Report of the Country life Commission; special message from the President of the United States transmitting the report of the Country Life Commission

it.. I*'..;.

^:^

,.'*i^^^^^^K^-«|?'

Ki

Mfel

6- Jii '"^-^ ';

./^

-^'fil:

LIBRARY OF THE
IKIE'W YORK STATE COLLEGE
OF HOME ECONOMICS

CORNELL UNIVERSITY-
ITHACA, NEW YORK

Cornell University
Library

The original of tiiis bool< is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924085712861

60th CongkessI oTj-xTArp-c /Document

M Session [ biLNALH. \ No. 705

REPORT OF THE

COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION

SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM THE

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

TRANSMITTING THE REPORT

OF THE COUNTRY LIFE

COMMISSION

Febbtjary 9, 1909.— Read; ordered to lie on the table and be printed

WASHINGTON
GOVERNMENT FEINTING OFFICE

1909

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

To the Senate and House of Bepresentatives :

I transmit herewith the report of the Commission on
Country Life. At the outset I desire to point out that not
a dollar of the public money has been paid to any com-
missioner for his work on the commission.

The report shows the general condition of farming life
in the open country, and points out its larger problems;. it
indicates ways in which the Government, National and
State, may show the people how to solve some of these
problems ; and it suggests a continuance of the work which
the commission began.

Judging by thirty public hearings, to which farmers and
farmers' wives from forty States and Territories came, and
from 120,000 answers to printed questions sent out by the
Department of Agriculture, the commission finds that the
general level of country life is high compared with any
preceding time or with any other land. If it has in recent
years slipped down in some places, it has risen in more
places. Its progress has been general, if not uniform.

Yet farming does not yield either the profit or the satis-
Jf action that it ought to yield and may be made to yield.
|ere is discontent in the country, and in places discour-
3ment. Farmers as a class do not magnify their caU-
and the movement to the towns, though, I am happy
[say, less than formerly, is still strong.
[Under our system, it is helpful to promote discussion
ways in which the people can help themselves. There
[•e three main directions in which the farmers can help
lemselves; namely, better farming, better business, and
stter living on the farm. The National Department of
[gi'iculture, which has rendered services equaled by no

4 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY lAFE COMMISSION.

other similar department in any other time or place ; the
state departments of agriculture; the state colleges of
agriculture and the mechanic arts, especially through their
extension work; the state agricultural experiment sta-
tions; the Farmers' Union; the Grange; the agricultural
press; and other similar agencies; have all combined to
place within the reach of the American farmer an amount
and quality of agricultural information which, if applied,
would enable him, over large areas, to double the produc-
tion of the farm.

The object of the Commission on Country Life therefore
is not to help the farmer raise better crops, but to call his
attention to the opportunities for better business and
better living on the farm. If country life is to become
what it should be, and what I believe it ultimately will be —
one of the most dignified, desirable, and sought-after ways
of earning a living — ^the farmer must take advantage not
only of the agricultural knowledge which is at his disposal,
but of the methods which have raised and continue to
raise the standards of living and of intelligence in other
callings.

Those engaged in all other industrial and commercial
callings have found it necessary, under modern economic
conditions, to organize themselves for mutual advantage
and for the protection of their own particular interests in
relation to other interests. The farmers of every pro-
gressive European country have realized- this essential
fact and have found in the cooperative system exactly
form of business combination they need.

Now whatever the State may do toward improving
practice of agriculture, it is not within the sphere of a\
government to reorganize the farmers' business or recol
struct the social life of farming communities. It is, ho{
ever, quite within its power to use its influence and the ml
chinery of publicity which it can control for calling publl
attention to the needs and the facts. For example, it
the ob\aous duty of the Governmient to call the attentiol
of farmers to tMe growing monopolization of water powei
The farmers above all should have that power, on reasoi

EEPOBT OP THE COUNTKY LIFE COMMISSION. 5

able terms, for cheap transportation, for lighting their
homes, and for innumerable uses in the daily tasks on the
farm.

