The Country-Life Movement in the United States Part 7

We must not a.s.sume that the farmer is specially guilty of sanitary faults. There are many such shortcomings in the open country, and I accept them without apology; but I can match them every one in city conditions. The fact is that the whole people has not yet risen to an appreciation of thoroughly sanitary conditions, and we cannot say that this deficiency is the special mark of any one cla.s.s of our population.

Persons ride along the country roads and see repulsive barn-yards, glaring manure piles, untidy back-yards, and at once make remarks about them. All these things are relegated to the rear in towns and cities and are not so visible, but they exist there.

I know that there are very filthy stables in the country districts, but I have never known worse stable conditions than I have seen in cities and towns. All progress in these directions must come slowly, and we must remember that it is expensive to rebuild and reorganize a stable.

No doubt one of the reasons for the high cost of living is the demand of the people that pure-food laws shall be enacted and enforced, for this all adds to the cost of food supplies; similarly, we must expect a betterment in conditions of stabling to result in increased price of dairy products. In the cost of living we must figure the expense of having clean and pure food.

The farmer is much criticized for polluting streams; but when the farmer pollutes one stream occasionally, a city will pollute a whole system of streams continually. One of the greatest sins of society is the wholesale befoulment of streams, lakes, and water-courses. I do not see how we can expect to be called a civilized people until we have taken care of our refuse without using it to fill up ponds and lakes, and to corrupt the free water supplies of the earth.

If the countryman has been ignorant of sanitary conditions, we must remember that his ideas are largely such as he has derived from teachers, physicians, and others.

We cannot expect a man to develop within himself enough community pride and altruism to compel him to go to great expense for the benefit of the public; but he will gladly contribute his part to a public program.

8. _Local factories and industries_ of whatever kind tend to develop community pride and effectiveness. Creameries have had a marked effect in this way in many places, giving the community or locality a reason for existence and a pride in itself that it never had before, or at least that it had not enjoyed since the pa.s.sing out of the small factories. There is much need of local industries in the open country, whether they are distinctly agricultural or otherwise, not only for the purpose of providing additional employment for country people but to direct the flow of capital and enterprise into the country and to stimulate local interest of all kinds. It is not by any means essential that all the new life in country neighborhoods should be primarily agricultural.

Much has been said of late about the necessity of introducing the handicrafts in the open country in winter with the idea of providing work for farm people during that season. I do not look for any great extension of this idea in real agricultural sections, and for the following reasons: (1) because as better agriculture develops, the farms will of themselves employ their help more continuously. Modern diversified and intensive farming brings about this result. The present-day dairying employs men continuously. The fruit-grower needs help in winter for pruning and spraying. Live-stock men need help in feeding and caring for the animals. Modern floriculture and vegetable-gardening are likely to run the year round. (2) The conditions of American country life are such that skilled handicraft has not arisen amongst the rural people, and we cannot expect that it will arise.

Skilled artisanship of this kind is not the growth of a generation, nor is it a result of the utilization of merely a few weeks or months of time. (3) It is very doubtful whether such handicrafts as are often mentioned could compete in the markets with the goods produced by consolidated factories, or could find a sufficient patronage of people interested in this kind of handicraft products.

I am not arguing against the introduction of handicrafts, but wish only to call attention to what I think to be an error in some of the current discussions. I am convinced that local industries of one kind or another will find their way into the open country in the next generation, and greatly to the advantage of the country itself; but the most useful of them will be regular factories able to compete with other factories.

Their largest results will come not in providing employment for persons who temporarily need it, but in developing a new community life in the places where they stand.

