Rural Health and Welfare Part 2

Still farther away from the mere task is the effort that devises the plan; adjusts part to part, decides upon materials suitable for each part, establishes the ideal of excellence for every part and for the whole, and foresees its actual uses. Invention of every kind ill.u.s.trates the exertion of foresight in planning, but such exertion is not confined to technical invention. The farmer who lies awake nights to plan his year's work so that he may have the largest returns for his undertakings in marketable products, gives the same kind of effort as the inventor. A good name for this is speculative labor,-an exertion to foresee and provide for future needs of society.

In much of farm life all these are mingled: the same man devises the plan, executes his own ideas, and performs the tasks himself. But every one realizes the difference of success growing out of the planning. Many a good man needs to follow another's plans, and not a few "work better for others than they can for themselves." In some great undertakings the projector and planner, the contractor and overseer and the worker of details are necessarily separated. This may be well ill.u.s.trated in the construction of a great building, for which an architect gives all attention to a plan, and may require a considerable force of a.s.sistants and draftsmen to embody his ideas on paper; then contractors, one or several, secure material, employ men and direct them in placing materials in form and combination to suit the plans; but a host of workmen move as directed at the will of a foreman to pile brick, mortar, stone, iron or timber according to the plan. The labor of the architect makes possible the entire structure-makes the work for all that enter into his labors.

This cla.s.sification into speculative, executive and operative labor helps to a fair estimate in sharing the proceeds of combined labors, and gives a proper importance to the inventive and foreseeing energy which causes the growth of civilization. _That form of exertion which has done most to meet the world's wants is speculative labor._

_Invention in farming._-A capital ill.u.s.tration of speculative labor, productive in the highest degree, is the invention of reaping machinery.

The inventor has gained riches by his contrivance, but the world has gained far more by his foresight and ingenuity. Similar energy has been put into all labor-saving machinery, and still plays an important part in devising the best uses for it.

Every farmer has a similar need of planning for every field he plows.

There is a certain draft for each horse, a certain speed for the plow, a certain adjustment of harness to the team, which gives a full return for the force employed. A failure to find this causes waste. All the effort of scientific research into causes and conditions of growth or disease of plants and animals is speculative labor, out of which the next advance of agriculture must come. The mere operative power of a laborer can be supplanted by brute force or by machinery, but nothing can ever supplant the intelligent foresight that invents, plans and devises the end to be reached, and the ways and the means for reaching it.

The very foundation of any success in farming is clear foresight and distinct planning for a succession of crops, each to be tended, harvested, stored and marketed in the very nick of time. The best energy of every farmer is properly given to finding what crop to raise, how and when to have it ready for the world that is going to need it. He best meets his own daily wants when "Mr. Contrivance" stands by him in all his efforts.

This contrivance is the chief exertion of a successful farmer's life.

Chapter IV. Capital Defined And Cla.s.sified.

_Capital distinguished from wealth._-Whenever material wealth is used not directly in meeting present wants, but to produce more wealth suited to future wants, it is called capital. Any store of good things devoted only to meeting wants as they come is thought of as wealth, as well as possible capital, since at any time it may be made the means of creating other wealth to more than take its place. The distinction grows wholly out of the uses of wealth, not its forms. A horse used, or to be used, as a force in production by drawing loads is counted as capital; but if used for mere pleasure-riding is only wealth, which leaves no material return when consumed. Thus the same horse may, in the hands of a breeder, a trainer, or a liveryman be capital, but in the hands of a fancier or a pleasure seeker be only wealth, to be used as wanted.

Wealth in dwellings or public buildings constructed for enjoyment rather than protection of a working community is not capital, and may be destroyed by fire or storm without serious disturbance of industry. The loss is bravely met, the hardship endured and extra energy put into restoration. A farmer may lose a fine house and by living in less comfort for a time restore it, while the loss of his teams or his barns may cripple his industry. In the great Chicago fire of 1871 the wealth destroyed is estimated at $50,000,000, while the loss of actual capital may have been only $5,000,000. An energetic use of the capital remaining wrought apparent wonders in the restoration of wealth. Indeed, the total capital of our country is supposed to be only three times the annual product of industry, though a century of labor could not restore it if destroyed entirely, because effective tools would be wanting.