It would be idle to assert that life on the farm occupies
as good a position in dignity, desirability, and business
results as the farmers might easily give it if they chose.
One of the chief difficulties is the failure of country life,
as it exists at present, to satisfy the higher social and intel-
lectual aspirations of country people. Whether the con-
stant draining away of so much of the best elements in the
rural population into the towns is due chiefly to this cause
or to the superior business opportunities of city life may be
open to question. But no one at all familiar with farm life
throughout the United States can fail to recognize the
necessity for building up the life of the farm upon its social
as well as upon its productive side.

It is true that country life has improved greatly in at-
tractiveness, health, and comfort, and that the farmer's
earnings are higher than they were. But city life is ad-
vancing even more rapidly, because of the greater atten-
tion which is being given by the citizens of the towns to
their own betterment. For just this reason the introduc-
tion of effective agricultural cooperation throughout the
United States is of the first importance. Where farmers
are organized cooperatively they not only avail themselves
much more readily of business opportunities and im-
proved methods, but it is found that the organizations

^whieh bring them together in the work of their lives are
ised also for social and intellectual advancement.
The cooperative plan is the best plan of organization

Iwherever men have the right spirit to carry it out. Under
this plan any business undertaking is managed by a com-

jmittee; every man has one vote and only one vote;. and
sveryone gets profits according to what he sells or buys or
Supplies. It develops individual responsibility and has a
aoral as well as a financial value over any other plan.

I desire only to take counsel with the farmers as f ellow-

l^tizens. It is not the problem of the farmers' alone that

am discussing with them, but a problem which affects

6 BEPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

every city as well as every farm in the country. It is a
problem which, the working farmers will have to solve for
themselves ; but it is a problem which also affects in only
less degree all the rest of us, and therefore if we can render
any help toward its solution, it is not only our duty but our
interest to do so.

The foregoing will, I hope, make it clear why I ap-
pointed a commission to consider problems of farm life
which have hitherto had far too little attention, and the
neglect of which has not only held back life in the country,
but also lowered the efficiency of the whole nation. The
welfare of the farmer is of vital consequence to the wel-
fare of the whole comanunity. The strengthening of coun-
try life, therefore, is the strengthening of the whole nation.

The commission has tried to help the farmers to see
clearly their own problem and to see it as a whole ; to dis-
tinguish clearly between what the Government can do and
what the farmers must do for themselves ; and it wishes to
bring not only the farmers but the Nation as a whole to
realize that the growing of crops, though an essential part,
is only a part of country life. Crop growing is the essen-
tial foundation ; but it is no less essential that the farmer
shall get an adequate return for what he grows ; and it is
no less essential — indeed it is literally vital — ^that he and
Ms wife and his children shall lead the right kind of life.

For this reason, it is of the first importance that the
United States Department of Agriculture, through which
as prime agent the ideas the commission stands for must
reach the people, should become without delay in fact
Department of Country Life, fitted to deal not only with|
crops, but also with all the larger aspects of life in the opei
country.

From all that has been done and learned three great gen-
eral and immediate needs of country life stand out :

First, effective cooperation among farmers, to put thei
on a level with the organized interests with which they dd
business.

Second, a new kind of schools in the country, which shaj
teach the children as much outdoors as indoors and pe{

BEPOKT OP THE COXJNTBT LIFE COMMISSION. 7

haps more, so that they will prepare for country life, and
not as at present, mainly for life in town.

Third, better means of communication, including good
roads and a parcels post, which the country people are
everjnvhere, and rightly, unanimous in demanding.

To these may well be added better sanitation ; for easily
preventable diseases hold several million country people in
the slavery of continuous ill health.

The commission points out, and I concur in the con-
clusion, that the most important help that the Governmenty
whether National or State, can give is to show the people /
how to go about these tasks of organization, education, and ^
communication with the best and quickest results. This ^
can be done by the collection and spread of information.
One community can thus be informed of what other com-
munities have done, and one country of what other coun-
tries have done. Such help by the people's government
would lead to a comprehensive plan of organization, edu-
cation, and communication, and make the farming country
better to live in, for intellectual and social reasons as well
as for purely agricultural reasons.

The Government through the Department of Agricul-
ture does not cultivate any man's farm for him. But it
loes put at his service useful knowledge that he would not
|>therwise get. In the same way the National and State
irovernments might put into the people's hands the new
. id right knowledge of school work. The task of main-
'"jning and developing the schools would remain, as now,
th the people themselves.