9. _The country store_ ought to be a factor in rural betterment. How to make it so, I do not know. The country store is the nexus between the manufacturers or the city jobbers, with their "agreements," on the one hand, and the people, on the other hand, whose commercial independence the jobbers may desire to control. The country merchant takes up the cause of the large dealer, because his own welfare is involved, and he unconsciously becomes one of the agencies through which the open country is drained and restrained. The parcels post--which must come--will probably considerably modify this establishment, although I do not look for its abolition nor desire it. Certain interests make strong opposition to the parcels post on the ground that it will ruin the country merchant and, therefore, the country town. I doubt if it will do any such thing; but even if it should, the end to be gained is not that the country merchant shall not be disturbed, but that the people at large may be benefited. No one knows just what form of readjustment the parcels post will bring about; but trade will very soon readjust itself to this condition as it has reacted to the introduction of farm machinery, good roads, the telegraph and telephone, rural free delivery.

The trader in the small town in some parts of the country is likely to own the people. He is almost necessarily opposed to cooperation and to any new movements that do not tend to enlarge his trade.

I wish we might also do something with the country hotel.

10. _The business men's organizations_, or chambers of commerce, in villages and country cities will not confine their activities within the city boundaries in the future. A wholly new field for usefulness and for the making of personal reputation lies right here. The business organization of one village or city should extend out into the country until it meets a similar organization from the adjoining village, and the whole region should be commercially developed (pages 122-123). A chamber of commerce could exert much influence toward making a better reputation for the pack of apples, or for other output of the region.

11. The influence of certain _great corporations_ is likely to be felt on the rural readjustment. This is particularly true of the new interest that railroads are taking in Eastern agriculture. A coordination between railroads and farming interests will do very much for the property of both sides; and the railroads can exercise great power in tying country communities together. The Wall Street Journal comments as follows on the situation, after calling attention to the fact that the "Eastern trunk lines have already entered upon a campaign for the encouragement of agriculture":

"Thirty-six years ago the Pennsylvania state legislature made an effort to save the farmers of that state from the damaging compet.i.tion of ruinously low rates on Western grain to Eastern mills and to the seaboard. The result was practically nil. Eastern farmers were left so completely out in the cold that thousands of them sold out and went West to raise more grain there, still further to handicap the Eastern producer. The widespread bankruptcy of the middle states farmers during the eighties was a consequence partly of cut-throat compet.i.tion among railroads to haul Western grain to the East at less than cost, and partly the result of a general depression from which it took ten full years to recover.

"What is it that has brought the railroads to the farmers on terms of cooperation for the development of their common territory? It is the same thing which has served the railroads so admirably in the solution of their cost problems. It is science applied to reducing the expenses of transportation in the one case, and to the greater mastery of the resources of the soil in the other case. In this lies the possibility of increasing railway freight to and from rural sources. The cooperation of transportation and agriculture, in the East especially, is not wholly new, but it is highly significant.

"Nothing could be more encouraging than the service which the railroads are beginning to render in the better distribution of population over the land, by putting a premium on good farming and encouraging the young to find careers for themselves in rural industries."

12. _Local inst.i.tutions_ of all kinds must have a powerful effect in evolving a good community sense. This is true in a superlative degree of the school, the church, the fair, and the rural library. These inst.i.tutions will bring into the community the best thought of the world and will use it in the development of the people in the locality.

Such inst.i.tutions must do an extension work. The church, from the nature of its organization, could readily extend itself beyond its regular and essential gospel work. The high-school will hold winter-courses and will take itself out to its const.i.tuency. The library ought to occupy its whole territory (page 92).

Similarly, village improvement societies should organize country and town together, extending tree-care, better roads, lawn improvement, and other good work throughout the entire community contributory to the city. Civic societies, fraternal orders, hospital a.s.sociations, business organizations (page 119), women's clubs and federations, could do the same.

13. _The local rural press_ ought to have a powerful influence in furthering community action. Many small rural newspapers are meeting their local needs, and are to be considered among the agents that make for an improved country life. In proportion as the support of the country newspaper is provided by political organizations, hack politicians, and patent medicine advertis.e.m.e.nts, will its power as a public organ remain small and undeveloped.

