THE RURAL LIFE PROBLEM OF THE UNITED STATES

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THE RURAL LIFE PROBLEM OF THE UNITED STATES

NOTES OF AN IRISH OBSERVERBYSIR HORACE PLUNKETT

New YorkTHE MACMILLAN COMPANY1919

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1910. Reprinted October, 1910;January, 1911; October, 1912; September, 1913; January, 1917. 

Norwood PressJ. S. Cushing Co. --Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass. , U. S. A. 

PREFATORY NOTE

The thoughts contained in the following pages relate to one side of thelife of a country which has been to me, as to many Irishmen, a secondhome. They are offered in friendly recognition of kindness I cannot hopeto repay, received largely as a student of American social and economicproblems, from public-spirited Americans who, I know, will appreciatemost highly any slight service to their country. 

The substance of the book appeared in five articles contributed to theNew York _Outlook_ under the title "Conservation and Rural Life. "Several American friends, deeply interested in the Rural Life problem, asked me to republish the series. In doing so, I have felt that I oughtto present a more comprehensive view of my subject than either the spaceallowed or the more casual publication demanded. 

I have to thank the editors of the _Outlook_ for the generoushospitality of their columns, and for full freedom to republish whatbelongs to them. 

HORACE PLUNKETT. 

THE PLUNKETT HOUSE, DUBLIN, April, 1910. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

THE SUBJECT AND THE POINT OF VIEW

 PAGEThe subject defined--A reconstruction of rural life inEnglish-speaking communities essential to the progress ofWestern civilisation--A movement for a new ruralcivilisation to be proposed--The author's point of viewderived from thirty years of Irish and Americanexperience--The physical contrast and moral resemblances inthe Irish and American rural problems--Mr. Roosevelt'sinterest in this aspect of the question--His Conservationand Country Life policies 1

CHAPTER II

THE LAUNCHING OF TWO ROOSEVELT POLICIES

The sane emotionalism of American public opinion--GiffordPinchot as the Apostle of Conservation--His test ofnational efficiency--Mr. James J. Hill's notablepronouncements upon the wastage of natural resources--Theevolution of the Conservation policy--Historical andpresent causes of national extravagance--The Conference ofGovernors and their pronouncement upon Conservation--Mr. Roosevelt's Country Life policy--His estimate of the lastingimportance of the Conservation and Country Life ideas--Thepopularity of the Conservation policy and the lack ofinterest in the Country Life policy--The Country LifeCommission's inquiries and the reality of the problem--Theneed and opportunity for reconstruction of rural life 17

CHAPTER III

THE ORIGIN AND CONSEQUENCES OF RURAL NEGLECT

The origin of rural neglect in English-speaking countriestraced to the Industrial Revolution in England--Effect ofmodern economic changes upon the mutual relations of townand country populations--Respects in which the old relationsought to be restored--Three economic reasons for the studyof rural conditions--The social consequences of ruralneglect--The political importance of rustic experience toreënforce urban intelligence in modern democracies--Theanalogue of the European exodus in the United States--Themoral aspects of rural neglect--The danger to nationalefficiency of sacrificing agricultural to commercial andindustrial interests--The happy circumstance of Mr. Roosevelt's interest in rural well-being 35

CHAPTER IV

THE INNER LIFE OF THE AMERICAN FARMER

Reasons why the rural problem resulting from urbanpredominance exists only in English-speakingcountries--Neglect of farmer more easily excused in theUnited States than elsewhere owing to his apparentprosperity--Country Life Commission's pronouncement on ruralbackwardness--Why the matter must be taken up by thetowns--A survey of American rural life--The problemeconomically and sociologically considered in the MiddleWest--Causes and character of rural backwardness in theSouthern States--The boll-weevil and the hookworm asillustrations of unconcern for the well-being of ruralcommunities--The problem in the New England States nottypically American--The progressive attitude of somecommunities in the Far West in rural reform 57

CHAPTER V

THE WEAK SPOT IN AMERICAN RURAL ECONOMY

The three elements of a rural existence--Mr. Roosevelt'sformula: "Better farming, better business, better living"--Acomparative analysis of urban and rural business methodsshows that herein lies chief cause of ruralbackwardness--Reasons why farmers fail to adopt methods ofcombination--A description of the coöperative system in itsapplication to agriculture--The introduction and developmentof agricultural coöperation in Ireland--The RaiffeisenCredit Association successful in poorest Irishdistricts--Summary of coöperative achievement by Irishfarmers--British imitation of Irish agricultural organisingmethods--A criticism of American farmers'organisations--Lack of combination for business purposes thecause of political impotence--Urgent need for areorganisation of American agriculture upon coöperative lines 83

CHAPTER VI

THE WAY TO BETTER FARMING AND BETTER LIVING

The retarded application of science to agriculture andneglect of agricultural education--Present progress inagricultural education--Full benefit of education must awaitcoöperative organisation--Connection between coöperation andsocial progress--Mr. Roosevelt on the cause and cure ofrural discontent--Two views upon the principles of ruralbetterment--The part coöperation is playing in Irish ruralsociety--General observations on town and countrypleasures--The social necessity for a redirection of ruraleducation--The rural labour problem--The position of womenin farm life--The reason why the remedy for ruralbackwardness must come from without--The paradox of the problem 117

CHAPTER VII

THE TWO THINGS NEEDFUL

Summary of diagnosis and indication of treatment--Chief aimthe coördination of agencies available for social work inthe country--Numerical strength and fine social spiritabroad, but leadership needed--Mutual interest of advocatesof Conservation and of rural reform--The psychologicaldifficulty due to predominance of urban idea--Roman historyrepeating itself in New York--The natural leaders of theCountry Life movement to be found in the cities--The objectsof the movement defined--Two new institutions to be created;the one executive and organising, the other academic--TheNational Conservation Association qualified to initiate anddirect the movement--Possibly an American AgriculturalOrganisation Society should be founded for the work--Thechief practical work the introduction of agriculturalcoöperation--Necessity for joining forces with existingphilanthropic agencies--Suggested enlistment of countryclergy in coöperative propagandism--The Country LifeInstitute, its purpose and functions--Reason why one bodycannot undertake work assigned to the two newinstitutions--The financial requirements of theInstitute--Summary and conclusions 145

THE RURAL LIFE PROBLEM

CHAPTER I

THE SUBJECT AND THE POINT OF VIEW

I submit in the following pages a proposition and a proposal--adistinction which an old-country writer of English may, perhaps, bepermitted to preserve. The proposition is that, in the United States, asin other English-speaking communities, the city has been developed tothe neglect of the country. I shall not have to labour the argument, asnobody seriously disputes the contention; but I shall trace the maincauses of the neglect, and indicate what, in my view, must be itsinevitable consequences. If I make my case, it will appear that ourcivilisation has thus become dangerously one-sided, and that, in theinterests of national well-being, it is high time for steps to be takento counteract the townward tendency. 

My definite proposal to those who accept these conclusions is that aCountry Life movement, upon lines which will be laid down, should beinitiated by existing associations, whose efforts should be supplementedby a new organisation which I shall call a Country Life Institute. Thereare in the United States a multiplicity of agencies, both public andvoluntary, available for this work. But the army of workers in thisfield of social service needs two things: first, some definite plan forcoördinating their several activities, and, next, some recognised sourceof information collected from the experience of the Old and the NewWorld. It is the purpose of these pages to show that these needs arereal and can be met. 

Two obvious questions will here suggest themselves. Why should theUnited States--of all countries in the world--be chosen for such a themeinstead of a country like Ireland, where the population depends mainlyupon agriculture? What qualifications has an Irishman, be he never socompetent to advise upon the social and economic problems of his owncountry, to talk to Americans about the life of their rural population?I admit at once that, while I have made some study of Americanagriculture and rural economy, my actual work upon the problem of whichI write has been restricted to Ireland. But I claim, with some pride, that, in thought upon rural economy, Ireland is ahead of anyEnglish-speaking country. She has troubles of her own, some inherent inthe adverse physical conditions, and others due to well-known historicalcauses, that too often impede the action to which her best thoughtsshould lead. But the very fact that those who grapple with Irishproblems have to work through failure to success will certainly notlessen the value to the social student of the experience gained. Irecognise, however, that I must give the reader so much of personalnarrative as is required to enable him to estimate the value of myfacts, and of the conclusions which I base upon them. 

To have enjoyed an Irish-American existence, to have been profoundlyinterested in, and more or less in touch with, public affairs in bothcountries, to have been an unwilling politician in Ireland and not apolitician at all in America, is, to say the least, an unusualexperience for an Irishman. But such has been my record during the lasttwenty years. Soon after graduating at Oxford, I was advised to live inmountain air for a while, and for the next decade I was a ranchman alongthe foothills of the Rockies. To those who knew that my heart was inIreland, I used to explain that I might some day be in politics at home, and must take care of my lungs. In 1889 I returned to live and work inmy own country, but I retained business interests, including somefarming operations, in the Western States. Ever since then I have takenmy annual holiday across the Atlantic, and have studied ruralconditions over a wider area in the United States than my businessinterests demanded. 

For eight years, commencing in 1892, I was a Member of Parliament. Mylegislative ambition was to get something done for Irish industry, andespecially Irish agriculture. Having secured the assistance of anunprecedented combination of representative Irishmen, known as theRecess Committee (because it sat during the Parliamentary recess), wesucceeded in getting the addition we wanted to the machinery of IrishGovernment. The functions of the new institution are sufficientlyindicated by its cumbrous Parliamentary title, "The Department ofAgriculture and other Industries and for Technical Instruction forIreland. " I mention this official experience because it not onlyintensified my desire to study American conditions, but it also broughtme frequently to Washington to study the working of those Federalinstitutions which are concerned for the welfare of the ruralpopulation. There I enjoyed the unfailing courtesy of American publicservants to the foreign inquirer. 

On one of these visits, in the winter of 1905-1906, I called uponPresident Roosevelt to pay him my respects, and to express to him myobligations to some members of his Administration. I wished especiallyto acknowledge my indebtedness to that veteran statesman, SecretaryWilson, the value of whose long service to the American farmer it wouldbe hard to exaggerate. Mr. Roosevelt questioned me as to the exactobject of my inquiries, and asked me to come again and discuss with himmore fully than was possible at the moment certain economic and socialquestions which had engaged much of his own thoughts. He was greatlyinterested to learn that in Ireland we have been approaching many ofthese questions from his own point of view. He made me tell him thestory of Irish land legislation, and of recent Irish movements for theimprovement of agricultural conditions. Ever since, his interest inthese Irish questions--to _the_ Irish Question we gave a wide berth--hasbeen maintained on account of their bearing upon his Rural Life policy, for I had shown him how the economic strengthening and social elevationof the Irish farmer had become a matter of urgent Irish concern. Irecall many things he said on that occasion, which show that his twogreat policies of Conservation and Country Life reform were maturing inhis mind. I need hardly say how deeply interesting these policies are tome, embracing as they do economic and social problems, the working outof which in my own country happens to be the task to which I havedevoted the best years of my life. 

I must now offer to the reader so much of the story of the Country Lifemovement in my own country as will enable him to understand itsinterest to Mr. Roosevelt and to many another worker upon the analogousproblems of the United States. Ireland is passing through an agrarianrevolution. There, as in many other European countries, the title tomost of the agricultural land rested upon conquest. The English attemptto colonise Ireland never completely succeeded nor completely failed;consequently the Irish never ceased to repudiate the title of the alienlandlord. In 1881 Mr. Gladstone introduced one of the greatest agrarianreforms in history--rent-fixing by judicial authority--which wascertainly a bold attempt to put an end to a desolating conflict, centuries old. 

The scheme failed, --whether, as some hold, from its inherent defects, orfrom the circumstances of the time, is an open question. It is but fairto its author to point out that a rapidly increasing foreigncompetition, chiefly from the newly opened tracts of virgin soil in theNew World, led to a fall in agricultural prices, which made the firstrents fixed appear too high. Quicker and cheaper transit, together withprocesses for keeping produce fresh over the longest routes, soon showedthat the new market conditions had come to stay. A bad land system on arising market might succeed better than a good one on a falling. Theland tenure reforms begun in 1881, having broken down under stress offoreign competition, and Purchase Acts on a smaller scale having beententatively tried in the interval, in 1903 Parliament finally decreedthat sufficient money should be provided to buy out all the remainingagricultural land. In a not remote future, some two hundred millionpounds sterling--a billion dollars--will have been advanced by theBritish Government to enable the tenants to purchase their holdings, themoney to be repaid in easy instalments during periods averaging oversixty years. 

Twenty years ago this general course of events was foreseen, and a fewIrishmen conceived and set to work upon what has come to be Ireland'sRural Life policy. The position taken up was simple. What Parliament wasabout to do would pull down the whole structure of Ireland'sagricultural economy, and would clear away the chief hindrance toeconomic and social progress. But upon the ground thus cleared theedifice of a new rural social economy would have to be built. This work, although it needs the fostering care of government, and liberalfacilities for a system of education intimately related to the people'sworking lives, belongs mainly to the sphere of voluntary effort. 

The new movement, which was started in 1889 to meet the circumstances Ihave indicated, was thus a movement for the up-building of country life. It anticipated the lines of the formula which Mr. Roosevelt adopted inhis Message transmitting to Congress the Report of the Country LifeCommission--better farming, better business, better living: we beganwith better business, which consisted in the introduction ofagricultural coöperation into the farming industry, for several reasonswhich will appear later, and for one which I must mention here. We foundthat we could not develop in unorganised farmers a political influencestrong enough to enable them to get the Government to do its parttowards better farming. Owing to the new agricultural opinion which hadbeen developed indirectly by organising the farmer, we were able to winfrom Parliament the department I have named above. This institution wasso framed and endowed that it is able to give to the Irish farmers allthe assistance which can be legitimately given by public agencies and atpublic expense. The assistance consists chiefly of education. Buteducation is interpreted in the widest sense. Practical instruction toold and young, in schools, upon the farms, and at meetings, lectures, experiments, and demonstrations, the circulation of useful informationand advice, and all the usual methods known to progressive governments, are being introduced with the chief aim of enabling the farmer to applyto the practice of farming the teachings of modern science. Betterliving, which includes making country life more interesting andattractive, is sought by using voluntary associations, some organisedprimarily for business purposes, and others, having no business aim, forsocial and intellectual ends. But Irish rural reformers are agreed thatby far the most important step towards a higher and a better rural lifewould be a redirection of education in the country schools. To this Ishall return in the proper place. 