?he only recommendation I submit is that an appropria-

|n of .$25,000 be provided, to enable the commission to

jest the material it has collected, and to collect and to

jest much more that is within its reach, and thus com-

bte its work. This would enable the commission to

[ther in the harvest of suggestion which is resulting from

discussion it has stirred up. The commissioners have

ifved without compensation, and I do not recommend any

bjpropriation for their services, but only for the expenses

8 KEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

that will be required to finish the task that they have
begun.

To improve our system of agriculture seems to me the
most urgent of the tasks which lie before us. But it can
not, in my judgment, be effected by measures which touch
only the material and technical side of the subject; the
whole business and life of the farmer must also be taken
into account. Such considerations led me to appoint the
Commission on Country Life. Our object should be
to help develop in the country community the great
ideals of community life as well as of personal char-
acter. One of the most important adjuncts to this end
must be the country church, and I invite your attention
to what the commission says of the country church and of
the need of an extension of such work as that of the Young
Men's Christian Association in country communities.
Let me lay special emphasis upon what the Commission
says at the very end of its report on personal ideals^and
local leadership. Everything resolves itself in the end
into the question of personality. Neither society nor gov-
ernment can do much for country life unless there is vol-
untary* response in the personal ideals/of the men an(k
women who live in the country. In the development o
character, the home should be more important than th
school, or than society at large. When once the basic ma
terial needs have been met, high ideals may be quite inde
pendent of income ; but they can not be realized witho
sufficient income to provide adequate foundation; a:
where the community at large is not financially prosper^
it is impossible to develop a high average personal
community ideal. In short, the fundamental facts of
man nature apply to men and women who live in the eo\\
try just as they apply to men and women who live in
towns. Given a sufficient foundation of material well
ing, the influence of the farmers and farmers' wives
their children becomes the factor of first importance
determining the attitude of the next generation tow,
farm life. The farmer should realize that the person
most needs consideration on the farm is his wife. I do

EEPOET OP THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 9

in the least mean that she should purchase ease at the ex-
pense of duty. Neither man nor woman is really happy
or really useful save on condition of doing his or her duty.
If the woman shirks her duty as housewife, as home keeper,
as the mother whose prime function it is to bear and rear
a sufficient number of healthy children, then she is not en-
titled to our regard. But if she does her duty she is more
entitled to our regard even than the man who does his
duty; and the man shoiild show special consideration for
her needs.

I warn my countrymen that the great recent progress
made in city life is not a full measure of our civilization ;
for our civilization rests at bottom on the wholesomeness,
the attractiveness, and the completeness, ag well as the
prosperity, of life in the country. The men and women
on the farms stand for what is fundamentally best and
most needed in our American life. Upon the development
of country life rests ultimately our ability, by methods of
farming requiring the highest intelligence, to continue to
feed and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city
with fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that can
ure the terrific strain of modern life; we need the
elopment of men in the open country, who will be in
future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the
ion in time of war, and its guiding and controlling

rit in time of peace.

Theodoee Roosevelt.

HE White House, February 9, 1909.

APPENDIX a;

One of the most illummating — and incidentally one of
the most interesting and amusing — series of answers sent
to the commission was from a farmer in Missouri. He
stated that he had a wife and 11 living children, he and
and his wife being each 52 years old ; and that they owned
520 acres of land without any mortgage hanging over
their heads. He had himself done well, and his views
as to why many of his neighbors had done less well are
entitled to consideration. These views are expressed in
terse and vigorous English; they can not always be
quoted in full. He states that the farm homes in his
neighborhood are not as good as they should be because
too many of them are encumbered by mortgages; that
the schools do not traiii boys and girls satisfactorily
for life on the farm, because they allow them to get
an idea in their heads that city life is better, and tlmt
to remedy this practical farming should be taught. To t|**
question whether the farmers and their wives in his nei^
borhood are satisfactorily organized, he answers: "
there is a little one-horse grange gang in our locality; a^
every darned one thinks, they aught to be a king."
the question, "Are the renters of farms in your nei^
borhood making a satisfactory living'?" he answers: '
because they move about so much hunting a better job|
To the question, " Is the supply of farm labor in yoj
neighborhood satisfactory ? ' ' the answer is : " No ; becai
the people have gone out of the baby business ;" and wh^
asked as to the remedy he answers, " Give a pention
every mother who gives birth to seven living boys
American soil. ' ' To the question ' * Are the concHtions si
rounding hired labor on the farm in your neighbc
hood satisfactory to the hired men? " he answers: " y|

