Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 1908)
unday- Bee PART III. HALF-TONE SECTION. PACES 1 TO 4. Per all th Mowo THE OMAHA DEB Best A". Vest VOL. XXXVIII NO. OMAIIA, SUNDAY" MOKNINC5, DKCEMHKIi ., 1D0S. SINGLE COPY FIVE CENTS. COMMISSION TO STUDY COUNTRY LIFE IN UNITED STATES Inquiry That May Bring Results of Greatest Good to Society in General Set on Foot by President Roosevelt As an Outcome of His Personal Study of Social Conditions in Rural Districts The Omaha Mich., outlined the work of the com ml83lon which has since come into being. He laid it down ac a funda mental proposition that beyond the Important business of producing good crops It was of vastly more Importance that the farms of the United States should produce a crop of manhood and womanhood. This may be stat ing the problem in a very general way, but reduced to Its lowest terms, there are certain concrete things which greatly simplify the whole. yC.-VV.,'. ... ..T : Z X ' rv .. ' . .. .. ,-.v - . - " : . . - 1 KENTON I BUTTER FIELD. QIFTORD PINCHOT. THAT the corn show Is Indeed national and sot sectional In its scope has been proven in many ways, but nothing gives greater emphasis to the fact than the decision of the Commission on Country Life to give two days of the lim ited time allowed It to conferences with the representative men of the farm and allied Industries who will be In Omaha during the coming exposition. It is only recently that the commission was appointed and the president has requested that they make a preliminary report by January 1, that he may embody a portion at least of their recom mendations In the message which he Is preparing to congress. With tl.is time limit set upon them it may be seen that the estimate they l.ave placed on the corn show is no slight one. The Commission on Country Life was appointed as the result of a widespread feeling, which President Roosevelt ha felt snd voiced, that life In the country is not as livable as it should and might easily be. There me conditions, social, educational, sanitary and "foromic which may be Improved with the result t?a. dwellers away from the cities may have many of lh- advantages and escape many of the discom Tcrtf of urban life. " 1 cnnmlssion will be In Omaha for two days err' hey have set as their time the first two days rf t e corn show, December 9 and 10. Invitations IP" rifen issued to J50 representative men to Vt men them informally and give the commission the " " ti . i3 r'. HENRY O. Some of the subjects which are being consid ered by the commission and which will be inves tigated by them during their stay in Omaha may be enumerated here: Improvement of coun try schools so that It will not be necessary for farmers to move to town or send the chil dren there to get graded or high school work. The Improvement of country roads and establishing a better system of caring for them. Practical plans for the establishment of social centers in coun try communities, which will be attractive enough to overcome the tendency to move to the centers of population. Increasing the practical usefulness of the country church. Promotion of intellectual interests by the establishment of libraries, lecture courses, farmers' Institutes and similar affairs. Establishment of a system'of co-operative buying and market ing among farmers, which will aid in making them independent of middle men and troublesome problems of transportation. The creation of a public sentiment which will demand and ob tain a parcels post. Encouragement of various formB of co-operation, such as benefit of their knowledge and insight into the present conditions of mutUal Insurance companies, creameries and other Institutions larm life and the improvement which are possible and practical. An lncrea8e of interest in the aesthetic and sanitary side of I lie men W li U UKVO UCCU M&CU IU ucawao vw wuiu"owm are ot threo classes. First of all are representatives of the farmers themselves. Then there will be men who handle the products of fl!.e larm, including the manufacturers of cereal products, and also ttiere will be men who manage the leading papers devoted to agri culture and rural life. It is the hope of the commission that the hearings will be entirely Informal, that they meet those who best km w and who can best Interpret the real conditions which now pre vail en the farm and who can show in what ways they may be lmj ro: ed. 1 he commission, as selected by the president, was most happily ch rei . It is composed of men. each one of whom Is an expert in his ov n l.ne. and all have proved their worth by the success they have- i lade. As the commission now stands it consists of Prof. L. H. B.