I can now proceed with my American experiences without leaving any doubtas to the point of view from which I approach the problem of rural lifein the United States. Having engaged in actual work upon that problem inIreland, where a combination of economic changes and political eventshas made its solution imperative, and having been long in personaltouch with rural conditions in some Western States, my interest incertain policies which were maturing at Washington may be easilysurmised. There I found that, with wholly different conditions to bedealt with, the thoughts of the President and of others in hisconfidence were, as regards the main issue, moving in the same directionas my own. They too had come to feel that the welfare of the ruralpopulation had been too long neglected, and that it was high time toconsider how the neglect might be repaired. In his annual message toCongress in 1904, Mr. Roosevelt had made it clear that he was fullyconscious of this necessity. "Nearly half of the people of thiscountry, " he wrote, "devote their energies to growing things from thesoil. Until a recent date little has been done to prepare these millionsfor their life work. " I did not realise at the time the full import ofthese sentences. Nor did I foresee that the problem of rural life wasto be forced to the front by the awakening of public opinion, uponanother issue differing from and yet closely related to the subject ofthese pages. Mr. Roosevelt was thinking out the Conservation idea, whichI believe will some day be recognised as the greatest of his policies. 

CHAPTER II

THE LAUNCHING OF TWO ROOSEVELT POLICIES

Although somebody has already said something like it, I would say thereis a tide in the thoughts of men which, taken at the flood, leads on toaction. We make the general claim for our Western civilisation, that, whatever the form of government, once public opinion is thoroughlystirred upon a great and vital issue, it is but a question of time forthe will to find the way. But in the life of the United States, thepassage from thought to action is more rapid than in any country that Iknow. Nowhere do we find such a combination of emotionalism with sanity. No better illustration of these national qualities could be desired thanthat afforded by the inception and early growth of the Conservationpolicy. 

I have already shown how my inquiries at Washington gave me access tothe most accessible of the world's statesmen. At the same time therecame into my life another remarkable personality. To the United StatesForester of that day I owe my earliest interest in the Conservationpolicy. In counsel with him I came to regard the Conservation and RuralLife policies as one organic whole. So I must say here a word about theman who, more than any other, has inspired whatever in these pages maybe worth printing. 

I first met Gifford Pinchot in his office in Washington in 1905. I wasnot especially interested in forestry, but the Forester was sointeresting that I listened with increasing delight to the story of hiswork. I noticed that as an administrator he had a grasp of detail and amastery of method which are not usually found in men who have had notraining in large business affairs. I thought the secret of his successlay between love of work and sympathy with workers, which gained himthe devotion and enthusiastic coöperation of his staff. It is, however, as a statesman rather than as an administrator that his achievement isand will be known. 

When I first knew the Forester, I found that already the conservation oftimber was but a small part of his material aims: every nationalresource must be husbanded. But over the whole scheme of Conservation agreat moral issue reigned supreme. He clung affectionately to his task, but it was not to him mere forestry administration. In his far vision heseemed to see men as trees walking. The saving of one great asset wasbroadening out into insistence upon a new test of national efficiency:the people of the United States were to be judged by the manner in whichthey applied their physical and mental energies to the conservation anddevelopment of their country's natural resources. The acceptance of thistest would mean the success of a great policy for the initiation ofwhich President Roosevelt gave almost the whole credit to GiffordPinchot. 

There is one other name which will be ever honorably associated with thedawn of the Conservation idea which Mr. Roosevelt elevated to the statusand dignity of a national policy. In September, 1906, Mr. James J. Hilldelivered (under the title of "The Future of the United States") what Ithink was an epoch-making address. It is significant that this greatrailway president opened his campaign for the economic salvation of theUnited States by addressing himself, not to politicians or professors, but to a representative body of Minnesota farmers. This addresspresented for the first time in popular form a remarkable collection ofeconomic facts, which formed the basis of conclusions as startling asthey were new. Let me attempt a brief summary of its contents. 

The natural resources, to which the Conservation policy relates, may bedivided into two classes: the minerals, which when used cannot bereplaced, and things that grow from the soil, which admit ofindefinitely augmented reproduction. At the head of the former categorystands the supply of coal and iron. This factor in the nation's industryand commerce was being exhausted at a rate which made it certain that, long before the end of the century, the most important manufactureswould be handicapped by a higher cost of production. The supply ofmerchantable timber was disappearing even more rapidly. But far moreserious than all other forms of wastage was the reckless destruction ofthe natural fertility of the soil. The final result, according to Mr. Hill, must be that within a comparatively brief period--a period forwhich the present generation was bound to take thought--this veritableLand of Promise would be hard pressed to feed its own people, while themanufactured exports to pay for imported food would not be forthcoming. It should be added that this sensational forecast was no purposelessjeremiad. Mr. Hill told his hearers that the danger which threatened thefuture of the Nation would be averted only by the intelligence andindustry of those who cultivated the farm lands, and that they had it intheir power to provide a perfectly practicable and adequate remedy. Thiswas to be found--if such a condensation be permissible--in theapplication of the physical sciences to the practice, and of economicscience to the business, of farming. 

In spite of the immense burden of great undertakings which he carried, Mr. Hill repeated the substance of this address on many occasions. LordRosebery once said that speeches were the most ephemeral of allephemeral things, and for some time it looked as if one of the mostimportant speeches ever delivered by a public man on a great publicissue was going to illustrate the truth of this saying. It seemsstrange that his facts and arguments should have remained unchallenged, and yet unsupported, by other public men. Perhaps the best explanationis to be found in a recent dictum of Mr. James Bryce. Speaking at theUniversity of California, the British Ambassador said: "We can all thinkof the present, and are only too apt to think chiefly about the present. The average man, be he educated or uneducated, seldom thinks of anythingelse. " There are, however, special circumstances in the history of theUnited States which account for the extraordinary unconcern about whatis going to happen to the race in a period which may seem long to thosewhose personal interest fixes a limit to their gaze, but which is indeedshort in the life of a nation. After the religious, political, andmilitary struggles through which the American nation was brought tobirth, there followed a century of no less strenuous wrestling with theforces of nature. That century stands divided by the greatest civilconflict in the world's history; but this only served to strengthen in aunited people those indomitable qualities to which the nation owes itsleadership in the advancement of civilisation. The abundance (until nowconsidered as virtual inexhaustibility) of natural resources, the callfor capital and men for their development, the rich reward of conquestin the field of industry, may explain, but can hardly excuse, a Nationalattitude which seems to go against the strongest human instinct--one notaltogether wanting in lower animal life--that of the preservation of therace. It is an attitude which recalls the question said to have beenasked by an Irishman: "What has posterity done for me?" But this wasbefore Conservation was in the air. 

I have now told what I came by chance to know about the origin of theConservation idea. The story of its early growth was no less remarkablethan the suddenness of its appearance. In the spring of 1908 mattershad advanced so far that the governors of all the States and Territoriesmet to discuss it. Before the Conference broke up they were moved to"declare the conviction that the great prosperity of our country restsupon the abundant resources of the land chosen by our forefathers fortheir homes, " that these resources are "a heritage to be made use of inestablishing and promoting the comfort, prosperity, and happiness of theAmerican people, but not to be wasted, deteriorated, or needlesslydestroyed; that this material basis is threatened with exhaustion"; that"conservation of our natural resources is a subject of transcendentimportance which should engage unremittingly the attention of theNation, the States, and the people in earnest coöperation"; and that"this coöperation should find expression in suitable action by theCongress and by the legislatures of the several States. "

It is, of course, not with Conservation, but with Rural Life, that weare here directly concerned; but it should be borne in mind that thechief of all the nation's resources is the fertility of the soil. Morethan one competent authority declared at the Conference of Governorsthat this national asset was the subject of the greatest actual waste, and was at the same time capable of the greatest development andconservation. This interdependence of the two Roosevelt policies--thefact that neither of them can come to fruition without the success ofthe other--makes those of us who work for rural progress rest our chiefhopes upon the newly aroused public opinion in the American Republic. 

To my knowledge this view is shared by President Roosevelt, who alwaysregarded his Conservation and Rural Life policies as complementary toeach other. The last time I saw him--it was on Christmas Eve, 1908--hedwelt on this aspect of his public work and aims. I remember how heexpressed the hope that, when the more striking incidents of hisAdministration were forgotten, public opinion would look kindly upon hisConservation and Rural Life policies. I ventured upon the confidentprediction that he would not be disappointed in this anticipation. Already the authors of the Conservation policy have been rewarded by ageneral acceptance of the principle for which they stand. The nationalconscience now demands that the present generation, while enjoying thematerial blessings with which not only nature but also the labour andsacrifices of their forefathers have so bounteously endowed them, shallhave due regard for the welfare of those who are to come after them. 

Americans, who are accustomed to rapid developments in public opinion, will hardly appreciate the impression made by the story I have just toldupon the mind of an observer from old countries, where action does nottread upon the heels of thought. But surely an amazing thing hashappened. In the life of one Administration a great idea seizes the mindof the American people. This leads to a stock-taking of naturalresources and a searching of the national conscience. Then, suddenly, there emerges a quite new national policy. Conceived during the lastAdministration, when it brought Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Bryan on to thesame platform, Conservation at once rose above party, and will be theaccepted policy of all future Administrations. It has already securedalmost Pan-American endorsement at its birthplace in Washington. Thefathers of Conservation are now looking forward to a still larger sphereof influence for their offspring at an International Conference which itis hoped to assemble at the Hague. 

But it must be admitted that no such reception was accorded to Mr. Roosevelt's other policy, to which our attention must now be turned. Thereasons for the comparative lack of interest in the problem of RuralLife are many and complex, but two of them may be noted in passing. Conservation calls for legislative and administrative action, and thisalways sets up a ferment in the political mind. The Rural Life idea, onthe other hand, though it will demand some governmental assistance, mustrely mainly upon voluntary effort. The methods necessary for itsdevelopment, and their probable results, are also less obvious, and thusless easily appreciated by the public. Whatever the reason, whileConservation has rushed into the forefront of public interest and haswon the status and dignity of a policy, the sister idea is stillstruggling for a platform, and its advocates must be content to seetheir efforts towards a higher and a better country life regarded as amovement. 

This estimate of the relative positions of these two ideas in the publicmind will, I think, be borne out when we contrast the quiet initiationof the movement with the dramatic début of the policy. For all theofficialism with which it was launched, President Roosevelt's CountryLife Commission might as well have been appointed by some wealthyphilanthropist who would, at least, have paid its members' travellingexpenses, [1] and private initiation might also have spared us theridicule which greeted the alleged proposal to "uplift" a body ofcitizens who were told that they were already adorning the heights ofAmerican civilisation. The names of the men who volunteered for thisunpaid service should have been a sufficient guarantee that theirs wasno fool's errand. [2]

How real was the problem the commissioners were investigating wasabundantly proved to those who were present when they got into touchwith working farmers and their wives, and discussed freely andinformally the conditions, human and material, to which the problem ofRural Life relates. I shall refer again to their report. But I may heresay I am firmly convinced that a complete change in the whole attitudeof public opinion towards the old question of town and country mustprecede any large practical outcome to the labours of the Commission. Ithas to be brought home to those who lead public opinion that for manydecades we, the English-speaking peoples, have been unconsciously guiltyof having gravely neglected one side, and that perhaps the mostimportant side, of Western civilisation. 

To sustain this judgment I must now view the sequence of events whichled to the subordination of rural to urban interests, and try toestimate its probable consequences. It will be seen that the neglect iscomparatively recent, and of English origin. I believe that the NewWorld offers just now a rare opportunity for launching a movement whichwill be directed to a reconstruction of rural life. It is this beliefwhich has prompted an Irish advocate of rural reform to turn histhoughts away for a brief space from the poorer peasantry of his owncountry and to take counsel with his fellow-workers in the United Statesand Canada on a problem which affects them all. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] These, as a matter of fact, were defrayed by the trustees of theRussell Sage Foundation. 

[2] The Commission consisted of L. H. Bailey, of the New York StateCollege of Agriculture at Cornell University (chairman); Henry Wallace, editor of _Wallace's Farmer_, Des Moines, Iowa; Kenyon L. Butterfield, President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Massachusetts; Walter H. Page, editor of _The World's Work_, New YorkCity; Gifford Pinchot, United States Forester, and Chairman of theNational Conservation Commission; C. S. Barrett, President of theFarmers' Co-operative and Educational Union of America, Union City, Georgia; W. A. Beard, of the _Great West Magazine_, Sacramento, California. 

CHAPTER III

THE ORIGIN AND CONSEQUENCES OF RURAL NEGLECT

The most radical economic change which history records set in during thelast half of the eighteenth century in England, as the result of thatremarkable achievement of modern civilisation, the IndustrialRevolution. Mechanical inventions changed all industry, setting up thefactories of the town instead of the scattered home production of thecountry and its villages. In the wake of the new inventions economicscience stepped in, and, scrupulously obeying its own law of demand andsupply, told the then predominant middle classes just what they wishedto be told. Adam Smith had made the wonderful discovery that money andwealth were not the same thing. Then Ricardo, and after him theManchester School of economists, made division of labour the cardinalvirtue in the new gospel of wealth. In order to give full play to thiseconomic principle all workers in mechanical industries were huddledtogether in the towns. There they were to be transformed fromcapricious, undisciplined humans into mechanical attachments, andrestricted to such functions as steam-driven automata had not yetlearned to perform. That was the first stage of the IndustrialRevolution, with its chief consequences, the rural exodus and urbanovercrowding. It is a hideous nightmare to look back upon from thesemore enlightened days. Well might the angels weep over the flight of allthat was best from the God-made country to the man-made town. 

Before the middle of the last century the clouds began to lift. For awhile the good Lord Shaftesbury seemed to be crying in the wilderness ofmiddle-class plutocracy, but it was not long before the crying of thechildren in their factories stirred the national conscience. The healthof nations was allowed to be considered as well as their wealth. Socialand political science rose up in protest against both the economists andthe manufacturers. There followed a period of beneficent social changes, no less radical than those which the new mechanical inventions hadproduced in the economics of industry. The factory town of to-daypresents a strange contrast to that which sacrificed humanity tomaterial aggrandisement. What with its shortened hours of labour, superior artisan dwellings, improved sanitation, parks, open spaces andplaygrounds, free instruction and cheap entertainment for old and young, hospitals and charities, rapid transportation, a popular Press, and fullpolitical freedom, the modern hive of industry stands as a monument ofwhat, under liberal laws, can be done by education and organisation torealise the higher aspirations of a people. 

During this second period, another economic development produced uponthe attitude of the urban mind towards the rural population an effect towhich, I think, has not been given the consideration it deserves. Betterand cheaper transportation, with the consequent establishment of whatthe economists call the world-market, completely changed therelationship between the townsman and the farmer. A sketch of theirformer mutual relations will make my meaning clear. Within the lastcentury every town relied largely for its food supply on the produce ofthe fields around its walls. The countrymen coming into the weeklymarket were the chief customers for the wares of the town craftsmen. Inthis primitive state of trade, townsmen could not but realise theimportance to themselves of a prosperous country population around them. But this simple exchange, as we all know, has developed into the complexcommercial operations of modern times. To-day most large towns derivetheir household stuff from the food-growing tracts of the whole world, and I doubt whether any are dependent on the neighbouring farmers, orfeel themselves specially concerned for their welfare. I do not thinkthe general truth of this picture will be questioned, and I hope someconsideration may be given to the conclusions I now draw. 