10

REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 11

nless lie is a drunken cuss," adding that he would
ke to blow up the stillhouses and root out whisky
nd beer. To the question "Are the sanitary eondi-
Lons on the farms in your neighborhood satisfactory? "
e answers: "No; to careless about chicken yards (and
hie like) and poorly covered Wells, in one Well on neigh-
or's farm I counted 7 snakes in the Wall of the Well, and
tey used the watter daily, his wife dead now and he is
)oking for another." He ends by stating that the most
nportant single thing to be done for the betterment of
ountry life is " good roads;" but in his answers he shows
ery clearly that most important of all is the individual
quation of the man or woman.

The humor of this set of responses must not blind us to

tie shrewd common sense and good judgment they display.

I'he man is a good citizen ; his wife is a good citizen ; and

bieir "\dews are fundamentally sound. Very much infor-

lation of the most valuable kind can be gathered if the

Commission is given the money necessary to enable it to

rrange and classify the information obtained from the

reat mass of similar answers which they have received.

Jut there is one point where the testimony is as a whole

1 flat contradiction to that contained above. The general

eeling is that the organizations of farmers, the grangers

nd the like, have been of the very highest service not

ly to the farmers, but to the farmers' wives, and that

ij have conferred great social as well as great industrial

vantages. An excellent little book has recently been

blished by Miss Jennie Buell, called " One Woman's

ork for Farm Women." It is dedicated " To farm

>men everywhere," and is the story of Mary A. Mayo's

rt in rural social movements. It is worth while to read

s little volume to see how much the hard-working woman

10 lives on the farm can do for herself when once

i is given sympathy, encouragement, and occasional

dership.

REPORT OF COMMISSION ON COUNTRY LIFE.

Washington, January £3, 1909.
To tJie President:

The Commission on Country Life herewith presents its report,
covering the following topics:

Introductory review or summary :
I. Greneral statement —

The purpose of the Commission.
Methods pursued by the Commission.
(Circulars, hearings, school-house meetings.)
II. The main special deficiencies In country life—

1. Disregard of the inherent rights of land workers,
(a) Speculative holding of lands.
(6) Monopolistic control of streams.

(c) Wastage and control of forests.

(d) Restraint of trade.

(e) Eemedies for the disregard of the inherent rights of the

farmer.

2. Highways.

3. Soil depletion and its effects.

4. Agricultural labor.

(a) Statement of the general problem.
(&) The question of intemperance.

(c) Development of local attachments of the farm laborer.
B. Health in the open country.

6. Woman's work on the farm.

III. The general corrective forces that should be set in motion —

7. Need of agricultural or country life surveys.

8. Need of a redirected education.

9. Necessity of working together.

10. The country church.

11. Personal ideals and local leadership.

INTIiODUCTOEY REVIEW OK SUMMARY.

The Commission finds that agriculture in the United States, taken
altogether, is prosperous commercially, when measured by the condi-
tions that have obtained in previous years, although there are some
regions in which this is only partially true. The country people are
producing vast quantities of supplies for food, shelter, clothing, and
for use in the arts. The country homes are improving in comfort,

13

14 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY UFE COMMISSION.

attractiveness, and liealtlifulness. Not only in the material wealth
that they produce, but in the supply of independent and strong citi-
zenship, the agricultural people constitute the very foundation of
our national efficiency. As agriculture is the imriiediate basis of
country life, so it follows that the general affairs of the open country,
speaking broadly, are in a condition of improvement.