-.ilej. d an of the New York Agricultural college, chairman; Henry Yallae of Des Moines, a practical farmer and editor of the Wallace Farmer; President Kenyon L. Butterfield of the Massachusetts Agri cultural college; Gifford Plnchot, government forester; Walter H. Page, editor of the World's Work, and W. A, Beard of Sacramento, Cul. Pinchot An Enthusiast Cf these men probably the one beBt known is Mr. Pinchot. He is of Lti u.iuaual sart. First of all he is a close friend of President KcdHct'elt, he u a millionaire, Is absolutely devoid of political ambi tion a:id is an enthusiast on the subject of preserving and renewing tte foittts of the nation. When he was a young man hi3 father, a iiiulti-iuiiiionalre, sent him to Germany to round out his education t.i out cf their best universities. While there Pinchot fell in love .i . t'jat old German law which requires that when a tree is cut co. u another must be planted in its place. ho mute back to the United States thoroughly in love with the suL.cU oi forestry and has made it the study of his life. Since be uit ai pointed government forester, he has, with the approval and buppoit cf the president, inaugurated a forestry policy which Is mu.cal even to the point of being drastic, and pressure of every col.- livable kind has been brought to have him modify it. But he is a i -u whom it la not easy to get in a corner. He is rich enough ibi . no money consideration can move him. He has no political as. ;aucns and so escapes that usually vulnerable situation. He has tu. ci.itiience of the president, with whom he is thoroughly In ac c r J. He spends many times the salary he receives from the gov ern., ent in paying assistants who could not be secured on the meager j. ay tl o ccvernment allows. In his studies of the forest situation he has been over the entire co '. try. He has lived among the poorest and can tell of many i l u i ent In seeking sleep on the bare floor of some cabin far iro , iv.llzatlon. He knows ot the deadly monotony and the un ending r. onotony which fills the lives of these people, and he be 1 evts that above the work of creating new institutions Is the work i: eiucatlrtg the country dwellers to appreciate those they have and l.'iin a public sentiment which will of itself cause them to demand ard oMatn better conditions. At the present time the commission to on the Pacific coast, v. here they are holding conferences with the leading farmers and r harj men of California. San Francisco. Sacramento and other r!: ces have been visited and the return trip will be begun in time to enable them to reach Omaha on the date announced. :. Jj J a problem which is admitted to be the niost difficult of ell. Thpse are some of the most salient points which come up in such an In vestigation as the commission Is now making There are a thousand others which will suggest themselves to even a superficial student of the peculiar conditions of country life, but enough have been mentioned to give an Idea of the scope of the work to be done and Its Importance to those who till the soil and provide the food of the he said: "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." Even a mere reading of the enun.erated objects which the com mission now has under consideration will show that when they are worked out and put into operation, even In the most gradual and conservative manner, there is going to result a change In country life which will amount to a social revolution, and some of the objects proposed are certain to meet with vigorous and strenuous opposi tion lrom those who are reaping benefits from the present organiza tion of country life. Consider the one project of co-operation among the farmers. If this should be worked out until it becomes a nation-wide fact instead of a theory, it will mean the death-knell of the country town. These centers of life are primarily trading points for the territory which they serve, and secondarily. they furnish the social and educational featirea which are demanded by the population immediately surrounding them. The charge which is mads against these towns is that they aro wasteful. They put a heavy tax on the resources of the farmer without any adequate recompense. They are charged with being socially demoralizing, as failures as In dustrial centers and unsatisfactory from an educa tional standpoint. It is true their schools are better than those in the country, but they are not good and do not furnish the education which should be WALTER H. PAGE. WALLACE. nations. President Roosevelt believes, and so do those whom he has ap pointed on this commis sion, that the city has had its share of atten tion. The problems of the unemployed, the sick and Indigent, the criminal classes, over crowded tenement houses, the fight against the social evil and the liquor traffic, all have been studied for years. Men and women have given years of work and money without end and no means have been spared to find some solution of these evils. Books have been written, lecturers have offered panaceas, pulpits have thundered with explanations, but to many it has never even occurred that there may be problems of country life which are equally Important and which will as well re pay investigation. The commission has little faith in the various plans which have been proposed to Induce people to leave the cities and locate on the farm. The Salvation army and other philanthropic organization! have from time to time undertaken this work and have established