In the transition we are considering, the reciprocity between theproducers of food and the raw material of clothes on the one hand, andmanufacturers and general traders of the towns on the other, has notceased; it has actually increased since the days of steam andelectricity. But it has become national, and even international, ratherthan local. Town consumers are still dependent upon agriculturalproducers, who, in turn, are much larger consumers than formerly of allkinds of commodities made in towns. Forty-two per cent of materials usedin manufacture in the United States are from the farm, which alsocontributes seventy per cent of the country's exports. But in thecomplexity of these trade developments townsmen have been cut off moreand more from personal contact with the country, and in this way havelost their sense of its importance. My point is that the shifting of thetrade relationship of town and country from its former local to itspresent national and international basis in reality increases theirinterdependence. And I hold most strongly that until in this matter theobligations of a common citizenship are realised by the town, we cannothope for any lasting National progress. 

Whatever be the causes which have begotten the neglect of rural life, noone will gainsay the wisdom of estimating the consequences. These areeconomic, social, and political; and I will discuss them briefly underthese heads. There are three main economic reasons which suggest acloser study of rural conditions. First, there is the interdependence oftown and country, less obvious than it was in the days of the localmarket, but no less real. Any fall in the number, or decline in theefficiency, of the farming community, will be accompanied by acorresponding fall in the country sale of town products. This isespecially true of America, where the foreign commerce is unimportant incomparison with internal trade. To nourish country life is the best wayto help home trade. And quite as important as these considerations isthe effect which good or bad farming must have upon the cost of livingto the whole population. Excessive middle profits between producer andconsumer may largely account for the very serious rise in the price ofstaple articles of food. This is a fact of the utmost significance, but, as I shall show later, the remedy for too high a cost of production anddistribution lies with the farmer, the improvement of whose businessmethods will be seen to be the chief factor in the reform which theRural Life movement must attempt to introduce. 

The essential dependence of nations on agriculture is the secondeconomic consideration. The author of "The Return to the Land, " SenatorJules Méline (successively Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Commerceand Premier of France), tells us that this remarkable book is "merely anexpansion of a profound thought uttered long ago by a Chinesephilosopher: 'The well-being of a people is like a tree; agriculture isits root, manufacture and commerce are its branches and its life; if theroot is injured the leaves fall, the branches break away and the treedies. '"

This truth is not hard to apply to the conditions of to-day. The incomeof every country depends on its natural resources, and on the skill andenergy of its inhabitants; and the quickest way to increase the incomeis to concentrate on the production of those articles for which there isthe greatest demand throughout the commercial world. The relentlessapplication of this principle has been characteristic of the nineteenthcentury. But the augmentation of income has in one special way beenpurchased by a diminution of capital. The industrial movement has beenbased on an immense expenditure of coal and iron; and in America andGreat Britain the coal and iron which can be cheaply obtained are withinmeasurable distance of exhaustion. As these supplies diminish, theindustrial leadership of America and Great Britain must disappear, unless they can employ their activities in other forms of industry. Those, therefore, who desire that the English-speaking countries shouldmaintain for many ages that high position which they now occupy, shoulddo all in their power to encourage a proper system of agriculture--theone industry in which the fullest use can be made of natural resourceswithout diminishing the inheritance of future generations--the industry"about which, " Mr. James J. Hill emphatically declares, "all othersrevolve, and by which future America shall stand or fall. "

The third economic reason will hardly be disputed. Agriculturalprosperity is an important factor in financial stability. Thefluctuations of commerce depend largely on the good and bad harvests ofthe world, but, as they do not coincide with them in time, theirviolence is, on the whole, likely to be less in a nation whereagricultural and manufacturing interests balance each other, than in onedepending mainly or entirely on either. The small savings of numerousfarmers, amounting in the aggregate to very large sums, are a powerfulmeans of steadying the money market; they are not liable to thevicissitudes nor attracted by the temptations which affect the largerinvestors. They remain a permanent national resource, which, as theexperience of France proves, may be confidently drawn upon in time ofneed. I have often thought that, were it not for the thrift and industryof the French peasantry, financial crises would be as frequent in Franceas political upheavals. 

As regards the social aspect of rural neglect, I suggest that the citymay be more seriously concerned than is generally imagined for thewell-being of the country. One cannot but admire the civic pride withwhich Americans contemplate their great centres of industry andcommerce, where, owing to the many and varied improvements, the townsmanof the future is expected to unite the physical health and longevity ofthe Boeotian with the mental superiority of the Athenian. But we mayask whether this somewhat optimistic forecast does not ignore oneimportant question. Has it been sufficiently considered how far themoral and physical health of the modern city depends upon the constantinflux of fresh blood from the country, which has ever been the sourcefrom which the town draws its best citizenship? You cannot keep onindefinitely skimming the pan and have equally good milk left. InAmerica the drain may continue a while longer without the inevitableconsequences becoming plainly visible. But sooner or later, if thebalance of trade in this human traffic be not adjusted, the raw materialout of which urban society is made will be seriously deteriorated, andthe symptoms of National degeneracy will be properly charged againstthose who neglected to foresee the evil and treat the cause. It isenough for my present purpose if it be admitted that the people of everystate are largely bred in rural districts, and that the physical andmoral well-being of these districts must eventually influence thequality of the whole people. 

I come now to the political considerations which, I think, have not beensufficiently taken into account. In most countries political lifedepends largely for its steadiness and sanity upon a strong infusion ofrural opinion into the counsels of the nation. It is a truism thatdemocracy requires for success a higher level of intelligence andcharacter in the mass of the people than other forms of government. Butintelligence alone is not enough for the citizen of a democracy; he musthave experience as well, and the experience of a townsman is essentiallyimperfect. He has generally a wider theoretical knowledge than therustic of the main processes by which the community lives; but therustic's practical knowledge of the more fundamental of them is widerthan the townsman's. He knows actually and in detail how corn is grownand how beasts are bred, whereas the town artisan hardly knows how thewhole of any one article of commerce is made. The townsman sees andtakes part in the wonderful achievements of industrial science withoutany full understanding of its methods or of the relative importance andthe interaction of the forces engaged. To this one-sided experience maybe attributed in some measure that disregard of inconvenient facts, andthat impatience of the limits of practicability, which many observersnote as a characteristic defect of popular government. 

However that may be, there is one symptom in modern politics of whichthe gravity is generally acknowledged, while its special connection withthe towns is an easily ascertainable fact; I mean the growth of thecruder forms of Socialism. The town artisan or labourer, who seesdisplayed before him vast masses of property in which he has no share, and contrasts the smallness of his remuneration with the immense resultsof his labour, is easily attracted to remedies worse than the disease. Afuller and more exact understanding of the means by which the wealth ofthe community is created is, for the townsman, the best antidote tomischievous agitation so far as it is not merely the result of poverty. But the countryman, especially the proprietor of a piece of land, however small, is protected from this infection. The atmosphere in whichSocialism of the predatory kind can grow up does not exist among aprosperous farming community--perhaps because in the country thequestion of the divorce of the worker from his raw material bycapitalism does not arise. The farm furnishes the raw material of thefarmer; yet he cannot be said to spend his life creating the alleged"surplus value" of Marxian doctrine. For these reasons I suggest thatthe orderly and safe progress of democracy demands a strong agriculturalpopulation. It is as true now as when Aristotle said it that "wherehusbandmen and men of small fortune predominate government will beguided by law. "

I have now shown that for every reason the interests of the ruralpopulation ought no longer to be subordinated to those of the city. Thatsuch has been the tendency in English-speaking countries will hardly bequestioned. In Great Britain the rural exodus has gone on with avengeance. The last census (1901) showed that seventy-seven per cent ofthe population was urban, and only twenty-three per cent rural. A fewyears ago there were derelict farms within easy walk of the outskirtsof London. In Ireland the rural exodus took the form of emigration, mainly to American cities, and this has been the chief factor in thereduction of the population in sixty years from more than eight millionsto a trifle above four. But it may be thought that in the United Statesno similar tendency is in operation. Certainly those who admit thetownward drift of country life may fairly say that it does not presentso urgent a problem in the New World as in parts of the Old. Evengranting that this is so, the fact remains that the town population ofAmerica is seriously outgrowing the rural population; for, while thetowns are growing hugely, the country stands still. Moreover, we mustnot forget that, Australia apart, America is even still the mostunderpopulated part of the globe. We are accustomed to think Irelandunderpopulated, owing to emigration, yet even to-day the scale ofpopulation is almost six times greater than that of the United States. If the Union were peopled as thickly as Ireland even still is, thepopulation would be nearly five hundred millions. There is still a vastdeal of filling-up to be done in America, mostly in the rural parts. 

But the main consideration I wish to emphasise throughout is that theproblem under review is moral and social far more than economic, humanrather than material. This is the natural view of an Irish worker, whoknows that the solution of _his_ problem depends upon the possibility ofendowing country life with such social improvements as will provide aneffective compensation for a necessarily modest standard of comfort. Butthe citizens of the United States may be pardoned for being physiocrats. The statistical proof, annually furnished, of the growing agriculturalwealth, is apt to obscure other essentials of progress. The astronomicalproportions of the figures stagger the imagination, and engender thekind of pride a man feels when he is first told the number of redcorpuscles luxuriating in his blood. How can there be agriculturaldepression in a country whose farm lands Secretary Wilson, in hisnotable Annual Report for 1905, declared to have increased in value overa period of five years at the astounding rate of $3, 400, 000 per day? Yetto the deeper insight, the same moral influence through which we inIreland are seeking to combat the evils of material poverty may in theUnited States be needed as a moral corrective to a too rapidly growingmaterial prosperity. The patriotic American, who thinks of the life ofthe Nation rather than of the individual, will, if he looks beneath thesurface, discern in this God-prospered country symptoms of ruraldecadence fraught with danger to National efficiency. 

The reckless sacrifice of agricultural interests by the legislators ofthe towns is condemned by the verdict of history. We need not now fearthat invading hordes of hardy barbarians will mar the destiny of thegreat Western Republic, as they ended the career of the Roman Empire. There are, however, other clouds upon the horizon. Only a few years ago, the American people could well treat with contempt the bogy of theYellow Peril. With a transformation unprecedented in history, thesituation has been changed. Japan is already devoting to the arts ofpeace qualities but yesterday displayed in war, to the amazement of theWestern world. In another Eastern empire there are vastresources--especially coal and iron in juxtaposition--awaiting onlyindustrial leadership to utilise a practically limitless labour supplyfor their development. These are facts worthy of consideration for theirpotential bearing upon the industrial and commercial standing of theUnited States. 

To the onlooker, it does seem a happy circumstance that there has justbeen, for seven critical years, at the head of American affairs thestrenuous advocate of the strenuous life. I read through his Messagesthe warning that in the struggle for preëminence the ultimate victorywill lie with those nations who found their prosperity on the highphysical and ethical condition of the people. That is the oldest, as itis the latest, wisdom of the East. It is in this spirit that theneglected problem of Rural Life should now be given some share of theattention hitherto devoted to the life of the towns. 

CHAPTER IV

THE INNER LIFE OF THE AMERICAN FARMER

I recently asked a German economist if he could tell me the best booksto read upon the problem of rural life in Germany. His reply was: "Thereare no books, because there is no problem. " It is generally true, nodoubt, that the Rural Life problem, in so far as it consists in thesubordination of the country to the town, is peculiar to theEnglish-speaking countries, where it seems to be mainly attributable tothree causes. The chief of these was no doubt the Industrial Revolutionin England, of which enough has already been said. Secondly, in theUnited States and in some portions of the British Empire, the opening upof vast tracts of virgin soil led not unnaturally to the postponement ofsocial development until the pioneer farmers had settled down to thenew life. The third cause was immunity from the danger of foreigninvasion, which eliminated the military reasons for maintaining anumerous, virile, and progressive rural population. 

There are many in England who regret that it should have been forgottenhow the English owed their commercial supremacy to the fightingqualities of the old yeoman class. In the United States it should beremembered that nowadays peace strength is quite as important as warstrength, and it may be questioned whether there can be any sustainedindustrial efficiency where the great body of workers who conduct thechief--the only absolutely necessary--industry are wasting the resourcesat their command by bad husbandry. We may, however, concede that theneglect of rural life is much easier to explain and excuse in the UnitedStates than in the older English-speaking countries. Quite apart fromthe abundance of agricultural resources which the American farmersenjoy, it might well be thought that the rural communities are keepingpace with the progress of urban civilisation. The citizens who nowoccupy the farm lands of the United States have been largely drawn fromthe pick of the European peasantries. In the days of their coming, ittook courage and enterprise to face the now almost forgotten terrors ofthe Atlantic Ocean. These immigrants, and the migrants from the EasternStates, have profited enormously by their change of residence. Theirmaterial well-being has already been admitted, and, with rareexceptions, they have displayed no overt symptoms of agrariandiscontent. 

It must not, however, be imagined that the apparent apathy of Americanfarmers is due to contentment. Like others of their calling, they keep afull stock of grievances in their mental stores. They have very definiteopinions as to what is wrong, but to these opinions no formal expressionis given. They vaguely feel that they would like to remould "the sorryscheme of things entire, " but they lack the public spirit which isrequired before concerted action can be taken successfully. The CountryLife Commission held a series of conferences throughout the UnitedStates, which brought them into the closest touch with every type ofAmerican farm life. They received written replies from some 125, 000rural folk to whom they had sent a circular with a dozen questionscovering the essential heads of inquiry. The Commissioners say in theirreport: "We have found by the testimony, not only of the farmersthemselves, but of all persons in touch with farm life, more or lessserious unrest in every part of the United States, even in the mostprosperous regions. "

The truth is that, while judged by the standard of living of Europeanpeasantries, the farmers of the United States are prosperous, incomparison with the other citizens of the most progressive country inthe world they are not well-off. Their accumulation of material wealthis unnaturally and unnecessarily restricted; their social life isbarren; their political influence is relatively small. American farmershave been used by politicians, but have still to learn how to use them. This may be due to the fact that my countrymen elected to devote theirgenius for organisation to the problems of city government. And in thesphere of private action they are, as will be seen when I discuss theneed for a reorganisation of their business, even less effective than inpublic affairs. 

