be
skilled teachers in each grade, some higher
courses and good work throughout the year
for those who wanted It. More than all
this, the text books for country schools and
the courses of study would be designed for
the special conditional of the country. There
would be effort at adapting the education
to the needs of the children; elemental
chemistry, the adaptation of some knowl
edge of geology to study of sot aoadltlons.
practical botany and hortlculture-the
would constitute useful and attractive as
pects to the curriculum In the country
school, along with many other things
equally appropriate but now unknown.
When It comes to the problem of bettor
roads and this Is essential to working out
all the other features of tho ideal townlrp
legislation Is necessary, and It must bj
secured from the stale. Co operation of
tho nation, the state and tho local govern
mental division In development of better
roads Is the Ideal of many; perhaps Im
practical and chimerical, but yet it s In
many minds. Good roads are necessary to
centralized schools, because with icntral
Ized schools there must be transpjitat rm
of the pupils at public expense, which
would be Impossible without undue, ex
pense. Likewise better roads are nereis ny
before the Idcil social and Intellectual de
velopment may be secured; before th.j peo
ple will go to tin: l'cturts which will b
held In the assembly room of the township
school or church; before the township li
brary and reading room, for which quar
ters would lie set off in the same ealauli.Vi
mcut, can he patronized.
The roads problem will come In fur much
and pruyi rful cmislilcrati'm hy the com
mission. Years of agitation and urgent ap
peal have thus far aroused the people of
the cities to the need of better rcad-i. Tj
get laws through legislatures, looking tj
better roads, Is commonly rendered m a',
difficult because of the conservatism of the
farmers themselves, who would be ohlef
beneficiaries. Yet It Is conceded that this
must sumehow be accomplished as a very
beginning of the whole scheme of social
reform for the country.
One Interesting aspect of this Inquiry will
be the light 11 will shed on the tendency
to tenant farming In this country; absen
tee landlordism and tenant management; on
the question of farm labor, and wages, and
on the reasonableness of current prices at
which lands are held, and of rentals
charged for them in different sections of
the country. It Is well known that lands
of equal economlo value, located in differ
ent sections, are of widely different values
In the market. The reasons for this will
constitute an Important light on the whole
question of farm conditions.
In different sections of the oountry the
problem of the farm Is vastly different. In
the south, southwest and throughout the
frontier regions, conditions ara worse then
in the rich agricultural states of the mid
dle west. These latter have all they need,
materially; they have but to be taught how
best to conserve and expend it to get best
results. Again, the east, with its aban
doned farms and decadent agrioulture pre
sents yet another problem. The dry farm
ing country and the irrigated regions are
peculiar to themselves, and have their own
special sets of problems. And so on
through all aeotions and circumstances.
And at the end of It all there Is the
haunting thought that perhaps by its very
success tli work might become a greater
failure; that Is, to explain the paradox,
that the boys and girls of ths farm, raised,
educated and equipped under these Im
proved circumstances, might take that bet
ter equipment away to town and blithely
set it to work there, utteny unmindful that
they were given It all in order to keep
them on the farm. Suppose their posses
sion of better equipment to meet the condi
tions and demands of city life should
merely Increase their disposition to go to
the cltyT Then IndeeS would It be doubl
a failure.
But none of the students of ths problem
seriously believes ths result wfll be any
thing of that sort.