colonies of various sorts, but no practical results have been obtained. It Is one of the peculiarities of human nature that even the poorest of the residents of the New York east side prefer their present abject condition to life in the country, and even in Isolated cases where they have been Induced to remove to a farm, the almost always become dissatisfied and refuse to stay, and that ends the experiment so far as they are concerned. Mr. Pinchot stated the' feeling of the entire commission when ft. i f yM"1 .' '.y'- farm life, with reference to more attractive residences, lawns, gardens, etc. Plans for improving the condition of the women of the farm. Followers of Vedanta at Worship What They Expect to Do But the question may well be asked: What is this commission to do.' How are they going about thla great question of making country life more pleasant, more attractive? What can they suggest or ucWse which will be practical and at the same time effective? ill it not result in a voluminous report, which will be filled vlth statistics, but which will be of value from an academic standpoint only? Will they be able to rise above merely material condition! and prove equal to the task of appreciating the inner life of the men and women who have lived face to face with the lonellnesa and, otten. with the drudgery of the agricultural vocation? Iu the minds of the few to whom this project Is not new or novel, but to whom it ha been an ever-present problem for many years, there is nothing vague or uncertain in the work which the commission is to perform. A number of specific problems are In volved, and while their handling will Involve much research, investi gation and tact, yet the results aimed at are clear and well defined and certain objects are being steadily worked for and never lost Bight of. Wore thaa a ta .president, la a speech at Lansing, NEW YORK, Dec. 5. "A new re ligion is born in New York every cay." bo one of the Vedantic faith ex presses herself after the regular Sunday morning service. She points with pride to the fact that Vedanta has flourished here since Swaml Vlvekananda, the founder of the Manhattan sect, came to deliver lectures In New York as delegate to the Parliament of Religions in 1894. At first the followers of Vedanta, few in number, met here and there In hired rooms and halls. In October, 1899, the Vkdanta society established fixed headquar ters, and the fine library, which is one of its most salient features, had its beginning at Tuxedo hall. In tho spring of 1900, augmented and strengthened by the addition of many new members and students, the society took more detlrable quarters at 102 Ea6t Fifty-eighth street. Public lectures were given at Car negie hall and other places and In 1904 the society moved again to a large house at 62 West Seventy-first street. Lately, grown still larger, it has moved to 135 West Eigh tieth street. There are approximately 150 members on the rolls and many students who expect to embrace the Vedantic faith. The fees of members are small, only J 25 a year, pay ment of which secures all the privileges of the services and lectures, the library, talk! with the residing Swamls and the classes in Yoga and free use of the meditation room The admission to membership is not ob tained by the asking, but an examination la made to determine whether the applicant Is moved by mere curiosity or by some deepei motive in seeking membership. "We are not desirous of a large member ship," one of the society explains; "In fact, we look upon that as rather a detriment in many ways. Vedanta Is the religion that one cornea to after one has passed through the preliminaries of other faiths, and so, in the nature of things, it could not reach the great mass of people." The Sun reporter asks what the Vedan tins think of the Emmanuel movement ChiisHon Science and other similar creeds. "Christian Science." one says quickly, "la, at.ci all, biily the Americanized Budd hism, or the religion of the Oriental brought down to and adopted to our western condi tions. Mrs. Mary Baker O. Eddy did not , hesitate to admit in her earlier books the help that ahe had obtained from Hindu teaching. "When people come here and aay that they have backachea or headaches and de sire to ga'n relief we tell them very courte ously that what they probably need Is the Christian Science treatment or that ot the Emmanuel, for we do not wish to have the Vedantic religion connocted in the minds of the public with physical ailment. Vedanta does not turn Its back on such necessary parts ot our existence as the physical help in time of sickness, but wants to reach those through the spiritual path." As the conversation proceeds people begin to drop in for the regular Sunday service. Tbtre is a noticeable lack of the freakiuess iu dress and manner that is associated in th public mind with strange creeds. The men, who predominate in number, are of all ages, from the young business man with alert glance and clear eyes to the ray haired veteran who, to Judge from the ab sence of worry lines, has certainly gained