Many institutions, organizations, and movements are actively con-
tributing to the increasing welfare of the open country. The most
important of these are the United States Department of Agriculture,
the colleges of agriculture and the experiment stations in the States,
and the national farmers' organizations. These institutions and
organizations are now properly assuming leadership in country-life
affairs, aud consequently in many of the public questions of national
bearing. With these agencies must be mentioned state departments
of agriculture, agricultural societies, and organizations of very many
kinds, teachers in schools, workers in church and other religious
associations, traveling libraries, and many other groups, all working
with commendable zeal to further the welfare of the people of the
open country.

THE MOST PROMINENT DEFICIENCIFS.

Yet it is true, notwithstanding all this progress as measured by
historical standards, that agriculture is not commercially as profitable
as it is entitled to be for the labor and energy that the farmer ex-
pends and the risks that he assumes, and that the social conditions in
the open country are far short of their possibilities. We must meas-
ure our agricultural efficiency by its possibilities rather than by com-
parison with previous conditions. The farmer is almost necessarily
handicapped in the development of his business, because his capital
is small and the volume of his transactions limited; and he usually
stands practically alone against organized interests. In the gener^
readjustment of modern life due to the great changes in manufactur^
and commerce inequalities and discriminations have arisen, anS.
naturally the separate man suffers most. The unattached man haiS'
problems that government should understand. -

The reasons for the lack of a highly organized rural society are
very many, as the full report explains. The leading specific causes '•
are :

A lack of knowledge on the part of farmers of the exact agricul--"
tural conditions and possibilities of their regions ;

Lack of good training for country life in the schools ;

The disadvantage or handicap of the farmer as against the estab-
lished business systems and interests, preventing him from securing '
adequate returns for his products, depriving him of the benefits that
would result from unmonopolized rivers and the conservation of '

BEPORT OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 15

forests, and depriving the community, in many cases, of the good
that would come from the use of great tracts of agricultural land
that are now held for speculative purposes ;

Lack of good highway facilities;

The widespread continuing depletion of soils, with the injurious
effect on rural life ;

A general need of new and active leadership.

Other causes contributing to the general result are : Lack of any ade-
quate system of agricultural credit, whereby the farmer may readily
secure loans on fair terms ; the shortage of labor, a condition that is
often complicated by intemperance among workmen; lack of insti-
tutions and incentives that tie the laboring man to the soil ; the bur-
dens and the narrow life of farm women; lack of adequate super-
vision of public health.

THE NATURE OE THE REMEDIES.

, Some of the remedies lie with the National Government, some of
them with the States and communities in their corporate capaci-
ties, some with voluntary organizations, and some with individuals
acting alone. From the gi'eat number of suggestions that have been
made, covering every phase of country life, the commission now
enumerates those that seem to be most fundamental or most needed
at the present time.

Congress can remove some of the handicaps of the farmer, and it
can also set some kinds of work in motion, such as :

The encouragement of a system of thoroughgoing surveys of all
agricultural regions in order to take stock and to collect local fact,
with the idea of providing a basis on which to develop a scientifically
and economically sound country life;

The encouragement of a system of extension work of rural com-
munities through all the land-grant colleges with the people at their
homes and on their farms;

A thoroughgoing investigation by experts of the middleman system
of handling farm products, coupled with a general inquiry into the
farmer's disadvantages in respect to taxation, transportation rates,
cooperative organizations and credit, and the general business system ;

V An inquiry into the control and use of the streams of the United
Sfetes^with the object of protecting the people in their ownership and
of saving to agricultural uses such benefits as should be reserved for

Ihese purposes ;

The establishing of a highway engineering service, or equivalent

'organization, to be at the call of the States in working out effective
and economical highway systems;

The establishing of a system of parcels posts and postal savings
banks;

I •

16 EEPOKT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

And providing some means or agency for the guidance of public
opinion toward the development of a real rural society that shall rest
directly 6n the land.

Other remedies recommended for consideration by Cpngress are :

The enlargement of the United States Bureau of Education, to
enable it to stimulate and coordinate the educational work to the
nation ;

Careful attention to the farmers' interests in legislation on the
tariff, on regulation of railroads, control or regulation of corporations
and of speculation, legislation in respect to rivers, forests, and the
utilization of swamp lands; ,

Increasing the powers of the Federal Government in respect to the
supervision and control of the public health ;

Providing such regulations as wiU enable the States that do not
permit the sale of liquors to protect themselves from traffic from
adjoining States.