It will be conceded that any hopeful plan to put things right will haveto rely upon the organised efforts of those immediately concerned. Bothin the sphere of governmental action, and in the vastly more importantfield of voluntary effort, the moving force will have to be publicopinion. But the thought of the farming communities has long ago joinedthe rural exodus; and before the country life idea can find expressionin an effective country life movement, those who are thinking out theproblem will have to commend their arguments to the thought of thetowns. Therefore I address these pages, not to farmers only, but to thegeneral reader--who, I may observe, does not generally read if hehappens to live in the open country. 

In the course of my own studies of American rural life I have found itconvenient to divide the United States into four sections, each of themmore or less homogeneous. As this method of treatment may help myreaders, I will give them a look at my map of American rural life. Thefour sections may be called the North Eastern, the Middle Western, theSouthern, and the Far Western. The division has no pretensions to bescientific; the boundaries can be adjusted to fit in with the experienceof each reader. 

In my North Eastern section I include the New England States, New York, New Jersey, and most of Pennsylvania. This is a section wheremanufacturing communities have long been established, where migrationfrom country to town has been most marked, and where the competition ofthe newly settled Western farm lands has been followed by effects uponagricultural society very similar to those produced by the same causesin many a rural community on the Continent of Europe. Second comes theMiddle Western section, consisting mainly of the Mississippi Valley, with its vast area of high average fertility, the greatestfood-producing tract on the continent. Third, I place the Southernsection, where the governing factors in rural economy are the climate, the numerical strength of the colored population, the two stapleindustrial crops--cotton and tobacco--the comparatively recent abolitionof slavery, and the long-drawn-out effects of the Civil War. My fourthdivision, the Far Western section, includes the ranching lands of thearid belt with their irrigation oases, and the fruit-growing and farminglands of the Pacific Coast. 

As we are discussing the problem chiefly in its human aspect, whichaffects alike communities wealthy and impoverished, large and small, old-settled and newly established, it will not matter essentially wherewe first direct our attention for the purpose of illustration. But if, as I hold, nothing less than a reconstruction of rural civilisation iscalled for, our inquiries will be more profitably directed to thosesections where agricultural society is permanently established, or wherethe rural population might abandon the migratory habit if the conditionswere more favorable to an advanced civilisation. At the present stage Ifeel that the whole subject can be most profitably discussed in itsapplication to the Middle Western and the Southern sections. Here theintimate relationship of the Conservation and the Country Life ideas isbest illustrated. Here, too, we get into touch with the problem at itstwo extremes of prosperity and poverty, each in its own way retardingthe progress of rural civilisation. In both sections the conditions aretypical, and distinctively American. 

Let us then consider first the general course of rural civilisation inthe great food-producing tract of the Middle West. I have in my mind theportion I know best, the last-settled part of the corn belt. Thirtyyears ago I saw something of the newcomers who settled in this section, where there was still much raw land. These settlers, knowing that theland must rise rapidly in value, almost invariably purchased much largerfarms than they could handle. They often sank their available workingcapital in making the first payments for their land, and went heavilyinto debt for the balance. They became "land poor, " and, in order tomeet the instalments of purchase and the high interest on theirmortgages, they invented a system of farming unprecedented in itswastefulness. The farm was treated as a mine, or, to use Mr. James J. Hill's metaphor, as a bank where the depositors are always taking outmore than they put in. A corn crop, year after year, without rotation orfertilisers, satisfied the new conception of husbandry--the easiest andleast costly extraction of the wealth in the soil. Land, labour, capital, and ability I had been taught to regard as the essentials ofproduction; but here capital was reduced to the minimum, and abilityleft to nature. Many of the young men who took Horace Greeley's adviceand went West knew nothing about farming. I remember writing home that Iwas in a country where the rolling stone gathered most moss. Possiblythe method adopted was the quickest way to get rich; living on capitalis all right provided somebody will replace the squandered resources. While there were ample unoccupied lands, Uncle Sam looked kindly uponthese enterprising pioneers. It was only in the second RooseveltAdministration that it dawned upon the national conscience that thenation had some claim to be considered as well as the individual. Ofcourse all this is changed now; although I am not sure that westernCanada is not being educated in soil exhaustion by some of theseextemporised husbandmen whose habits and temperament lead them to seek"fresh fields and pastures new. " "We are not out here for our health, "was the reply I got when I showed that my old-fashioned economic sensewas shocked by this substitution of land speculation for farming. 

I am aware that this very uneconomic procedure is capable of someplausible explanations. The opening up of the vast new territory by theprovision of local traffic for transcontinental lines was an object ofnational urgency and importance. Nevertheless, I think it must now beregretted that a little more thought was not given to the generalproblem of rural economy, of which transit is but one factor. This maybe that irritating kind of wisdom which comes after the event, but Icannot help regarding the policy of rewarding railroad enterprises withunconditional grants of vast areas of agricultural land as one of themany evidences of the urban domination over rural affairs. 

Of the earlier settled portions of this section I cannot speak frompersonal knowledge. But a recent magazine article, [3] "The AgrarianRevolution in the Middle West, " follows closely the line of my ownthoughts. In this article Mr. Joseph B. Ross, of Lafayette, Indiana, whois making a special study of the evolution of American rural life, considers it in three periods: from 1800 to 1835, from 1835 to 1890, andfrom 1890 to the present time. In the middle period he shows how themost progressive families raised their standard of living steadily withthe growing prosperity of the country. They built themselves statelyhomes with substantial barns. The farmer was developing into a citizenwith the solid virtues, the virile independence, the strong politicalopinions, religious interest, and social instincts which characterisedthe English yeoman of the preceding century. The social life which thesecommunities built up, as soon as their economic position was assured, was a reflection of the best English traditions--it centred round thechurches and the Sunday-school. There was a growing distribution ofliterature as well as organisation for intellectual, educational andsocial purposes. Mr. Ross notes the winter excursions to Florida andCalifornia, the adornment of the homes, and many other evidences of asocial progress developing a character of its own. During this periodthere was a migration from the country homes to the cities; but it wasonly the natural outflow of the surplus members of the rural familiesinto the professional and business life of the growing centres ofcommerce and industry. 

In the period through which we are now passing a transformation istaking place. The rural exodus is no longer that of individuals, but ofwhole families. The farms thus vacated are let to tenants, generally ona three years' lease, at a competition rent. The Country Life Commissionsays that this tendency to move to the cities "is not peculiar to anyregion. In difficult farming regions, and where the competition withother farming sections is most severe, the young people may go to townto better their condition. In the best regions the older people retireto town because it is socially more attractive, and they see a prospectof living in comparative ease and comfort on the rental of their lands. Nearly everywhere there is a townward movement for the purpose ofsecuring school advantages for the children. All this tends to sterilizethe open country and to lower its social status. " The Commission pointsout that the new addition of what is likely to be a stationary element, whose economic interests lie elsewhere, to the citizenship of the town, may create there a new social problem, while the tenant in the countrywill not have that interest in building up rural society which might beexpected in the owners of land. Mr. Ross's studies lead him verydefinitely to the same conclusion. Churches and educationalinstitutions, he tells us, are being starved, and rural society is fastreverting to the type which was prevalent from thirty to fifty yearsago. But there is one great difference between then and now. Then, ruralcivilisation was passing through a stage of marked social advancementwhich was common throughout the country; now, there are distinctindications of social degeneration, which Mr. Ross regards as theinevitable consequence of the new landlord and tenant system. Manymembers of these communities must have left the Old World to escape fromthe selfsame conditions which they are reproducing in the New. 

Rural society in the Middle West, as it presents itself to the observerwhose authority I have cited, is obviously in a transitional stage. Thelack of farm labourers, which is the common subject of complaint byfarmers in all parts of the United States, cannot fail to be aggravatedby the change in the conditions of tenancy just noted. The man whosechief concern is to get the most out of the land, at the least expense, in two or three years, will not treat his labourers so well--nor theland so well--as will the man who means to spend his life on the farm;and therefore the labourers will not stay. This scarcity of labour maybe met to some extent by an increased use of machinery; but it is morelikely to lead to poorer cultivation, which means the depopulation ofagricultural districts. England and Ireland furnish too many examples ofthe rural decay immortalised in Goldsmith's "Deserted Village. " It wouldbe strange and sad if the experience were to be repeated on the richestsoil of America. 

In the Southern section we find a wastefulness similar to that in thecorn belt, but due to wholly different causes. The communities areold-settled, but in many instances they are still abnormally depressedby the terrible effects of the great war, followed by a period of socialand economic stagnation. Here there was little but agriculture for thepeople to rely upon, and their methods have, until recent years, beenvery backward. The growing of the same crops year after year upon thesame fields, the neglect of precaution against the washing away of thesoil surface, and the failure to use fertilisers, have made the profitsof tillage disappointingly small. Billions of dollars have been lost bythese communities through persistent soil exhaustion and erosion. In thelast few years the Federal Department of Agriculture has maintained amost efficient staff of agricultural experts under the direction of Dr. Knapp, one of the ablest organisers of farm improvement I have ever met. The General Education Board, who administer large sums provided by Mr. Rockefeller, recognising the educational value of Dr. Knapp'soperations, are contributing about one hundred thousand dollars a yearto his work. Dr. Knapp and his field agents have no difficulty at all indemonstrating that the yield may be doubled, and the cost of productiongreatly reduced, merely by the application of the most elementaryscience to agriculture. I heard him tell of a farmer whom he had inducedto allow his boy--still attending school--to cultivate one acre underhis instructions. In the result the boy quadrupled the number of bushelsof corn to the acre that his father, following the traditional methods, was able to raise. It would be easy to multiply such instances ofthriftlessness and neglected opportunity, of poverty within easy reachof abundance, which have brought it about that the future of the nationis actually endangered by the failure of the food supply to keep pacewith the increase of its still relatively sparse population. 

The Southern section furnishes two illustrations of long-standingneglect, both well worthy of consideration for their pregnantsuggestiveness. The Federal Department of Agriculture recently scored anotable success in dealing with an insect pest which was threatening thecotton-growing industry with economic ruin. The boll-weevil, like thelegal and medical professions, thrives upon the follies of humanity. Itattacks the cotton plants which have been weakened by bad husbandry. Thescientists did not succeed in finding in the commonwealth of bugs thenatural enemy of the pest they were after, but Dr. Knapp, with thewisdom which prefers prevention to cure, seized the opportunity ofteaching cotton-growers to diversify their cultivation. The consequencewas that the cotton crop itself is gradually responding to thetreatment. Many other crops are adding their quota to the produce of theSouthern farms, and an all-round improvement, moral as well as material, is accompanying the educational discipline through which this reformeris putting the communities with whom and for whom he is working. 

There is another pest in the South which does not attack the farm crops, but goes straight for the farmer. If the Country Life Commission haddone nothing more, they would have justified their appointment by theattention they called to the ravages of the hookworm, which have, no oneknows how long, scourged the poor white communities in the SouthernStates. The effect of the disease set up by the hookworm, which infeststhe intestines, is a complete sapping of all energy, mental andphysical. Mr. Rockefeller has provided a million dollars for thenecessary research work and for such subsequent organisation of sanitaryeffort as may be required to extirpate this unquestionably preventableevil. I wonder how long such a state of affairs would have beenpermitted to interfere with the health and to paralyse the industry ofurban communities. Had the hookworm, instead of lurking in countrylanes, walked the streets, how would it have fared?

These two pests furnish a fine illustration of the length to which theneglect of rural life has been allowed to go in the Southern States. 

Neither the Eastern nor the Far Western section presents aspects ofspecial interest to the foreign student of the Rural problem in theUnited States, but in both the constructive statesman and the socialworker will find a rich field for their efforts. In the New EnglandStates--more especially in the manufacturing districts--the competitionbetween town and country for labour is as marked as in IndustrialEngland. In this section, however, the lure of the city has a rival inthe call of the West, which still makes its appeal to the farmer's boy. Secretary Wilson has recently given it as his opinion that land-seekerswho pass by the farms now offered for sale in the western portions ofNew York State often go further and fare worse. In these relativelylow-priced lands, it ought not to be difficult for agriculturalcommunities to establish permanently a rural society worthy of Americanideas of progress. But to do this is to solve the problem we arediscussing. We have some other aspects of that problem to considerbefore we can agree upon the essentials of a philosophic andcomprehensive scheme for the rehabilitation of rural life--before we canlay down the lines of a movement to give effect to our plan. 

The Far Western section has hardly yet emerged from the frontier-pioneerstage, and its rural problem is still below the horizon. I may, however, note in passing a few evidences that the people of this section havealready shown a very real concern for rural progress. The fruit-growersof the Pacific Coast have, in the coöperative marketing of theirproduce, made an excellent beginning in a matter of first importance inany scheme of rural development. On irrigation farm lands there hasbeen developed, in connection with the upkeep and control of the watersystems, a community spirit which will surely lead to many forms oforganisation for mutual economic and social advantage. In the city ofSpokane, Washington, the Chamber of Commerce has aroused a publicinterest in the work of the Country Life Commission which, so far as myinformation goes, has not been equalled elsewhere in the United States. The Chamber is republishing the Report of the Commission, for which noFederal appropriation appears to have been made. It would seem to be anot wild speculation that the statesmen and social workers who willfirst solve the rural problem of the English-speaking peoples may befound in the Far West of the New World as well as of the Old. 

I must now conclude the diagnosis of rural decadence by a considerationof what in my judgment is the chief cause of the malady, and so get toa point where we can determine the nature of the remedy. It will thenremain only to sketch the outlines of the movement which is to givepractical effect to the agreed principles in the life of ruralcommunities. 

FOOTNOTE:

[3] _North American Review_, September, 1909. 

CHAPTER V

THE WEAK SPOT IN AMERICAN RURAL ECONOMY

The evidence of competent American witnesses proves that there is, inthe United States, notwithstanding its immense agricultural wealth, aRural Life problem. Here, as elsewhere, on a fuller analysis, the utmostvariety of race, soil, climate and market facilities serve but toemphasise the importance of the human factor. But this considerationdoes not lessen the need for a sternly practical treatment of the ruralsocial economy under review. In this chapter, I propose to go right downto the roots of the rural problem, find what is wrong with the industryby which the country people live, and see how it can be righted. Weshould then have clearly in our minds the essentials of prosperity in arural community. 

Agriculture, the basis of a rural existence, must be regarded as ascience, as a business and as a life. I have already adverted toPresident Roosevelt's formula for solving the rural problem--"betterfarming, better business, better living. " Better farming simply meansthe application of modern science to the practice of agriculture. Betterbusiness is the no less necessary application of modern commercialmethods to the business side of the farming industry. Better living isthe building up, in rural communities, of a domestic and social lifewhich will withstand the growing attractions of the modern city. 