some help from the Oriental doctrine. The women wear up-to-date costumes. The chairs in the two rooms are soon Billed and at 11 precisely a young woman, one of the officers of the society, enters with a lighted taper. She approaches the altar on the side on which are vases of Easter lilies, sticks ot Incenso and candles in cobra cat dlesticks. Having lighted candles and incense, she takes her place with the rest of the waiting members. Besides tho altar, the room set apart for worship la practically without ornament. On a raised platform in the center is a high chair with carved back and above it a star, in the center of which is an inscription o' which "I am He" is somewhat near a literal rendering. The toning of the room, paper and hangings is quiet and there Is a certain atmosphere of peace apparent to even the casual dropper-ln, while the members bask in it viBlbly. Someone leans over and explains the symbols of worship. "The altar stands far the altar of the heart and is dedicated to the Supreme Spirit, which is the soul of our souls and whose nature is Absolute Existence, Intelligence and Bliss. It Is dedicated to the self-effulgent light of the Sun of Infinite Wisdom, which dispels the darkness of ignorance in the human heart, "It is not meant for any individual spirit, but for the Infinite spirit which is the source of all personal manifestations and divine in carnations. A worshipper of Christ should think of Christ upon the altar, a worshipper ef Buddha or Krishna, Shiva, Jehovah or Allah should think of his ideal as seated upon this symbolic altar of the heart. "In every case it should be remembered that the altar stands as the symbol ot the heart of the worshipper. Names and forms are merely the manifestations ot the one nameless and formless infinite being to whom the Vedanta altar Is dedicated." The speaker slU back and loses herself in a reverie that her explanation has evoked, while on the other side a student takes up tho lesson and proceeds with the explanation of the other symbols. "The light of the candle is the symbol of the light of the Intellect. It is the light of the pure Intellect that reveals the spirit seated upon the altar of the heart. Purified heart and intellect must be united before spiritual .realization is attained. ' "Flowers ara symbolic ot the good thoughts and pure feelings which should be offered to the supreme spirit. When fruits are offered they stand for the fruits of our works. "The followers of Vedanta who live up to their professed creed spend half an hour every day In meditation. Meditation, we bel'eve, is the most important step in the path of spiritual progress." Like the first speaker, the second whis perer becomes suddenly quiet, lost in one of the trances which pervade the assembly and to which the perfume of flowers and Incense lend encouragement. Soft steps Approach. The worshippers become more alert, although they do not turn their heads. Coming through the side dcor, tall, erect and graceful, Swaml Para mananda enters. He does not look on close scrutiny more than 25. His face is of the ageless type. He Is a fine type of the intellectual Hindu. ' Without his saying a word his personality is felt at once. He sits In the carved chair, allows his dark eyes to g'.ance over the worshippers and, clasping his hands in front of him, in vites to silence. ' His own eyes close and the eyes of the worshippers follow suit. Swaml Paramananda is robed in an apricot-colored gown which falls a little below tlii, knee and if fastened about the waist with a sash of silk of the same color. Like the later swarais who have come to America and discarded the turban on account of tho comment It excited, he has no head cov?ring and his black hair is worn short. His re pose is absolute, there Is not a motion of an eyelath, not a twitch of a nervous muscle. To all Intents and purposes he Is a bronze idol, carved and curious, not a human being. Finally, the long, tapering fingers on his ki res unlace, the eyes open, he stands erect and begins in a strange singsong recitative to Intone a prayer 'In Sanskrit, which be translates Into English with a slight accent: May He protect us from all evils. May both the teacher and the taught enjoy to gether the blessings of the Lord. May what ever we study be well studied and strength ening to us. May we never hate each other. Om. Santl, Santi, Santl. (Peace. Peaoe, Peace.) O Light of the Universe from the' UMeal to the real lead us. i-'rora darkness to light lead us. From death to Immortal ity lead us. Peace: Peace; Ptacei The last "peace" dies away in the per fumed silence. Asain the Swami invites to rubdltution and again, Idol like, he gives ex ample ot one of the most persistent articles of the cult the need of absolute spiritual relaxation and mental rest. By this time the worshippers themselves have lost any semblance of restlessness. Like the Swaml, they are able to attain per fect rigidity of body while the mind rests. "You cannot." he says a little later to them, "think along straight lines unless you sit straight, unless