In setting all these forces in motion, the cooperation of the States
will be necessary; and in many cases definite state laws may greatly
aid the work.

Remedies of a more general nature are: A broad campaign of
publicity, -that fiiust be undertaken until all the people are informed
on the whole subject of rural life, and until there is an awakened
appreciation of the necessity of giving this phase of our national de-
velopment as much attention as has been given to other phases or
interests; a quickened sense of responsibility in all country people,
to the community and to the State, in the conserving of soil fer-
tility, and in the necessity for diversifying farming in order to con-
serve this fertility and to develop a better rural society, and also in
the better safe guarding of the strength and happiness of the farm
women ; a more widespread conviction of the necessity for organiza-
tion, not only for economic but for social purposes, this organization
to be more or less cooperative, so that all the people may share
equally in the benefits and have voice in the essential affairs of the
community ; a realization on the part of the farmer that he has a
distinct natural responsibility toward the laborer in providing him
with good living facilities and in helping him in every way to be a
man among men ; and a realization on the part of all the people of
the obligation to protect and develop the natural scenery and attract-
iveness of the open country.

Certain remedies lie with voluntary organizations and institutio"'
All organized forces, both in town and country, should understa
that there are country phases as well as city phases of our civilizatic
and that one phase needs help as much as the other. All the,
agencies should recognize their responsibility to society. Many exis
ing organizations and institutions might become practically cooper

EEPOBT OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 17

tive or mutual in spirit, as, for example, all agricultural societies,
libraries. Young Men's Christian Associations, and churches. All the
organizations standing for rural progress should be federated, in
States and nation.

THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM OP COUNTRY LIFE.

The mere enumeration of the foregoing deficiencies and remedies
indicates that the problem of country life is one of reconstruction,
and that temporary measures and defense work alone will not solve
it. The underlying problem is to develop and maintain on our farms
a civilization in full harmony with the best American ideals. To
build up and retain this civilization meaus, first of all, that the busi-
ness of agriculture must be made to yield a reasonable return to those
who follow it intelligently; and life on the farm must be made per-
manently satisfying to intelligent, progressive people. The work be-
fore us, therefore, is nothing more or less than the gradual rebuilding
of a new agriculture and new rural life. We regard it as absolutely
essential that this great general work should be understood by all the
people. Separate difficulties, important as they are, must be studied
and worked out in the light of the greater fundamental problem.

The commission has pointed out a number of remedies that are
extremely important; but running through all of these remedies are
several great forces, or principles, which must be utilized in the en-
deavor to solve the problems of country life. All the people should
recognize what those fundamental forces and agencies are.

Knowledge. — To improve any situation, the underlying facts must
be understood. The farmer must have exact knowledge of his busi-
ness and of the particular conditions under which he works. The
United States Department of Agriculture and the experiment sta-
tions and colleges are rapidly acquiring and distributing this knowl-
edge ; but the farmer may not be able to apply it to the best advan-
tage because of lack of knowledge of his own soils, climate, animal
and plant diseases, markets, and other local facts. The farmer is
entitled to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of his
conditions and environment. A thoroughgoing system of surveys
in detail of the exact conditions underlying farming in every locality
is now an indispensable need to complete and apply the work of the
great agricultural institutions. As an occupation, agriculture is a
means of developing our internal resources ; we can not develop these
resources until we know exactly what they are.

Education. — There must be not only a fuller scheme of public

education, but a new kind of education adapted to the real needs

of the farming people. The country schools are to be so redirected

that they shall educate their pupils in terms of the daily life. Op-

S. Doc. 705, 60-2 2

18 KEPOET OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION.

portunities for training toward agricultural callings are to be
multiplied and made broadly effective. Every person on the land,
old or young, in school or out of school, educated or illiterate, must
have a chance to receive the information necessary for a successful
business, and for a healthful, comfortable, resourceful life, both in
home and neighborhood. This means redoubled efforts for better
country schools, and a vastly increased interest in the welfare of
country boys and girls on the part of those who pay the school
taxes. Education by means of agriculture is to be a part of our
regular public school work. Special agricultural schools are to be
organized. There is to be a well-developed plan of extension teach-
ing conducted by the agricultural colleges, by means of the printed
page, face-to-face talks, and demonstration or object lessons, designed
to reach every farmer and his family, at or near their homes, with
knowledge and stimulus in every department of country life.