This threefold scheme of reform covers the whole ground and will becomethe basis of the Country Life movement to be suggested later. But in theworking out of the general scheme, there must be one important change inthe order of procedure--'better business' must come first. The dullcommercial details of agriculture have been sadly neglected, perhaps onaccount of the more human interest of the scientific and social aspectsof country life. Yet my own experience in working at the rural problemin Ireland has convinced me that our first step towards its solution isto be found in a better organisation of the farmer's business. It isstrange but true that the level of efficiency reached in many Europeancountries was due to American competition, which in the last half of thenineteenth century forced Continental farmers to reorganise theirindustry alike in production, in distribution and in its finance. BothIrish experience and Continental study have convinced me that neithergood husbandry nor a worthy social life can be ensured unlessaccompanied by intelligent and efficient business methods. We must, therefore, examine somewhat critically the agricultural system of theAmerican farmer, and see wherein its weakness lies. 

The superiority of the business methods of the town to those of thecountry is obvious, but I do not think the precise nature of thatsuperiority is generally understood. What strikes the eye is thematerial apparatus of business, --the street cars, the advertisements, the exchange, the telephone, the typewriter; all these form animpressive contrast with the slow, simple life of the farmer, who verylikely scratches his accounts on a shingle or keeps them in his head. But most of this city apparatus is due merely to the necessity of swiftmovement in the concentrated process of exchange and distribution. Suchswiftness is neither necessary nor possible in the process of isolatedproduction. But there is an economic law, applicable alike to rural andto urban pursuits, which is being more and more fully recognised andobeyed by the farmers of most European countries, including Ireland, butwhich has been too little heeded by the farmers of the United States andGreat Britain. Under modern economic conditions, things must be done ina large way if they are to be done profitably; and this necessitates aresort to combination. 

The advantage which combination gives to the town over the country wasrecognised long before the recent economic changes forced men tocombine. In the old towns of Europe all trades began as strict andexclusive corporations. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries newscientific and economic forces broke up these combinations, which werefar too narrow for the growing volume of industrial activity, and anepoch of competition began. The great towns of America opened theirbusiness career during this epoch, and have brought the arts ofcompetition to a higher perfection than exists in Europe. But it hasalways been known that competition did not exclude combination againstthe consumer; and it is now beginning to be perceived that the fiercerthe competition, the more surely does it lead in the end to suchcombination. 

A trade combination has three principal objects: it aims, first, atimproving what I may call the internal business methods of the tradeitself by eliminating the waste due to competition, by economisingstaff, plant, etc. , and by the ready circulation of intelligence, and inother ways. In the second place, it aims at strengthening the tradeagainst outside interests. These may be of various kinds; but in thetypical case we are considering, namely, the combination of greatmiddlemen who control exchange and distribution, the outside interestsare those of the producer on one side and the consumer on the other; andthe trade combination, by its organised unity of action, succeeds inlowering the prices it pays to the unorganised producer and in raisingthe prices it charges to the unorganised consumer. In the third place, the trade combination seeks to favour its own interests in theirrelation to other interests through political control--control not somuch of the machinery of politics as of its products, legislation andadministration. I am not now arguing the question whether or how farthis action on the part of trade combinations is morally justifiable. Mypoint is simply that the towns have flourished at the expense of thecountry by the use of these methods, and that the countryman must adoptthem if he is to get his own again. Moreover, as organisation tends toincrease the volume and lower the cost of agricultural production and tomake possible large transactions between organised communities offarmers and the trade, it will be seen that the organised combination offarmers will simplify the whole commerce of those countries where it isadopted, and thus benefit alike the farmer and the trader. 

This truth will be easily realised if we consider for a moment thesystem of distribution which the food demand of the modern market hasevolved. Agricultural produce finds its chief market in the greatcities. Their populations must have their food so sent in that it canbe rapidly distributed; and this requires that the consignments must bedelivered regularly, in large quantities, and of such uniform qualitythat a sample will give a correct indication of the whole. These threeconditions are essential to rapid distribution, but their fulfilment isnot within the power of isolated farmers, however large theiroperations. It is an open question whether farmers should themselvesundertake the distribution of their produce through agencies of theirown, thus saving the wholesale and possibly the retail profits. Butunquestionably they should be so well organised at home that they cantake this course if they are unfairly treated by organised middlemen. The Danish farmers, whose highly organised system of distribution hasmade them the chief competitors of the Irish farmers, have established(with Government assistance which their organisation enabled them tosecure) very efficient machinery for distributing their butter, baconand eggs in the British markets. Other European farming communities arebecoming equally well organised, and similarly control the marketing oftheir produce. But where, as in America and the United Kingdom, the towndominates the country, and the machinery of distribution is owned by thebusiness men of the towns, it is worked by them in their own interests. They naturally take from the unorganised producers as well as from theunorganised consumers the full business value of the service theyrender. With the growing cost of living, this has become a matter ofurgent importance to the towns. In the cheaper-food campaign which beganin the late fall of 1909, voices are heard calling the farmers toaccount for their uneconomical methods, while here and thereorganisations of consumers are endeavouring to solve the problem totheir own satisfaction by acquiring land and raising upon it the producewhich they require. 

In the face of such facts it is not easy to account for thebackwardness of American and British farmers in the obviously importantmatter of organisation. The farmer, we know, is everywhere the mostconservative and individualistic of human beings. He dislikes change inhis methods, and he venerates those which have come down to him from hisfathers' fathers. Whatever else he may waste, these traditions heconserves. He does not wish to interfere with anybody else's business, and he is fixedly determined that others shall not interfere with his. These estimable qualities make agricultural organisation more difficultin Anglo-Saxon communities than in those where clan or tribal instinctsseem to survive. [4]

Now it is fair to the farmer to admit that his calling does not lenditself readily to associative action. He lives apart; most of his timeis spent in the open air, and in the evening of the working day physicalrepose is more congenial to him than mental activity. But when all thisis said, we have not a complete explanation of the fact that, by failingto combine, American and British farmers, persistently disobey anaccepted law, and refuse to follow the almost universal practice ofmodern business. I believe the true explanation to be one that hassomehow escaped the notice of the agricultural economist. Those whoaccept it will feel that they have found the weak spot in Americanfarming, and that the remedy is neither obscure nor difficult to apply. 

The form of combination which the towns have invented for industrial andcommercial purposes is the Joint Stock Company. Here a number of personscontribute their capital to a common fund and entrust the direction toa single head or committee, taking no further part in the businessexcept to change the management if the undertaking does not yield asatisfactory dividend. Our urban way of looking at things has made usassume that this city system must be suitable to rural conditions. Thecontrary is the fact. When farmers combine, it is a combination not ofmoney only, but of personal effort in relation to the entire business. In a coöperative creamery, for example, the chief contribution of ashareholder is in milk; in a coöperative elevator, corn; in other casesit may be fruit or vegetables, or a variety of material things ratherthan cash. But it is, most of all, a combination of neighbours within anarea small enough to allow of all the members meeting frequently at thebusiness centre. As the system develops, the local associations arefederated for larger business transactions, but these are governed bydelegates carefully chosen by the members of the constituent bodies. 

The object of such associations is, primarily, not to declare adividend, but rather to improve the conditions of the industry for themembers. After an agreed interest has been paid upon the shares, the netprofits are divided between the participants in the undertaking, to eachin proportion as he has contributed to them through the business he hasdone with the institution. And the same idea is applied to the controlof the management. It is recognised that the poor man's coöperation isas important as the rich man's subscription. 'One man, one vote, ' is thealmost universal principle in coöperative bodies. [5]

The distinction between the capitalistic basis of joint stockorganisation and the more human character of the coöperative system isfundamentally important. It is recognised by law in England, where thecoöperative trading societies are organised under _The Industrial andProvident Societies' Act_, and the coöperative credit associations under_The Friendly Societies' Act_. In the United States (I am told byfriends in the legal profession), the Articles of Association of anordinary limited liability company can be so drafted as to meet all therequirements I have named. Most countries have enacted laws speciallydevised to meet the requirements of coöperative societies. However it isdone, the essential of success in agricultural coöperation is that theterms and conditions upon which it is based shall be accepted by allconcerned as being equitable in the distribution of profits, risks andcontrol. It then becomes the interest of every member to give hiswhole-hearted support and aid to the common undertaking. To accomplishthis, it is necessary to explain and secure the acceptance of aconstitution and procedure carefully thought out to suit each case. Itwill be readily believed that associations of farmers which will meetthese conditions are not likely to be spontaneously generated; hence thenecessity for a plan and for the machinery to carry it through. 

In this matter I am here speaking from practical experience in Ireland. Twenty years ago the pioneers of our rural life movement found itnecessary to concentrate their efforts upon the reorganisation of thefarmer's business. They saw that foreign competition was not, as wascommonly supposed, a visitation of Providence upon the farmers of theBritish Islands, but a natural economic revolution of permanent effect. Our message to Irish farmers was that they must imitate the methods oftheir Continental competitors, who were defeating them in their ownmarkets simply by superior organisation. After five years of individualpropagandism, the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society was formed in1894 to meet the demand for instruction as to the formation and theworking of coöperative societies, a demand to which it was beyond themeans of the few pioneers to respond. 

Two decades of steady development have confirmed the soundness of theoriginal scheme, and a brief account of agricultural coöperation inIreland will be of interest to any reader who has persevered so far. Theconditions were in some respects favourable. The farms are small andtheir owners belong to the class to which coöperation brings mostimmediate benefit. The Irish peasantry are highly intelligent. They lackthe strong individualism of the English, but they have highly developedassociative instincts. For this reason coöperation, an alternative tocommunism, --which they abhor, --comes naturally to them. On the otherhand, the ease with which they can be organised makes them peculiarlyamenable to political influence. In backward rural communities thetrader is almost invariably the political boss. He is a leader ofagrarian agitation, in which he can safely advocate principles he wouldnot like to see applied to the relations between himself and hiscustomers. He bitterly opposes coöperation, which throws inconvenientlight upon those relations. We are able to persuade the more enlightenedrural traders that economies effected in agricultural production willraise the standard of living of his customers and make them largerconsumers of general commodities and more punctual in their payments. But in the majority of cases the agricultural organiser finds politicsin sharp conflict with business, and has a hard row to hoe. So, while wehave advantages in organising Irish farmers, we have also, largely owingto well-known historical causes, to overcome difficulties which have nocounterpart in the United States or England. 

Nevertheless, we managed to make progress. We began with the dairyingindustry, and already half the export of Irish butter comes from thecoöperative societies we established. Organised bodies of farmers arelearning to purchase their agricultural requirements intelligently andeconomically. They are also beginning to adopt the methods of theorganised foreign farmer in controlling the sale of their butter, eggsand poultry in the British markets. And they not only combine inagricultural production and distribution, but are also making apromising beginning in grappling with the problem of agriculturalfinance. It is in this last portion of the Irish programme that by farthe most interesting study of the coöperative system can be made, onaccount of its success in the poorest parts of the Island. Furthermore, the attempt to enable the most embarrassed section of the Irishpeasantry to procure working capital illustrates some features ofagricultural coöperation which will have suggestive value for Americanfarmers. I will therefore give a brief description of our agriculturalcoöperative credit associations. 

The organisation was introduced in the middle of the last century by aGerman Burgomaster, the now famous Herr Raiffeisen. He set himself toprovide the means of escape from the degrading indebtedness tostorekeepers and usurers which is the almost invariable lot of poorpeasantries. His scheme performs an apparent miracle. A body of verypoor persons, individually--in the commercial sense of theterm--insolvent, manage to create a new basis of security which has beensomewhat grandiloquently and yet truthfully called the capitalisation oftheir honesty and industry. The way in which this is done is remarkablyingenious. The credit society is organised in the usual democratic wayexplained above, but its constitution is peculiar in one respect. Themembers have to become jointly and severally responsible for the debtsof the association, which borrows on this unlimited liability from theordinary commercial bank, or, in some cases, from Government sources. After the initial stage, when the institution becomes firmlyestablished, it attracts local deposits, and thus the savings of thecommunity, which are too often hoarded, are set free to fructify in thecommunity. The procedure by which the money borrowed is lent to themembers of the association is the essential feature of the scheme. Themember requiring the loan must state what he is going to do with themoney. He must satisfy the committee of the association, who know theman and his business, that the proposed investment is one which willenable him to repay both principal and interest. He must enter into abond with two sureties for the repayment of the loan, and needless tosay the characters of both the borrower and his sureties are verycarefully considered. The period for which the loan is granted isarranged to meet the needs of the case, as determined by the committeeafter a full discussion with the borrower. Once the loan has been made, it becomes the concern of every member of the association to see thatit is applied to the 'approved purpose'--as it is technically called. What is more important is that all the borrower's fellow-members becomeinterested in his business and anxious for its success. 

The fact that nearly three hundred of these societies are at work inIreland, and that, although their transactions are on a very modestscale, the system is steadily growing both in the numbers of itsadherents and in the business transacted is, I think, a remarkabletestimony to the value of the coöperative system. The details I havegiven illustrate the important distinction between coöperation, whichenables the farmer to do his business in a way that suits him, and theurban form of combination, which is unsuited to his needs. The ordinarybanks lend money to agriculturists for a term (generally ninety days)which has been fixed to suit the needs of town business. Thus, a farmerborrowing money to sow a crop, or to purchase young cattle, is obligedto repay his loan, in the first instance, before the crop is harvested, and in the second, before the cattle mature and are marketable. Far moreimportant, however, than these not inconsiderable economic advantagesare the social benefits which are derived by bringing people together toachieve in a very definite and practical way the aim of all coöperativeeffort--self-help by mutual help. 

Our coöperative movement, taken as a whole, is to-day represented bynearly one thousand farmers' organisations, with an aggregate membershipof some one hundred thousand persons, mostly heads of families. Itsbusiness turnover last year was twelve and a half million dollars. Inestimating the significance of these figures, American readers must not'think in continents, ' and must give more weight to the moral than tothe material achievement. As I have explained, the coöperative systemrequires for its success the exercise of higher moral qualities thandoes the joint stock company. Once a coöperative society becomes asoulless corporation, its days are numbered. It requires also thediffusion of a good deal of economic thought among its members, andthis, also, is no small matter in the conditions. The most striking factabout this work in Ireland is that while in its earlier yearsorganisation consisted mainly in expounding and commending to farmersthe coöperative principle, we now find that the principle is taken forgranted and the only question upon which advice is needed is how toapply it. The progress of agricultural coöperation depends largely onthe character of the community; its commercial value may be measured bythe extent to which it develops in the community the mental and moralqualities essential to success. [6]

In agricultural coöperation, Ireland can claim to have shown the way tothe United Kingdom. Ten years ago, after the Irish movement had beenlaunched, the English rural reformers started a movement on exactly thesame lines, even founding on the Irish model an English AgriculturalOrganisation Society. An Irishman, who had studied coöperation at home, was selected as its chief executive officer. Five years later, aScottish Agricultural Organisation Society took the field. Both inEngland and in Scotland the chief difficulty to be overcome is theintense individualism of the farmers, and perhaps some lack of altruism. The large farmers did not feel the need of coöperation, and where thenatural leader of the rural community will not lead, the smallcultivator cannot follow. Whether the same difficulties have preventedany considerable adoption of agricultural coöperation in the UnitedStates, it is not necessary to inquire. It is certain that theunderlying principles approved by every progressive rural, community inEurope have not so far exercised more than an occasional and fitfulinfluence upon the rural economy of the American Republic. 