you walk erect." There are no drooping shoulders visible, even those ot (Continued oa Page Two. J, C. S. BARRETT. given to the boys and the girls who are to be the farmers of the next generation. N The decline of the country town is further forecasted by tho extension of co-operation in buying and selling the necessities and products of the farm. Rural free delivery has already shown how this is becoming true. The parcels post will augment this condition and the establishment of a postal savings bank would withdraw an other important prop, as it would enable the farmer to handle his money in a manner entirely independent of the local financial in stitutions. The establishment of social centers In the country, along with the improvement of the country schools, is anether long step in tho same direction. Farmers' social clubs, with well furnished rooms, pool and billiard tables and reading rooms, have already become an established fact In many places, and as the idea grows and acquires a foothold in the country generally it will be no longer necessary for the farmer to go to the county seat or nearest town to meet his friends and acquaintances or to enjoy social Intercourse, As lecture courses are added, libraries extended and institutes are formed, he will find the social life be desires almost at his door and with the establishment of township graded and high schools with courses adapted to the community the advantage of the small town as tho educational center shall have passed away. Instead of the usual cut-and-drled curriculum as now offered In the town schools. It is expected that there will be an effort to add subjects of direct Interest and value to the children who live and who expect to live on the farm. Elemental chemistry, the adaptation of some knowledge of geology to the study of soil conditions, prac tical botany and horticulture; these and many other lines as yet unthought of, would add an element of Interest and practical worth to the schools which has never heretofore been supplied. , Good Roads Problem The good roacs problem which the commission is taking up Is' by no means new. For years the agitation has been spreading and every means possible has been employed to awaken an intelligent public interest in the subject, though the success thus far has been indifferent. And yet, good roads are the very foundation without which none of the other betterments for farm dwellers are possible. The ideal school system, the lecture courses, the cluo rooms, even the co-operative business projects, will fall abort of the mark unless there are good roads. In the cities this problem has already been satisfactorily worked out In the majority of cases. In the case of country roads, however, the solution Is more difficult. One great reason for this is that it la a work which must be carried on with state aid, through the instru mentality of the state legislatures, and this has often been rendered impossible through the Indifference of the farmers themselves. In the minds of many good roads enthusiasts, the problem will be best worked out through the co-operation of the national, tho state and the local governing units. Much along this line has been already accomplished. In many states the national government has furnlBhed experts to aid the local authorities In building tho best possible roads with the material and the resources available. An other proposition which is being enthusiastically advocated by Con gressman Anthony of Kansas, iia well as others, is for the govern ment to build a great military highway from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Riley through the state of Kansas. They are the two largest military posts in the United States, and it Is argued that such a road would be a national example of tho benefit which would accrue from national and state, as well as local co-operation. In the minds of the commission nothing Is of more importance than the good roads movement and no subject will receive mors careful attention from them. f The report which the commission will make next month will bo merely preliminary and Indeed It Is in this light that all the work so far accomplished is regarded, for it is recognized that it will bo a matter ot years to bring about the changes and improvements which will have been mentioned. Commissioner Wallace is authority for the statement that tho first report will recommend better roads, a better system of country schools, a postal savings bank and a limited parcels post as tho ob jects to be first sought by those who would make country life more attractive. Mr. Wallace further says that the president will send to congress a special message urging legislation along the lines de manded by the farmers. In the United States the farmers hold the balance of power and if through this commission and in other ways they come to a realiza tion of what they may and should have, all the things sought for will be realized and the conditions of rural life will quietly but cer tainly change to an extent which can bo described only as social revolution.