Organization. — There must be a vast enlargement of voluntary
organized effort among f ariners themselves. It is indispensable that
farmers shall work together for their common interests and for the
national welfare. If they do not do this, no governmental activity,
no legislation, not even better schools, will greatly avail. Much has
been done. There is a multitude of clubs and -associations for social,
educational, and business purposes; and great national organizations
are effective. But the farmers are nevertheless relatively unorgan-
ized. We have only begun to develop business cooperation in Amer-
ica. Farmers do not influence legislation as they should. They
need a inore fully organized social and recreative life.

Spiritual forces. — The forces and institutions that make for moral-
ity and spiritual ideals among rural people must be energized. We
miss the heart of the problem if we neglect to foster personal char-
acter and neighborhood righteousness. The best way to preserve
ideals for private conduct and public life is to build up the institu-
tions of religion. The church has great power of leadership. The
whole people should understand that it is vitally important to stand
behind the rural church and to help it to become a great power in
developing concrete country life ideals. It is especially important
that the country church recognize that it has a social responsibility
to the entire community as well as a religious responsibility to its
own group of people.

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMISSION.

The commission recommends all the correctives that have been
mentioned under the head of " The nature of the remedies." It does
not wish to discriminate between important measures of relief for
existing conditions. It has Dmrp Qselv.avoideA'-iiwtftt'aJ^Tg arny partic-
ular bill now before^Congress, nojnatter what itsjraliie^or object.

EEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 19

There are, however, i n thg ppJTjjon of the r-QmmisaiQii.,.„twn or three
great_jnj02Sroeataui£.ihajjiB^^ set -under

way^t^ the ^earli^jt, possiW^ are jfamdameiLtaL to

the whole problem of ultimate permanent reconstruction; these call
for special j'xplanalToa!"'"''"""*'™" " '"

^•-H£MMii«StSS.K.^, t country l ife. — There should be organized, as
explained in the main report, under government leadership, a com-
prehensive .Blaii_foE_aii_fixhaustixfi„atudy or .survey xxf-all -th& condi-
tions that, si irrminr) tha Vmsiwosg of fe.rmjng-g.nrl the people who live
iflJhe.XQuntry, iaj3r,dfir„ta.take.stackQf iM«i.r,e^^^^ and. to supply
the farm er with local knowledge. Federal and state governments,
agricultural colleges and other educational agencies, organizations
of various types, and individual students of the problem should be
brought into cooperation for this great work of investigating with
minute care all agricultural and country life conditions.

2. Nationalized extension work. — Each state coll ege of agriculture
should be empowered to orga nize as soon as practicable a complete
department of college _exten^pn, ^^managed as to reach every person
"onlEte'lahd iiTits.&iata.. with Jaath.inJoi;ma.tian and inspiration. The
work should .inclu.dje.-Siich-fQEBft6-Q£--es^feension -teaching as lectures,
bujjetins, reading^co urses. correspondence cour ses, demonstration, and
otherjafiags of reaching ibfi. people .aiJiome.and,.on their farms. It
should be designe d to forward not only tli eL-husinfisS-jol agriculture,
but sanitation, education^ home making,^ and^ a ll inte rests of country
life: "

"^.\4 campaign for rural progress. — ^e urge the ho lding of local,
state, and even naJa flna l-caofeEfinces. on rura-1 ■-^-oggessij^esianed-^ to
unite the interests of education, organization, and religion into one
Krwardmo^ment for the rebuilding of country life. Eural teach-
M^s^TiErarians, clergymen, editors, physicians, and others may well
unite with farmers in studying and discussing the rural question in
all its aspects. We must in some way unite all institutions, all organ-
izations, all individuals having any interest in country life into one
great campaign for rural progress.