The capital of an individual is such a portion of his wealth as he is using to maintain and increase his wealth. The capital of a country includes all the farms, so far as they are made such by improvements directly or indirectly, including all ways and means of communication and transportation, for roads contribute to all goods drawn over them; all buildings devoted to systems of production, including necessary protection of laborers themselves; all tools, machines and contrivances for power; all animals employed in connection with industry; all materials of construction or growth; all materials consumed in securing and maintaining power, as fuel, lubricating oil, etc., or in performing operations of manufacture, as dye stuffs; subsistence for the workers, the brutes they use, and the families which keep up the life and comfort of the people; the necessary stock in trade, that all wants may be readily supplied; all the machinery of trade for ready transfers, including any actual wealth in form of money; all the governmental machinery for protection and maintenance of order, as a first essential to wealth-producing.

All these are more simply grouped in their different relations to labor under three cla.s.ses: first, as sustaining labor by food, clothing, protection and material on which to work; second, as aiding efficiency by tools, machines and stored up forces; third, as stimulating exertion by reducing present anxieties and arousing more far-reaching plans for future undertakings, ill.u.s.trated by possession of satisfactory stocks of goods or comfortable homes for families.

_Capital a time-saver._-All these forms of wealth serve in production by extending the possible waiting between an effort of any kind and the greater satisfaction secured by it. No community could begin farming as a business until it had secured housing and seeds and tools and provisions in some form for most of a year's sustenance. All the capital that constructs a great thoroughfare is used in getting ready to satisfy wants in many future years. Capital furnishes subsistence for laborers of every kind during those years of waiting for a product. This is true capital, because the object of its use is a greater product of wealth; but the product may be long delayed. So all acc.u.mulated wealth in every form represents sustained labor during the past. Professor Taussig estimates the acc.u.mulation of subsistence in all existing goods at five years of labor for the community. The total value of farms in our country is just about five times the average annual product of the farms, though a large portion of the land is unused.

_Capital circulating or fixed._-A further distinction is desirable between capital in food, fuel or stock in trade, which may be turned at a single use into new wealth, and capital in buildings, bridges, roads and farms, which may be used many times in adding new wealth before they entirely disappear or give place to new forms of capital. The first is called circulating capital, and the last fixed capital.

The degree of permanence in fixed capital is indefinite of course-even drains vary in permanence-and the line between the two is not always easily drawn, yet the distinction is real. Most men distinguish "the plant" in any enterprise from "the current supplies," and realize that some fit proportion exists between them. A farm well equipped can not be handled to advantage without a proportional investment in current supplies. Many a renter cannot pay his rent for want of means to work his farm profitably. If the farm were given him, he would still be hampered by the same lack of consumable goods to turn at once into larger products.

Many a "land poor" farmer would gain at once by exchange of acres for more "current supplies" for his farming, such as food for help, feed for teams and stock, seed or fertilizers for his crops, or young stock to consume the raw product of his fields. In the fourteenth century the stock of European farms was worth three times the value of the farms. Similar conditions are found now in some newer portions of the United States. It is impossible to estimate exactly the existing ratio between fixed and circulating capital from statistics at hand. Farmers in older, more developed regions can use, without suffering, a larger per cent of fixed capital than pioneers can, because the circulation is more rapid. For the same reason the raising of staple annual crops gives place to double cropping, dairying and full feeding as land grows more valuable, frequent returns serving instead of large circulating capital.

In general, the wealth of a community is better judged by its fixed capital, while its thrift is known from its circulating capital. Fixed capital is always secured by consumption of circulating capital. The extension of railroads always implies great reduction of ready supplies.