14. The influence of the _many kinds of extension teaching_ is bound to be marked. Reading-courses, itinerant lectures, the organizing of boys'

and girls' clubs, demonstration farms, the inspections of dairies, orchards, and other farms, and of irrigation supplies, the organization of such educational societies as cow-testing societies, and the like, touch the very core of the rural problem. The influence of the traveling teacher is already beginning to be felt, and it will increase greatly in the immediate future. I mean by the traveling teacher the person who goes out from the agricultural college, the experiment station, the state or national department of agriculture, or other similar inst.i.tutions, to impart agricultural information, and to set the people right toward their own problems.

15. The modern extension of _all kinds of communication_ will unite the people, even though it does not result in making them move their residences. I have in mind good highways, telephones, rural free deliveries, and the like. The automobile is already beginning to have its effect in certain rural communities, but we have yet scarcely begun to develop the type of auto-vehicle which is destined, I think, to make a very great change in country affairs. The improvement of highways on a regular plan will itself tend to organize the rural districts. We must add to all this a thoroughly developed system of parcels post, not only that the farmer may receive mail, but that he may also have greater facilities and freedom to transact his business with the world (page 118).

16. _Economic or business cooperation_ must be extended. There is much cooperation of this kind among American farmers, more than most persons are aware. Some of it is very effective, but much of it is cooperative only in name. It takes the form of milk organizations, creameries, fruit a.s.sociations, poultry societies, farmers' grain elevators, unions for buying and selling, and the like, some of which are of great extent.

A really cooperating a.s.sociation is one in which all members take active part in government and control, and share in their just proportions in the results. It is properly a society, rather than a company. Many so-called cooperative units are really stock companies, in which a few persons control, and the remainder become patrons; and others are mere shareholding organizations.

Business cooperation in agriculture is of three kinds: (1) cooperative production; (2) cooperative buying; (3) cooperative selling. The last two are extensively practiced in many regions. Cooperative production of animals and crops is practically unknown in the rural communities in the United States, and we are not to expect it to arise in those communities to any extent under the present organization of society. Colonies organized on a cooperative basis may practice it within their membership, but it is doubtful whether persons who are well equipped to be farmers will enter such organizations for this purpose so long as it is so easy to make a financial success at independent farming.

There is a fourth form that should be mentioned, although it is not cooperation in the real sense, but rather a form of combination. I refer to movements to control the production or output of commodities, as of wheat, cotton, tobacco, maize, and arbitrarily to fix the price. This cannot be permanently accomplished with any of the great staples, and even if it could be accomplished, in my opinion it would be an economic and social error.

Very much has been said about the necessity of business cooperation among farmers, and the importance of the subject can hardly be overstated; and yet it should be understood that economic cooperation is only one of many means that may be put in operation to propel country life. The essential thing is that country life be organized: if the organization is cooperative, the results--at least theoretically--should be the best; but in one place, the most needed cooperation may be social, in another place educational, in another religious, in another political, in another sanitary, in another economic in respect to buying and selling and making loans or providing insurance. When the chief deficiency in any region is economic, then it should be met by an organization that is primarily economic. Some of the effective cooperation in the West, so often cited, is really founded on the land-selling spirit of the community.

In some parts of the United States, the financial status of the farmer is very low, but in general the economic condition is in advance of other conditions. The American farmer is prosperous,--not as prosperous as he ought to be, but so prosperous that he can conduct his own business without support or aid of his neighbors. Although he might gain financially by cooperation in any case, he nevertheless desires his complete freedom of action, even at the risk of some loss. The psychology of the American farmer is in the end the determining factor.

In other countries, this may not be so true, and particularly not when the farmers live under such a condition of peasanthood (or do not comprise a middle cla.s.s) that no one of them in a community is able independently to buy his tools or his live-stock, or to secure sufficient funds to provide a small working capital, when both sales and purchases are very small, and when the entire community is practically subjugated by a political system. The big people are more likely to combine than to cooperate. Close cooperation naturally works best in a peasantry and under a paternal government; it becomes a means of bringing up the peasantry, of relieving them of oppression, and of giving them the rights that should be theirs as a part of their citizenship.

In Denmark, the cooperative movement has been one means of the salvation of the country, following the disastrous German war. The movement in some parts of the world is really a culture movement, having for a background the general good of society.