If I have given in these pages a true explanation of the deplorablebackwardness of American farmers in the matter of business combinationwhen compared with all other American workers, those who take part inthe movement which is to provide the remedy will have set themselves atask as hopeful as it is interesting. Americans as a people are addictedto associated action. I have seen the principle of coöperation developedto the highest point in the ranching industry in the days of theunfenced range. Our cattle used to roam at large, the only means ofidentifying them being certain registered marks made by thebranding-iron and the knife. The individual owner would have had no moreproperty in his herd than he would have had in so many fishes in thesea but for a very effective coöperative organisation. The StockAssociation, with its 'round-ups' and its occasional resort to theSupreme Court of Judge Lynch, were an adequate substitute for the titledeeds to the lands, and for fences horse-high, bull-strong andhog-tight. But then we were in the Arid Belt and the frontier-pioneerstage; we had no politics and no politicians. I must return, however, tothe less exciting, but I suppose more important, life of the regularfarmer, and consider his efforts at organisation. 

Instances can be multiplied where the coöperative system has beenadopted with immensely beneficial results; but in too many cases it hasbeen abandoned. On the other hand, Granges, Institutes, Clubs, Leagues, Alliances and a multitude of miscellaneous farmers' associations havebeen organised for social, religious, political and economic objects. From my study of the work done by these bodies, the impression left isthat almost everything that can be done better by working together thanby working separately has been at some time the subject of organisedeffort. But these manifestations of activity have been fitful andsporadic. They were commonly marked by some or all of the samedefects--mutual distrust, divided counsels, ignorance of what otherswere doing, want of continuity and impatience of results. Manyorganisations, after winning some advantages, --over the railroads forinstance, --fell into abeyance or even out of existence; others lapsedunder the enervating influence of a little temporary prosperity, such asa few years of better prices. The truth is, American farmers have hadthe will to organise, but they have missed the way. [7]

The political influence of the farming community has for this reasonnever been commensurate either with the numerical strength of itsmembers or the magnitude of their share in the nation's work. It istrue that the Federal Department of Agriculture, appropriations forAgricultural Colleges, some railway legislation and other boons tofarmers, are to be attributed to the efforts of their organisations. Yet, as compared with the influence exercised upon National affairs bythe farmers of, say, France and Denmark, the American farmer has but asmall influence upon legislation and administration affecting hisinterests. What better proof of this could be given than the absence ofa Parcels Post in the United States? The whole farming community areagreed as to the need for this boon to the dwellers of the open country, and yet they have not succeeded in winning it against the opposition ofthe Express Companies, because it is merely a farmers' and not atownsmen's grievance. And not only political impotence, but politicalinertia, result from the lack of organisation. The state of the countryroads--one of the greatest disabilities under which country life in theUnited States still suffers--is as good an instance as I know. Congresshas shown itself well disposed towards the farmer, but not always so theState governments, and the good intentions of Congress on the roadsquestion are largely nullified owing to the failure of one-third of theStates to establish highway commissions, or make other provision forexpending such amounts as might be voted to them by Congress. Here, asin the cases of the transit and marketing problems, we see the need fora strong, central, permanent organisation, fitted alike to direct localor promote National action; an association capable of securing thelegislative protection of the farmer's interests, and an organisationfitted to further the business side of his industry. In fact, this needis urgent, and a coöperative movement of National dimensions should beestablished to meet it. Had such a movement been started after the War, or even twenty years later, the American farmer would be in a farstronger position to-day, and much misdirected effort would have beensaved. 

I have now tried to explain the weak spot in American rural economy. Itmay be regarded from a more general point of view. If we wereconsidering the life of some commercial or industrial community andtrying to forecast its future development, one of the first things weshould note would be its general business methods. No manufacturingconcern with a defective office administration and incompetenttravellers could survive, even if it had an Archimedes or an Edison insupreme control. I cannot see any reason why an agricultural communityshould expect to prosper while the industry by which its members liveretains its present business organisation. I have urged that as thingsare, the farming interest is at a fatal disadvantage in the purchase ofagricultural requirements, in the sale of agricultural produce, and inobtaining proper credit facilities. Whatever the cause--and I have setdown those which I regard as the chief among them--American farmers havestill to learn that they are subject to a law of modern business whichgoverns all their country's industrial activities--the law that eachbody of workers engaged in supplying the modern market must combine, orbe worsted at every turn in competition with those who do. 

I do not much fear that this general principle, overlooked, perhaps, because it was too obvious to be worth enforcing, will be disputed. Ihope I may gain acceptance for my further contention that the inabilityof American farmers to sustain an effective business organisation hasbeen due simply to the fact that the not obvious distinction between thecapitalistic and the coöperative basis of combination suitable to townand country respectively was missed. For it will then be clear why, inthe working out of Mr. Roosevelt's formula, better business must precedeand form the basis of better farming and better living. The convictionthat in this general procedure lies the one hope of solving the problemunder review accounts for the otherwise disproportionate space given tothat aspect of rural life which is of the least interest to the generalreader. 

I shall now attempt to determine the principles which must be applied tothe solution of our problem. Those who have followed the arguments up tothis point will have a pretty clear idea of the general drift of myconclusions. The substitution in rural economy of the coöperative forthe competitive principle, which I have so far advocated as a matter ofbusiness prudence, will be seen to have a wider import. This course willbe shown to have an important bearing upon the application of the newknowledge to the oldest industry and also upon the building of a newrural civilisation we must provide for the dwellers of the open countrya larger share of the intellectual and social pleasures for the want ofwhich those most needed in the country are too often drawn to thetown. 

FOOTNOTES:

[4] I should expect the negroes in the Southern States to be very goodsubjects for agricultural organisation. I have discussed this questionwith the staff of the Hampton Institute in Virginia--a fine body of men, doing noble work. The Principal, the Rev. H. B. Frissell, D. D. , whosejudgment in this matter is probably the weightiest in the United States, and his leading assistants, both white and coloured, are of the sameopinion. 

[5] Where capital is, in rare instances, subscribed by persons otherthan farmers, it is usually invested less as a commercial speculationthan as an act of friendship on the part of the investor, who in no caseexercises more control than his one vote affords. 

[6] Readers who are sufficiently interested in the rural life movementin Ireland will find a full description of it in my book, "Ireland inthe New Century, " John Murray, London, and E. P. Dutton, New York. 

[7] Mr. John Lee Coulter contributed to the _Yale Review_ for November, 1909, an article on Organization among the farmers of the United Stateswhich is a most valuable summary of the important facts. 

CHAPTER VI

THE WAY TO BETTER FARMING AND BETTER LIVING

In no way is the contrast between rural and urban civilisation moremarked than in the application of the teachings of modern science totheir respective industries. Even the most important mechanicalinventions were rather forced upon the farmer by the efficient sellingorganisation of the city manufacturers than demanded by him as a resultof good instruction in farming. On the mammoth wheat farms, where, asthe fable ran, the plough that started out one morning returned on theadjoining furrow the following day, mechanical science was indeed calledin, but only to perpetrate the greatest soil robbery in agriculturalhistory. Application of science to legitimate agriculture iscomparatively new. In my ranching and farming days I well remember howgeneral was the disbelief in its practical value throughout the Middleand Far West. In cowboy terminology, all scientists were classified as"bug-hunters, " and farmers generally had no use for the theorist. Thenon-agricultural community had naturally no higher appreciation of thefarmer's calling than he himself displayed. When some Universities firstdeveloped agricultural courses, the students who entered for them werenicknamed "aggies, " and were not regarded as adding much to the dignityof a seat of higher learning. The Department of Agriculture was lookedupon as a source of jobs, graft being the nearest approach to any knownagricultural operation. 

All this is changing fast. The Federal Department of Agriculture is nowperhaps the most popular and respected of the world's greatadministrative institutions. In the Middle West, a newly awakenedpublic opinion has set up an honourable rivalry between such States asWisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota, in developing theagricultural sides of their Universities and Colleges. None the less, Mr. James J. Hill has recently given it as his opinion that not morethan one per cent of the farmers of these regions are working in directtouch with any educational institution. It is probable that thisestimate leaves out of account the indirect influence of the vast amountof extension work and itinerant instruction which is embraced in theactivities of the Universities and Colleges. I fear it cannot be deniedthat in the application of the natural sciences to the practical, and ofeconomic science to the business of farming, the country folk aredecades behind their urban fellow-citizens. And again I say thedisparity is to be attributed to the difference in their respectivedegrees of organisation for business purposes. 

The relation between business organisation and economic progress ought, I submit, to be very seriously considered by the social workers whoperceive that progress is mainly a question of education. Speaking fromadministrative experience at home, and from a good deal of interestedobservation in America, I am firmly convinced that the new ruraleducation is badly handicapped by the lack of organised bodies offarmers to act as channels for the new knowledge now made available. Insome instances, I am aware, great good has been done by the formation offarmers' institutes which have been established in order to interestrural communities in educational work and to make the local arrangementsfor instruction by lectures, demonstrations and otherwise. But allEuropean experience proves the superiority for this purpose of thebusiness association to the organisation _ad hoc_, and has a much betterchance of permanence. 

Again, the influence upon rural life of the agricultural teaching of theColleges and Universities, as exercised by their pupils, may be tooeasily accepted as being of greater potential utility than any workwhich these institutions can do amongst adults. This is a mistake. Thethousands of young men who are now being trained for advanced farmingtoo often have to restrict the practical application of their theoreticknowledge to the home circle, which is not always responsive, for a manis not usually a prophet in his own family. It is here that theeducational value of coöperative societies comes in; they act asagencies through which scientific teaching may become actual practice, not in the uncertain future, but in the living present. A coöperativeassociation has a quality which should commend it to the socialreformer--the power of evoking character; it brings to the front a newtype of local leader, not the best talker, but the man whose knowledgeenables him to make some solid contribution to the welfare of thecommunity. 

I come now to the last part of the threefold scheme--that which aims ata better life upon the farm. The coöperative association, in virtue ofits non-capitalistic basis of constitution and procedure (which, as Ihave explained, distinguishes it from the Joint Stock Company), demandsas a condition of its business success the exercise of certain socialqualities of inestimable value to the community life. It is for thisreason, no doubt, that where men and women have learned to work togetherunder this system in the business of their lives, they are easilyinduced to use their organisation for social and intellectual purposesalso. 

The new organisation of the rural community for social as well aseconomic purposes, which should follow from the acceptance of theopinion I have advanced, would bring with it the first effectivecounter-attraction to the towns. Their material advantages the countrycannot hope to rival; nor can any conceivable evolution of rural lifefurnish a real counterpart to the cheap and garish entertainments ofthe modern city. Take, for example, the extravagant use of electriclight for purposes of advertisement, which affords a nightly display offireworks in any active business street of an American city far superiorto the occasional exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London, which wasthe rare treat of my childhood days. These delights--if such theybe--cannot be extended into remote villages in Kansas or Nebraska; buttheir enchantment must be reckoned with by those who would remould thelife of the open country and make it morally and mentally satisfying tothose who are born to it, or who, but for its social stagnation, wouldprefer a rural to an urban existence. 

In one of his many public references to country life, PresidentRoosevelt attributed the rural exodus to the desire of "the more activeand restless young men and women" to escape from "loneliness and lack ofmental companionship. "[8] He is hopeful that the rural free delivery, the telephone, the bicycle and the trolley will do much towards"lessening the isolation of farm life and making it brighter and moreattractive. " Many to whom I have spoken on this subject fear that thelinking of the country with the town by these applications of modernscience may, to some extent, operate in a direction the opposite of thatwhich Mr. Roosevelt anticipates and desires. According to this view, themore intimate knowledge of the modern city may increase the desire to bein personal touch with it; the telephone may fail to give through theear the satisfaction which is demanded by the eye; among the "moreactive and restless young men and women" the rural free delivery maycirculate the dime novel and the trolley make accessible the dimemuseum. In the total result the occasional visit may become more andmore frequent, until the duties of country life are first neglected andthen abandoned. 

I do not feel competent to decide between these two views, but I offerone consideration with which I think many rural reformers will agree. The attempt to bring the advantages of the city within the reach of thedwellers in the country cannot, of itself, counteract the townwardtendency in so far as it is due to the causes summarised above. Howeverrapidly, in this respect, the country may be improved, the city is sureto advance more rapidly and the gap between them to be widened. The newrural civilisation should aim at trying to develop in the country thethings of the country, the very existence of which seems to have beenforgotten. But, after all, it is the world within us rather than theworld without us that matters in the making of society, and I must giveto the social influence of the coöperative idea what I believe to be itsreal importance. 

In Ireland, from which so much of my experience is drawn, we have founda tendency growing among farmers whose combinations are successful, togather into one strong local association all those varied objects andactivities which I have described as advocated by the Irish AgriculturalOrganisation Society. These local associations are ceasing to have onespecial purpose or one object only. They absorb more and more of thebusiness of the district. One large, well-organised institution is beingsubstituted for the numerous petty transactions of farmers withmiddlemen and small country traders. Gradually the Society becomes themost important institution in the district, the most important in asocial as well as in an economic sense. The members feel a pride in itsmaterial expansion. They accumulate large profits, which in time becomea kind of communal fund. In some cases this is used for the erection ofvillage halls where social entertainments, concerts and dances are held, lectures delivered and libraries stored. Finally, the associationassumes the character of a rural commune, where, instead of the oldbasis of the commune, the joint ownership of land, a new basis for unionis found in the voluntary communism of effort. 

A true social organism is thus being created with common human andeconomic interests, and the clan feeling, which was so powerful aninfluence in early and mediæval civilisations, with all its power ofgenerating passionate loyalties, is born anew in the modern world. Ourancient Irish records show little clans with a common ownership of landhardly larger than a parish, but with all the patriotic feeling of largenations held with an intensity rare in our modern states. The history ofthese clans and of very small nations like the ancient Greek statesshows that the social feeling assumes its most binding and powerfulcharacter where the community is large enough to allow free play to thevarious interests of human life, but is not so large that it becomes anabstraction to the imagination. Most of us feel no greater thrill inbeing one of a State with fifty million inhabitants than we do inrecognising we are citizens of the solar system. The rural commune andthe very small States exhibit the feeling of human solidarity in itsmost intense manifestations, working on itself, regenerating itself andseeking its own perfection. Combinations of agriculturists, when therural organisation is complete, re-create in a new way the conditionswhere these social instincts germinate best, and it is only by thiscomplete organisation of rural life that we can hope to build up a ruralcivilisation, and create those counter-attractions to urban life whichwill stay the exodus from the land. 