Money _between_ individuals and communities ranks as circulating capital, but _within_ any community the stock of money needed for domestic trade may be thought of as a permanent machine. Even machinery may be circulating capital in the hands of one who manufactures or sells it, though fixed when located in its work, and for the whole community is "fixed" as soon as its destined use is determined by its form. Thus the distinction, though real, is flexible. Its importance in discussing the industries of a country, or in understanding the relations of various industries to each other and to the world, will appear later in the book.

_Capital unproductive._-Capital is sometimes said to be unproductive in contrast with _productive_, although the very nature of capital requires productiveness. The occasion for this distinction is in the fact that means devoted to future production of wealth in a particular way may be years in returning the product; the destination is evident and the return confidently expected, yet the owner is without income or near prospect of income. Such ventures are seen in the reclaiming of waste lands by drainage, the equipment of extensive mines, and the construction of d.y.k.es and levees. Land held for sale or use in the indefinite future is a most common ill.u.s.tration of unproductive capital.

If wealth in some readily exchangeable form is intended for productive use, but is held for a satisfactory opportunity, it is sometimes called free or _floating capital_. It may be available for any temporary use, and so afloat among a variety of investments. Some great enterprises, like the building of the Suez ca.n.a.l, are begun in view of attracting floating capital. Borrowers generally look to such acc.u.mulations for their supply of funds.

_Capital in farming._-A clear view of the uses of capital may be gained from estimating the needs of a young farmer just starting out for himself.

For all his equipments he must depend upon the time and effort of somebody embodied in form of tools, material and sustenance, for capital in any form is simply this. A farm of 160 acres improved, or already out of the crude pioneer stage, represents about ten years of one man's time, say $3,000. A house suitably furnished for himself and his young wife means three years of time, $1,000. His barns and corrals and intersecting fences cost two years of time, $600. His team and stock and the necessary tools make nearly three years of time again, $900. Seed, feed, provisions, clothing, insurance and wages for help, all to be used before his first year's crop is sold, require at least $500 worth of time, or nearly two years more. The needed capital for such a farm thus represents full eighteen years of the time of an able-bodied man, or $6,000. If we add to this the cost of bringing to mature age and intelligence the three able and efficient workers needed to manage and work that farm, we shall credit the past, without counting the time and energy of the young people themselves in growing and learning and gaining their skill, with thirty years of labor; $10,000, put into the farm and its occupants as they stand ready for a year's work. This acc.u.mulation is likely to show all the forms of capital described.

_Capital conservative._-Capital, especially in fixed forms, being in its nature the conserving of energy, is necessarily an incentive to conservatism in society, since any great and sudden changes in the habits of a community involve rapid consumption or destruction of capital.

Capital is said to be "timid." This statement means simply that all owners and users of capital who realize the time required for acc.u.mulating it hesitate to risk its destruction in doubtful enterprises, uncertain confidence or venturesome experiments in government or financiering. War, riots, or even revenue laws, may destroy fixed capital that has been the growth of a century. A small change in tariff laws has rendered useless immense factories. For the same reason farmers, having so large a fixed capital in farms and farm machinery, do not take kindly to political changes involving doubtful consequences. States where the capital is still circulating may readily venture upon experiments financial or political, since little time is lost even in destructive results. People in new countries take risks readily because they have less to risk.

Chapter V. Personal Attainments.

_Acc.u.mulated energies._-The force acc.u.mulated through personal effort in training, education and discipline is similar to capital in the fact that it represents a period of time between the effort and its full accomplishment, and that it is devoted to production of wealth. It differs from capital in being immaterial human energy, exceedingly useful in combination with capital, but a part of the laborer, not his tools. It is gained by devoting time, attention, thought and practice to acquiring methods of greatest efficiency in any act of labor. It requires surplus energy in labor at any task to gain, not only the material result, but power to do the same task better and more easily next time. All the time expended in acquiring such powers is put into the value of what is finally produced. Any peculiar tact or ability developed becomes an essential part of individual powers, and its product, like that of any form of exertion, becomes the property of the individual.

In this way, not only is the cost of gaining skill or education, or of establishing habits, returned in the product, but often a considerable increment, or gain, from the larger demand for such abilities. A skilled artisan's labor meets more urgent demands for its use.