The American white farmer is not a peasant; he is not submerged in a hopeless political and economic slavery; he has his vote, his free school, his fee to hold property without let or hindrance, his full right to make the most of himself, his "rights" (pages 100 and 65). I think it will be possible for him to exercise these privileges and at the same time to share the benefits of cooperation; but cooperation is not necessary to win him these privileges. It is not the unit in his life, not the nucleus out of which all other agencies must evolve, or the leaven that will raise the lump: it is itself one coordinating part in a program of evolution. We do not have the problem of peasant proprietorship. For the most part, the American farmer has already won his economic independence, if not his just rewards.

We should not be impatient if our farmers do not organize themselves cooperatively as rapidly as we think they ought to organize.

Economic personal cooperation may be expected to thrive best in a community of small farmers. It is a question whether we shall develop the strongest leaders in a condition of more or less uniform small farms. There is much to be said in favor of rather large farming (say 500 to 1000 acres), for a business of this proportion demands a strong man. This does not mean landlordism, which is a part of a political and hereditary system, but merely large and competent business organization.

Such farmers, if they are so minded, can accomplish great things for their fellows.

I am looking for some of the best results in cooperation to come from the establishment of field-laboratories and demonstration farms, to which the farmers of the locality contribute their personal funds in the expectation of an educational result. The best results to country life cannot possibly come by the government continuing to take everything to the farmer free of cost and without the asking. Disadvantaged or undeveloped regions must be aided freely, but as rapidly as any localities or industries get on their feet, they should meet the state part way, and should a.s.sume their natural share of the expense and responsibility. This form of cooperation is already well under way; and I suspect that in many localities that have been dead to all forms of cooperative effort, this idea will afford the starting-point for a new community life.

From this form of education-cooperation, it would be but a step to a neighborhood effort to introduce new crops and high-cla.s.s bulls, to undertake drainage enterprises and reforestation; and to unite on business matters.

It is possible for a national organization movement to come out of the existing agricultural inst.i.tutions in the United States.

We may picture to ourselves a perfectly cooperating rural society that will have all the means of its salvation within itself. Even if we accept this picture, we cannot say that the structure will rise out of one seed or starting-point, or that one phase of cooperation is of necessity primary and another final. Our theoretical structure will arise from several or many beginnings; it will be a complex of numberless units; whatever range of cooperation is found, by investigation, to be now most needed in any community, must be the one with which we are to set that community going.

17. In the end everything depends on _personal gumption and guidance_.

It is not strange that we have lacked the kind of guidance that brings country people together, because we have not had the kind of education that produces it; and, in fact, this kind of guidance has not been so necessary in the past as it is now. A new motive in education is gradually beginning to shape itself. This must produce a new kind of outlook on country questions, and it will bring out a good many men and women who will be guides in the country as their fellows will be guides in the city. They will be captains because they will perform the common work of farming regions in an uncommon way.

I think we little realize to-day what the effect will be in twenty-five years of the young men and women that the colleges of agriculture in these days are sending into the country districts.

_Community interest is of the spirit._

In conclusion, let us remember that everything that develops the common commercial, intellectual, recreative, and spiritual interests of the rural people, ties them together socially. Residing near together is only one of the means of developing a community life, and it is not now the most important one. Persons who reside close together may still be torn asunder by divergent interests and a simple lack of any tie that binds; this is notably true in many country villages.

Community of purpose and spirit is much more important than community of houses. Community pride is a good product; it produces a common mind.

A POINT OF VIEW ON THE LABOR PROBLEM

It is a general complaint in the United States that there is scarcity of good labor. I have found the same complaint in parts of Europe, and Europeans lay much of the blame of it on America because their working cla.s.ses migrate so much to this country; and they seem to think we must now be well supplied with labor. Labor scarcity is felt in the cities and trades, in country districts, in mines, and on the sea. It seems to be serious in regions in which there is much unemployed population. It is a real problem in the Southern states.