I do not wish to exaggerate the interest which the rural life of my ownlittle island may have for those who are concerned for the vast andwealthy expanses of the American farm lands. But, even here there is agenuine desire for the really simple life, which in its commonestmanifestation is a thing that rather simple people talk about. In aproperly organised rural neighbourhood could be developed that higherkind of attraction which is suggested by the very word _neighbourhood_. Once get the farmers and their families all working together atsomething that concerns them all, and we have the beginning of a morestable and a more social community than is likely to exist amid theconstant change and bustle of the large towns, where indeed somethinkers tell us that not only the family, but also the social life, isbadly breaking down. When people are really interested in eachother--and this interest comes of habitually working together--thesmallest personal traits or events affecting one are of interest to all. The simplest piece of amateur acting or singing, done in the villagehall by one of the villagers, will arouse more criticism and moreenthusiasm among his friends and neighbours than can be excited by themost consummate performance of a professional in a great city theatre, where no one in the audience knows or cares for the performer. 

But if this attraction--the attraction of common work and socialintercourse with a circle of friends--is to prevail in the long run overthe lure which the city offers to eye and ear and pocket, there must bea change in rural education. At present country children are educated asif for the purpose of driving them into the towns. To the pleasure whichthe cultured city man feels in the country--because he has been taughtto feel it--the country child is insensible. The country offerscontinual interest to the mind which has been trained to be thoughtfuland observant; the town offers continual distraction to the vacant eyeand brain. Yet, the education given to country children has beeninvented for them in the town, and it not only bears no relation to thelife they are to lead, but actually attracts them towards a town career. I am aware that I am here on ground where angels--even if specialised inpedagogy--may well fear to tread. Upon the principles of a soundagricultural education pedagogues are in a normally violent state ofdisagreement with each other. But whatever compromise between generaleducation and technical instruction be adopted, the resulting reformthat is needed has two sides. We want two changes in the ruralmind--beginning with the rural teacher's mind. First, the interest whichthe physical environment of the farmer provides to followers of almostevery branch of science must be communicated to the agricultural classesaccording to their capacities. Second, that intimacy with and affectionfor nature, to which Wordsworth has given the highest expression, mustin some way be engendered in the rural mind. In this way alone will thecountryman come to realize the beauty of the life around him, as throughthe teaching of science he will learn to realise its truth. 

Upon this reformed education, as a basis, the rural economy must bebuilt. It must, if my view be accepted, ensure, first and foremost, thecombination of farmers for business purposes in such a manner as willenable them to control their own marketing and make use of the manyadvantages which a command of capital gives. In all Europeancountries--with the exception of the British Isles--statesmen haverecognised the national necessity for the good business organisation ofthe farmer. In some cases, for example France, even Government officialsexpound the coöperative principle. In Denmark, the most predominantlyrural country in Europe, the education both in the common and in thehigh school has long been so admirably related to the working lives ofthe agricultural classes that the people adopt spontaneously the methodsof organisation which the commercial instinct they have acquired througheducation tells them to be suitable to the conditions. The ruralreformer knows that this is the better way; but our problem is notmerely the education of a rising, but the development of a grown-upgeneration. We cannot wait for the slow process of education to produceits effect upon the mind of the rural youth, even if there were any wayof ensuring their proper training for a progressive rural life withoutfirst giving to their parents such education as they can assimilate. Direct action is called for; we have to work with adult farmers andinduce them to reorganise their business upon the lines which I haveattempted to define. Moreover, this is essential to the future successof the work done in the schools, in order that the trained mind of youthmay not afterwards find itself baulked by the ignorant apathy or lazyconservatism of its elders. 

I hold, then, that the new economy will mean a more scientific masteryof the technical side of farming, for farmers will make a much largeruse of the advice, instruction and help which the Nation and the Statesoffer them through the Department of Agriculture and the Colleges. It isequally certain that there will arise a more human social life in therural districts, based upon the greater share of the products of thefarmer's industry, which the new business organisation will enable himto retain; stimulated by the closer business relations with his fellowswhich that organisation will bring about, and fostered by the closerneighbourhood which is implied in a more intensive cultivation. 

The development of a more intensive cultivation must carry with it amuch more careful consideration of the labour problem. The difficulty ofgetting and keeping labour on the farm is a commonplace. I think farmershave not faced the fact that this difficulty is due in the main to theirown way of doing their business. Competent men will not stay at farmlabour unless it offers them continuous employment as part of awell-ordered business concern; and this is not possible unless with agreatly improved husbandry. 

To-day agriculture has to compete in the labour market against other, and to many men more attractive, industries, and a marked elevation inthe whole standard of life in the rural world is the best insurance of abetter supply of good farm labour. Only an intensive system of farmingcan afford any large amount of permanent employment at decent wages tothe rural labourer, and only a good supply of competent labour canrender intensive farming on any large scale practicable. But theintensive system of farming not only gives regular employment and goodwages; it also fits the labourer of to-day--in a country where a man canstrike out for himself--to be the successful farmer of to-morrow. Nor, in these days of impersonal industrial relations, should the fact beoverlooked that under an intensive system of agriculture, we find stillpreserved the kindly personal relation between employer and employedwhich contributes both to the pleasantness of life and to economicprogress and security. 

Moreover, in a country where advanced farming is the rule, there is aremarkable, and, from the standpoint of national stability, mostvaluable, steadiness in employment. Good farming, by fixing the laboureron the soil, improves the general condition of rural life, by riddingthe countryside of the worst of its present pests. Those wanderingdervishes of the industrial world, the hobo, the tramp--the entirefamily of Weary Willies and Tired Timothys--will no longer have even animaginary excuse for their troubled and troublesome existence. But thefarmer who was the prey of these pests must, if he would be permanentlyrid of them, learn to respect his hired farm hand. He must provide himwith a comfortable cottage and a modest garden plot upon which his youngfamily may employ themselves; otherwise, whatever the farmer may do toattract labour, he will never retain it. In short, the labourer, too, must get his full and fair share of the prosperity of the coming goodtime in the country. 

There is one particular aspect of this improved social life which is soimportant that it ought properly to form the subject of a separateessay; I mean the position of women in rural life. In no country in theworld is the general position of woman better, or her influence greater, than in the United States. But while woman has played a great part therein the social life and economic development of the town, I hold that thepart she is destined to play in the future making of the country will beeven greater. 

In the more intelligent scheme of the new country life, the economicposition of woman is likely to be one of high importance. She enterslargely into all three parts of our programme, --better farming, betterbusiness, better living. In the development of higher farming, forinstance, she is better fitted than the more muscular but less patientanimal, man, to carry on with care that work of milk records, eggrecords, etc. , which underlies the selection on scientific lines of themore productive strains of cattle and poultry. And this kind of work iswanted in the study not only of animal, but also of plant life. 

Again, in the sphere of better business, the housekeeping faculty ofwoman is an important asset, since a good system of farm accounts is oneof the most valuable aids to successful farming. But it is, of course, in the third part of the programme, --better living, --that woman'sgreatest opportunity lies. The woman makes the home life of the Nation. But she desires also social life, and where she has the chance shedevelops it. Here it is that the establishment of the coöperativesociety, or union, gives an opening and a range of conditions in whichthe social usefulness of woman makes itself quickly felt. I do not thinkthat I am laying too much stress on this matter, because the pleasures, the interests and the duties of society, properly so called, --that is, the state of living on friendly terms with our neighbours, --are alwaysmore central and important in the life of a woman than of a man. Theman needs them, too, for without them he becomes a mere machine formaking money; but the woman, deprived of them, tends to become a meredrudge. The new rural social economy (which implies a denser populationoccupying smaller holdings) must therefore include a generous provisionfor all those forms of social intercourse which specially appeal towomen. The Women's Sections of the Granges have done a great deal ofuseful work in this direction; we need a more general and completeapplication of the principles on which they act. 

I have now stated the broad principles which must govern any effectivescheme for correcting the present harmful subordination of rural life toa civilisation too exclusively urban. Before I bring forward my definiteproposal for a remedy calculated to meet the needs of the situation, Imust anticipate a line of criticism which may occur to the mind of anysocial worker who does not happen to be very familiar with theconditions of country life. 

I can well imagine readers who have patiently followed my argumentswishing to interrogate me in some such terms as these: "Assuming, " theymay say, "that we accept all you tell us about the neglect of the ruralpopulation, and agree as to the grave consequences which must follow ifit be continued, what on earth can we do? Of course the welfare of therural population is a matter of paramount importance to the city and tothe nation at large; but may we remind you that you said the evil andthe consequences can be removed and averted only by those immediatelyconcerned--the actual farmers--and that the remedy for the ruralbackwardness was to be sought for in the rural mind? 'Canst thouminister to a mind diseased?' Must not the patient 'minister' tohimself?"

Fair questions these, and altogether to the point. I answer at once thatthe patient ought to minister to himself, but he won't. He has acquiredthe habit of sending for the physician of the town, whose physic butaggravates the disease. Dropping metaphor, the farmer does not think forhimself. In rural communities, there is as great a lack of collectivethought as of coöperative action. All progress is conditional on publicopinion, and this, even in the country, is a very much town-made thing. 

So I am, then, in this difficulty. My subject is rural, my audienceurban. I have to commend to the statesmen and the philanthropists of thetown the somewhat incongruous proposal that they should take theinitiative in rural reform. Neither the thought nor the influence whichcan set in motion what in agricultural communities is no less than aneconomic revolution are to be found in the open country. To the townsmenI now address my appeal and submit a plan. 

FOOTNOTE:

[8] Message to the Fifty-eighth Congress (1903). 

CHAPTER VII

THE TWO THINGS NEEDFUL

In my earlier chapters I traced to the Industrial Revolution in Englandthe origin of that subordination, in the English-speaking countries, ofrural to urban interests which finds its expression to-day in theproblem of rural life. I have shown that the continuance of the tendencyin America was natural if not inevitable, and have urged that, foreconomic, social and political reasons, its further progress should nowbe stayed. If my view as to the origin, present effects and probableconsequences of the evil be accepted, any serious proposals for a remedywill be welcomed by all who realise that national well-being cannotendure if urban prosperity is accompanied by rural decay. In this beliefI offer the scheme for a Country Life movement which has slowly maturedin my own mind as the result of the experience described in thepreceding pages. 

The first aim of the movement should be to coördinate, and guide towardsa common end, the efforts of a large number of agencies--educational, religious, social and philanthropic--which, in their several ways, arealready engaged upon some part of the work to be done. For such amovement the United States offers advantages not to be found elsewherein the area for which we are concerned. For here public-spiritedindividuals and associations of the kind required exist in largernumbers than can be known to any one who has not watched what is goingon in this field of social service. If I had not already devoted toomuch space to personal experiences, I could of my own knowledge testifyto the remarkable growth of organised effort in American ruralcommunities. Sometimes this is the outcome of a growing spirit ofneighbourliness, sometimes it emanates from young Universities andColleges emulating the extension work with which nearly every big cityis familiar. I have been much struck with the way in which, atgatherings of school teachers, pedagogic detail and questions affectingtheir status and emoluments have become less popular subjects fordiscussion than schemes of social progress. [9] Similarly, theagricultural Press is becoming less exclusively technical andcommercial, and more human. Even the syndicated stuff is getting lesstownified. My correspondence, newspaper clippings sent to me, and manyother indications, point in the same direction. They leave theimpression upon my mind that there is a vast, efficient and enthusiasticarmy of social workers upon the farm lands of the United States badly inneed of a Headquarters Staff. 

If I am right in believing that, of the English-speaking countries, theUnited States affords the best opportunity for such a consummation, mostassuredly the present time is peculiarly auspicious. If Mr. Roosevelt'sCountry Life policy has not been received with any marked enthusiasm, American public opinion has been thoroughly aroused upon hisConservation policy. The latter cannot possibly come to fruition--noreven go much further--until the Country Life problem is boldly faced. Inthe Conference of Governors it was pointed out over and over again thatthe farmer, now the chief waster, must become the chief conserver. Assuch he will himself become a supporter of the policy, and will bring tothe aid of those advocates of Conservation whose chief concern is forfuture generations, an interested public opinion which will go far tooutweigh the influence of those who profit by the exhaustion of naturalresources. To the country life reformer I would say that, as the oneidea has caught on while the other lags, he will, if he is wise, hitchhis Country Life waggon to the Conservation star. 

With every advantage of time and place, the promotion of the movementwhich is to counteract the townward tendency will have to reckon withthe psychological difficulty inherent in the conditions. They mustrecognise the paradox of the situation already pointed out, thenecessity of interesting the town in the problems of the country. Theurban attitude of mind which caused the evil, and now makes it difficultto interest public opinion in the remedy, is not new; it pervades theliterature of the Augustan age. I recall from my school days Virgil'sgreat handbook on Italian agriculture, written with a mastery oftechnical detail unsurpassed by Kipling. But the farmers he had in mindwhen he indulged in his memorable rhapsody upon the happiness of theirlot were out for pleasure rather than profit. While the suburban poetsang to the merchant princes, Rome was paying a bonus upon importedcorn, and entering generally upon that fatal disregard for the interestof the rural population which is one of the accepted causes of thedecline and fall. 

How that Old World tragi-comedy comes back to me when I talk to New Yorkfriends on the subject of these pages! I am not, so they tell me, up todate in my information; there is a marked revulsion of feeling upon thetown _versus_ country question; the tide of the rural exodus has reallyturned, as I might have discerned without going far afield. At many aLong Island home I might see on Sundays, weather permitting, thehorny-handed son of week-day toil in Wall Street, rustically attired, inspecting his Jersey cows and aristocratic fowls. These supply a selectcircle in New York with butter and eggs, at a price which leaves nothingto be desired--unless it be some information as to the cost ofproduction. Full justice is done to the new country life when theFarmers' Club of New York fulfils its chief function, the annual dinnerat Delmonico's. Then agriculture is extolled in fine Virgilian style, the Hudson villa and the Newport 'cottage' being permitted to divide thehonours of the rural revival with the Long Island home. But to mybucolic intelligence, it would seem that against the 'back to the land'movement of Saturday afternoon the captious critic might set the ruralexodus of Monday morning. 