_Skill._-If this extra exertion takes the form of training muscles, nerves and brain to act with speed and accuracy as judgment directs, we call the attainment _skill_. Even if the action required is simple, dexterity comes only by practice, and in special cases may multiply the product many times. Two men may shear sheep with equal accuracy, but one has three times the speed of the other. His skill secures employment at three times the wages of the other, with profit to the employer, because the extra speed saves room, attendance and risk over employing three men at one-third the rate. The shearer profits by the rarity of his skill in getting the wages of three men, with the support of but one, and in more constant employment. When the operation is more complex, and success involves larger interests, skill counts indefinitely more, and as society grows complex the room for exercise of skill becomes larger and more varied. The wide difference between pioneer farming and market-gardening ill.u.s.trates this. The history of agriculture shows the slow development of skill in the furrow, the ditch and hedge, and in the handling and breeding of stock. Farmers once barely scratched an acre a day with their rude plow and were long in learning the use of a harrow. No attempt, according to Professor Rogers, to improve the breeds of cattle and sheep appeared before the eighteenth century in England. Most early improvements in farming skill came from the industrious monks, whose intelligence fostered skill.

The advantage given by skill perpetuates skill from generation to generation through apt.i.tude and superior training, and so the people of a neighborhood or a country may inherit such power in contrast with other regions. "Yankee ingenuity" has become proverbial through such natural extension.

_Discipline._-Education serves the same purpose by acquisition of knowledge in such ways as to give wisdom in its application. It involves an exercise of intelligence to the establishing of sound judgment. Broader than skill in its range, it increases the possibilities of skill as storage of power. The skill of the surgeon would never have existed but for the brightening of his intelligence by education. The electrician's training depends upon a broad foundation of education in knowledge of the matters he handles so dextrously. In farming, this source of stored up power has until very recently been ignored. While men in many professions were multiplying their individual power by spending youth in school, the farm boy would be simply trained at the plow, without the enlargement of practice in thinking required elsewhere. Such education has become at length, like skill, a requisite of each generation in order that our civilization may be maintained. For this the states build and the nation sustains agricultural colleges.

_Character._-Just as important, though often overlooked in enumerating economic forces, is the acquired personal habit of self-control. Without it both skill and education avail but little, and it may do its work independently of both. "Tried and trusted" expresses our estimate of the importance of long practice of virtue in meeting obstacles. The formation of habits-personal, business and moral,-is a matter of time and discipline. It costs exertion through a series of years; but the power acc.u.mulated may be needed only once, in some great emergency.

The character of the workman, the tradesman and the farmer enters more or less into the product of his toil and gives it value. Though I may not care from whence come the shoes I wear, or the b.u.t.ter I eat, I do care for the genuineness of both, for which I must depend upon the genuine character of the makers and sellers of both. This, too, is maintained from generation to generation by its successful use in acquiring both power and wealth. It cannot be had without the expenditure of time, energy and means of the fathers and mothers of one age upon their successors.

_Importance of attainments._-All these personal attainments, whether confined to individuals or extended over whole communities, must be reckoned among producing powers and reckoned with in estimate of earnings.

A community deficient in either is low in ability to supply its own wants or the world's wants, and no amount of material capital can take their place. They are superior to capital in being less destructible by fire or flood, and more easily turned to account in new enterprises as needed. No capital is perpetual, even in most fixed forms, nor is any personal attainment sure to remain of direct use; but the latter has a larger expectation of usefulness and greater permanence in the economy of nations.

Chapter VI. Combination Of Forces For Individual Efficiency.

_Ideal manliness._-Every community has highest efficiency and best civilization when each individual member has the largest range of abilities to meet wants, and the largest range of wants to be met. An ideal civilization involves the distinct aim of gaining for each mature person in any a.s.sociation the fullest development of all abilities and all materials and tools for their use. This is amply ill.u.s.trated in a family of well grown, well trained, well educated, trustworthy men and women with sufficient capital under control to maintain the highest activity of every personal power and attainment. Childhood and old age must always be provided for by exertions of those whose abilities are in their prime, and accidental weakness of every kind is met from the same strength.

Any mature person is best equipped for productive industry when, sound in both body and mind, he has the acc.u.mulated energy of the past for his use in the shape of capital and hereditary traits, together with skill, education and established character. Such a man is recognized at once to have his place among "the heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of time." Any people claiming leadership among nations must depend upon its representatives of such a fully equipped body of men for that leadership.

_From savage to enlightened._-The increasing importance of such full manliness, as society becomes more complex in both wants and efforts, is easily seen. In ruder life muscular energy and endurance, with some slight ingenuity, are sufficient to meet the ruder needs, with some chance of saving for future wants of a growing family, which will continue the same round of muscular contest with savage conditions.

The American Indians have given the fairest exhibition of the kind of welfare which such exertion and acc.u.mulation afford. The weak disappear quickly, because the strong have too little surplus of energy to care for them. Among those left, both burdens and means of satisfaction are quite equally distributed, because of essentially equal powers of exertion. But in older and more civilized communities large portions of the people are dependent upon the rest for knowledge, ingenuity and skill to keep the very much larger supply of material needed for maintaining the civilization. At this stage of progress a man with only muscular development finds himself entirely dependent upon some one else for the plans by which all must live. A savage cannot share equally with the wise man either in the burden of caring for the community or in the welfare which the community enjoys.

It is easy to see that the relative importance of acc.u.mulated wealth in the shape of capital or of skill or of the character which results from generations of training, becomes more and more distinct as the community becomes more developed. Any man, then, who is lacking capital, skill and morals, or all three, is in some respects like the savage, and will find his equals among the savages. For this reason a pioneer country affords opportunity for a youth without skill or personal attainments of any kind "to grow up with the country;" and the famous advice, "Go west, young man, go west," applies strictly to such a youth, and with less and less directness in proportion as the young man has control of himself and of acc.u.mulated wealth.

A simple diagram (Chart III) may ill.u.s.trate the progress of civilization from the general poverty and inefficiency of rude pioneer life to the power of a thoroughly organized and developed community. The poor man, in the sense of one whose abilities are undeveloped and who has no visible means of support, is relatively less able to care for himself in the enlightened community than in the ruder pioneer life. In this sense, and this alone, the poor man grows poorer with advancing civilization. This may easily be seen by comparing a thrifty farming community of today and all the acc.u.mulated stock, machinery and tools of the farms, with the same community sixty years earlier, when all was practically wilderness. A strong man with an ax and a hoe could enter the wilderness anywhere and live nearly as well as any of his neighbors. Such a man in the higher country life of our times must work for some one else at wages, or must be supported at public expense. In either case he feels his poverty. At the same time, the extreme of suffering is less likely to be reached in the richer community. The poorest man has comforts of which the pioneers never dreamed. Even a tramp can live on the fat of the land, but not by his own exertions. The failure of a crop in the pioneer country means starvation for a large portion of the few inhabitants. A failure in the older community means suffering for a few in diminished food and clothing, but all live on the acc.u.mulations of the past.

[Chart.]

Chart III. Ill.u.s.trating the relative importance of labor and saving, in the progress of civilization from its beginnings in pioneer life.

_Developing civilization._-This essential advantage of acc.u.mulating power in individuals, as civilization advances, is necessarily connected with the very nature of civilization and growth. As no conceivable device can make a babe as efficient as a man, so no contrivance, political or social, can make an undeveloped man equal to a fully developed one.

The intense community of interests in high civilization makes even more important the individual abilities of each sharer in those interests. For this reason every device for universal education, development of skill and strengthening of character, and every check upon deterioration of personal strength or wisdom or virtue is to be considered. Any neglect of the individual in his development of personal attainments r.e.t.a.r.ds the development of the community. Any device for the equal distribution of wealth which does not increase individual thrift in the use of wealth at least r.e.t.a.r.ds the growth of the community, and may very quickly reduce the power of the community as a whole until it reaches the inefficiency of savage life.