These reflections are introduced in no unfriendly spirit, and withserious intent. To me this new rural life is associated with memories ofcharacteristically American hospitality; but my interest in it is morethan personal. It is giving to those who cultivate it, among whom arethe helpers most needed at the moment, a point of view which will enablethem to grasp the real problem of the open country, as it exists, forexample, in the great food-producing and cotton-growing tracts of theWest and South. Both in the countries where the townward tendency ofthe industrial age was foreseen and prevented, and in those in which theevil is being cured, the impulse and inspiration which will be requiredto initiate and sustain our Country Life movement came mainly fromleaders who were not themselves agriculturists. [10] Proficiency in thepractice or even in the business of farming is not necessary. What isneeded is a comprehensive knowledge of public affairs, politicalimagination, an understanding sympathy with and a philosophic insightinto the entire life of communities. Men who combine with the necessaryexperience those gifts of heart and mind which go to make the highercitizenship in the many, and the statesmanship in the few, will morelikely be found in the city than in the country. Yet they are, in theconditions, the natural leaders of the Country Life movement, which mustnow be defined. 

The situation demands two things; on the one hand an association, popular, propagandist, organising; on the other, an Institute, scientific, philosophic, research-making. These two things are distinctin character, but they are complementary to each other. One will requirepopular enthusiasm and business organisation. To the service of theother must be brought the patient spirit of scientific and philosophicanalysis and inquiry. These two bodies--the popular propagandistassociation and the scientific research-making Institute--must, therefore, be created; and, for a reason to be explained when weconsider the work of the Institute, they should be independent of eachother. This rough indication of the character of the work, which I willdescribe more in detail presently, will suffice for the moment. I feelthat the work will be so intensely human in its interest that it will bewell to say at once how the two central agencies can be established, andthe movement made, not a writer's fancy, but a living and doing agencyof human progress. 

A body, in many respects ideally fitted to give the necessary impulseand direction to the work of organisation, is already in the field. Theleaders of the Conservation idea, recognising that their policy, incommon with other policies, will need an organised public opinion at itsback, have founded a National Conservation Association. Mr. GiffordPinchot has now been selected as its President. Before he was available, the task of organising and setting to work the new institution wasunanimously entrusted to and accepted by President Eliot, of whosequalifications all I will say is that we foreign students of socialproblems vie with his own countrymen in our appreciation of his publicwork and aims. These two appointments are sufficient proof of theserious importance of the work, and bespeak public influence and supportfor the Association. I have no doubt that this body would be fullyqualified to formulate and initiate the Country Life movement, and actas the central agency for the active promotion of its objects. Itsmembers, who, I am sure, agree with Mr. Roosevelt in regarding themovement as a necessary complement to the Conservation policy, mighteven feel that for this very reason it was incumbent upon them to settheir organisation to this work. 

There is, however, one consideration which will make Mr. Pinchot and hisassociates hesitate to adopt this course. The doubt relates to thedistinction I have drawn between the Conservation policy and the CountryLife movement, the one seeking to promote legislative and administrativeaction, and the other, while it may give birth to a policy, beingchiefly concerned with voluntary effort. [11] Although the NationalConservation Association is founded for the purpose of educating publicopinion upon the Conservation idea, it may decide to support theConservation policy of one party rather than that of another. It wouldthus become too much involved in party controversy to act as a centralagency of a movement which must embrace men of all parties. Should thisview prevail, the difficulty can be easily surmounted by following theIrish precedent, where we had a very similar and indeed far moredelicate situation to save from political trouble. An AmericanAgricultural Organisation Society could be founded for the purpose inview, and as it is probable that leading advocates of the Conservationpolicy would take a prominent part in the Country Life movement, theinterdependence of the two ideas would have practical recognition. 

Apart from the possibility of political complications, there is onestrong reason to recommend this course. The movement will accomplish itsbest and most permanent results as an advocate of self-reliance; it willseek to make self-help effective through organisation; it will concernitself much more for those things which the farmers can do forthemselves by coöperation than with those things which the Governmentcan do for them. [12] The selection, however, between the two alternativecourses is a question which the foreign critic cannot decide. The workto which I now return will be the same, whatever agency is charged withits execution. 

The central body (which for brevity I will call the Association) willhave as its general aim the economic and social development of ruralcommunities. The work will be mainly that of active organisation. Forreasons explained in the earlier chapters, the organisation must becoöperative in character, and will be concentrated upon the businessmethods of the farmers. This will, it is believed, cure a radical defectin their system--a defect which, as I have argued, is responsible for arestricted production, and for a course of distribution injurious aliketo producer and consumer, besides exercising a depressing influence uponthe economic efficiency and social life of rural communities. It followsthat the first step towards a general reconstruction of country life, which has the promise of giving to the country a social attractionstrong enough to stem the tide of the townward migration, isagricultural coöperation. 

Such being the general aim and the definite procedure, the firstpractical question that arises will be, how to apply thissolvent--agricultural coöperation. It will not suffice to throw thesetwo long words at the hardy rustic; shorter and more emphatic wordsmight come back. Two equally necessary things must be done; theprinciple must be made clear, and the practical details of this ruralequivalent of urban business combination must be explained in languageunderstanded of the people. It is not difficult to draft a paper schemefor this purpose, but the fitting of the plan to local conditions is avery expert business. Hence the central agency should have at itsdisposal a corps of experts in coöperative organisation for agriculturalpurposes. After a short visit to a likely district by a competentexponent of the theory and practice, local volunteers would be found tocarry on the work. Experience shows that once a well-organisedcoöperative association of farmers is permanently established, similarassociations spring up spontaneously under the magic influence ofproved success in known conditions. I should strongly recommendconcentration at first on a few selected districts, with the aim ofmaking standard models to which other communities could work. I needhardly say that all this work would be done in coöperation with whateverother agencies would lend their aid. The Country Life movement would beextremely useful to the great educational foundations centred in NewYork. I happen to know that the Trustees of the Rockefeller, Carnegieand Russell Sage endowments are keenly desirous to promote such aredirection of rural education as will bring it into a more helpfulrelation with the working lives of the rural population. Then there aresuch bodies as the Y. M. C. A. , whose leaders, I am told, are alive tothe value of the open air life, and are anxious to extend their countrywork in the rural districts. The great army of rural teachers, theFarmers' Union, and other farmers' organisations I have already namedwould gladly coöperate with schemes making for rural progress. 

More important, I believe, than is generally realised, from an economicand social point of view, are the rural churches. In many Europeancountries, where agricultural coöperation has played a great part in thepeople's lives, the clergy have ardently supported the system on accountof its moral value. In Ireland, some of our very best volunteerorganisers are clergymen. Some leaders of the rural church in the UnitedStates have told me that a feeling is growing that an increased economicusefulness in the clergy would strengthen their position in the societywhich they serve in a higher capacity. I know that the suggestion ofclerical intervention in secular affairs is open to misunderstanding. But here is a body of educated citizens who would gladly take part inany real social service; and here is a situation where there is work ofhigh moral and social value calling for volunteers. Nothing but good, it seems to me, could result if such men, who have more opportunity andinclination for general reading than the working farmer, would help inexplaining the intricacies of coöperative organisation and procedurewhich must be understood and practised in order that the system may befruitful. 

In addition to its active propagandist work, the central Associationcould exercise a powerful and helpful influence in other ways. Itshould, of course, keep both the agricultural and the general pressinformed of its plans and progress. It should also keep in touch withthe agricultural work of all important educational bodies, and moreespecially urge upon them the necessity of spreading the coöperativeidea. The Department of Agriculture would welcome and support themovement; for I know many leading men in that service who thoroughlyunderstand and recognise the immense importance, especially to backwardrural communities, of the coöperative principle. 

It is not necessary, at this stage, to go further into details. I feelconfident that the work of assisting all suitable agencies, such asthose I have named, and others which may be available, throughorganisers of agricultural coöperation and by the spreading ofinformation, would soon enable the central body to render inestimableservice to the cause of rural progress. Such, at any rate, is theoutline of my first proposal for giving to my American fellow-workersupon the rural problem the assistance which I feel they most need at thepresent moment. I pass now to my second proposal. 

I suggest that an institution--which, as I have said, will bescientific, philosophic, research-making--should be founded. It wouldbe, in effect, a Bureau of research in rural social economy. PersonallyI know that, in my own experience as an administrator and organiser, Ihave been constantly brought face to face with problems where we couldturn to no guide--no patient band of investigators who had beenmeasuring, analysing, determining the data. Yet in some directions muchexcellent work is being done. Every social worker knows how theknowledge of what others are doing will help him. It is strange howlittle the problems of the rural population have entered into thestudies of economists and sociologists. At leading Universities I havesought in vain for light. At a recent anniversary in New York, whichbrought together the foremost economists of the Old and New World, therewas an almost complete omission of the country side of things from aprogramme which I am sure was generally held to be almost exhaustive. The fact is, the subject must be treated as a new one, and it isurgently necessary, if the work of the Country Life movement is to bebased on a solid foundation of fact, to make good the deficiency ofinformation which has resulted from the general lack of interest in thesubject under review. An Institute is wanted to survey the field, tocollect, classify and coördinate information and to supplement and carryforward the work of research and inquiry. The rural social workerrequires as far as possible to carry exact statistical method into hiswork so that he may no longer have to depend on general statements, butmay have at his command evidence, the validity of which can be trusted, while its significance can be measured. I may mention a few typicalquestions on which useful light would be shed by the Institute'sresearches:--

1. The influence of coöperative methods (_a_) on the productive anddistributive efficiency of rural communities, and (_b_) on thedevelopment of a social country life. 

2. The systems of rural education, both general and technical, indifferent countries, and the administrative and financial basis of eachsystem. 

3. The relation between agricultural economy and the cost of food. 

4. The changes (_a_) in the standard and cost of living, and (_b_) inthe economy, solvency and stability of rural communities. 

5. The economic interdependence of the agricultural producer and theurban consumer, and the extent and incidence of middle profits in thedistribution of agricultural produce. 

6. The action taken by different Governments to assist the developmentand secure the stability of the agricultural classes, and thepossibilities and the dangers of such action, with special reference tothe delimitation of the respective spheres of State aid and voluntaryeffort. 

7. How far agricultural and rural employment can relieve the problems ofcity unemployment, and assist the work of social reclamation. 

Some may think that I am assigning to two bodies work which could be aswell done by one. While all proposals for multiplying organisations inthe field of social service should be critically examined, there arestrong reasons in this case for the course I suggest. The two bodies, while working to a common end, will differ essentially in their scopeand method. The propagandist agency will be executive andadministrative, and while its operations would have suggestive value tothe country social worker everywhere, it would be concerned directlyonly with the United States. Furthermore, it need not necessarily haveany lengthened existence as a national propagandist agency. It would befounded mainly to introduce that method into American agriculturaleconomy which I have tried to show lies at the root of rural progress. As soon as the soundness of the general scheme had been demonstrated inany State, the central body would promote an organisation to take overthe work within that State. The State organisation would, in its turn, soon be able to devolve its propagandist work upon a federation of thebusiness associations which it had been the means of establishing. Thatis the contemplated evolution of my first proposal--the early delegationof the functions of the national to the State propagandist agency, whichwould further devolve the work upon bodies of farmers organisedprimarily for economic purposes, but with the ulterior aim of socialadvancement. 

The Country Life Institute would be on a wholly different footing. Itsresearches, if only to subserve the Country Life movement in the UnitedStates, would have to range over the civilised world, and to behistorical as well as contemporary. It should be regarded as acontribution to the welfare of the English-speaking peoples, one aspectof whose civilisation--if there be truth in what I have written--needsto be reconsidered in the light which the Institute is designed toafford. Its task will be of no ephemeral character. Its success willnot, as in the case of the active propagandist body, lessen the need forits services, but will rather stimulate the demand for them. 

These differences will have to be taken into account in considering theimportant question of ways and means. Both bodies will, I hope, appealsuccessfully to public-spirited philanthropists. The temporary body willneed only temporary support; perhaps provision for a five-years'campaign would suffice. In the near future, local organisations wouldnaturally defray the cost of the services rendered to them by thecentral body; but the Country Life Institute would need a permanentendowment. The man fitted for its chief control will not be found idle, but will have to be taken from other work. The scheme, as I have workedit out, will involve prolonged economic and social inquiry over a widefield. This would be conducted mostly by postgraduate students. Fromthose who did this outside work with credit would be recruited thesmall staff which would be needed at the central office to get into themost accessible form the facts and opinions which are needed for theguidance of those who are doing practical work in the field of ruralregeneration. My estimate of the amount required to do the work well isfrom forty to fifty thousand dollars a year, or say a capital sum offrom a million to a million and a quarter dollars. Whether the projectis worthy of such an expenditure, depends upon the question whether Ihave made good my case. 

Let me summarise this case. I have tried to show that moderncivilisation is one-sided to a dangerous degree--that it hasconcentrated itself in the towns and left the country derelict. Thistendency is peculiar to the English-speaking communities, where thegreat industrial movement has had as its consequence the rural problem Ihave examined. If the townward tendency cannot be checked, it willultimately bring about the decay of the towns themselves, and of ourwhole civilisation, for the towns draw their supply of population fromthe country. Moreover, the waste of natural resources, and possibly thealarming increase in the price of food, which have lately attracted somuch attention in America, are largely due to the fact that those whocultivate the land do not intend to spend their lives upon it; andwithout a rehabilitation of country life there can be no success for theConservation policy. Therefore, the Country Life movement deals withwhat is probably the most important problem before the English-speakingpeoples at this time. Now the predominance of the towns which isdepressing the country is based partly on a fuller application of modernphysical science, partly on superior business organisation, partly onfacilities for occupation and amusement; and if the balance is to beredressed, the country must be improved in all three ways. There must bebetter farming, better business, and better living. These three areequally necessary, but better business must come first. For farmers, theway to better living is coöperation, and what coöperation means is thechief thing the American farmer has to learn. 

FOOTNOTES:

[9] In the capital of Virginia, to take one notable example, I havewitnessed a perfect ferment of social activity at one of the gatherings. It brought together such an ideal combination of the best spirits inboth rural and urban life that I anticipate some striking developmentsin rural civilization which will surely extend beyond the borders of theState. 

[10] I may mention Raiffeisen, Luzzati, Rocquigny, Bishop Grundtwig, Henry W. Wolff, the Rev. T. A. Finlay, S. J. , and most of the leaders inagricultural organization in Great Britain and Ireland. 

[11] See above, page 31. 

[12] It may seem a small matter even for a footnote, but an unambiguousterminology is so important to propagandist work that I must mention asomewhat unfortunate use of the word 'coöperation' which prevails inofficial and pedagogic circles. We hear of coöperative demonstrationwork, coöperative education, coöperative lectures, and so forth. Whenever a Government or State department, or an educational body workswith any other agency, and sometimes when they are only doing their ownwork, they use the term, which is of course grammatically applicablewhenever two people work together--from matrimony down. If the word inconnection with agriculture could be retained for its technical sense, so long established and well understood in Europe, the proposed movementmight be saved a good deal of confused thinking. Might not Governmentand educational authorities substitute the word 'coördinated' so as topreserve the distinction?

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