THE CALL FOE LEADEESHIP,

We must picture to ourselves a new rural social structure, devel-
oped from the strong resident forces of the open country; and then
we must set at work all the agencies that will tend to bring this about.
The entire people need to be roused to this avenue of usefulness.
Most of the new leaders must be farmers who can find not only a
satisfying business career on the farm, but who will throw them-
selves into the service of upbuilding the community. A new race of
teachers is also to appear in the country. A new rural clergy is to

20 EEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

be trained. These leaders will see the great underlying problem of
country life, and together they will work, each in his own field, for
the one goal of a new and permanent rural civilization. IJBon the de-
velopment of this distinctively rural civilization rests ultimately our
ahility,1&y methods of farming requiring the highest intelligence, to
continue to feed and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city
and metropolis, with, fresh blood,. clean,todies>.AIwi.slear.^rains that
can endure the strain of modern urban life; and to preserve a race
of men in the open country that, in the future as in the past, will be
the stay and strength of the nation in time of war and its guiding
and controlling spirit in time of peace.

It is to be hoped that many young men and women, fresh from our
schools and institutions of learning, and quick with ambition and
trained intelligence, will feel a new and strong call to service.

I. GENERAL STATEMENT.

Broadly speaking , ag riculture in the United States is prosperoua
and the conditions m man y of the great fa rming regions are improv-
ing. The success of the owners and cuTSvalors^f'^oHlaM^'ifi'' the
prosperous regions, has been due partly to improved methods, largely
to good prices for products, and also to the general advance in the
price of farm lands in these regions. Notwithstanding the general
advance in rentals and the higher prices of labor, tenants also have
enjoyed a good degree of prosperity, due to fair crops, and an advance
in the price of farm products approximately corresponding to the
advance in the price of land. Farm labor has been fully employed;;'
and at increased wages, and many farm hands have become tenants
and many tenants have become landowners.

There is marked improvement, in many of the agricultural regions,
in the character of the farm home and its surroundings. There is
increasing appreciation on the part of great numbers of country
people of the advantage of sanitary water supplies and plumbing, of
better construction in barns and all farm buildings, of good reading f
matter, of tasteful gardens and lawns, and the necessity of good '
education.

Many institutions are also serving the agricultural needs of the
open country with great effectiveness, as the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture, the land-grant colleges and experiment stations
and the many kinds of extension work that directly or indirectly
emanate from them. The help that these institutions render to the
country-life interests is everywhere recognized. State departments
of agricultural, national, state, and local organizations, many schools
of secondary grade, churches, libraries, and many other agencies are -
also contributing actively to the betterment of agricultural conditions.

KEPOKT OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 21

There_hasnevfi£jaeen « *Hn«-Tvteflrt}lBT*mieiican -farmer was as well
off as he is to-day, when ^we_cougi^^,^ioply his earning power, but
|he co'mf oris .an3'13 Saata.ges44e -^aav secure. Yfit_th£_*earL efficiency.
in farm li fpii sfrtA in -cQii.ii±Kg-liig>.oRfl-wHn1p. is not to be measured by
histo rical stan dards^ Jaut in terms pf _its, possibilities. Cons jdfired from
this point of view, there are^verj marked deficjiencies.. There has been
^ complete ail J' fund'amSatal change in our whole economic system
within the past century. This has resulted in profound social changes
and the redirection of our point of view on life. In some occupations
the readjustment to the new conditions has been rapid and complete;
in others it has come with difficulty. In all the great series of farm
occupations the readjustment has been the most tardy, because the
whole structure of a traditional and fundamental system has been
involved. It is not strange, therefore, that development is still
arrested in certain respects ; that marked inequalities have arisen ; or
that positive injustice may prevail even to a very marked and wide-
spread extent. All these difficulties are the results of the unequal
development of our contemporary civilization. All this may come
about without any intention on the part of anyone that it should be
so. The problems are nevertheless just as real, and they must be
studied and remedies must be found.

These deficiencies are recognized by the people. We have found,
not only the testimony of the farmers _tbfi mafeL»^e&.bMJi. of -aLL-parsaos
in touch with farm li f e, more l ess fLei iojiS-agafajAt^tical unrest in^stery
paH'^f tke 'Wnited Sta^ regions.

not advisable, of course, that all country persons remain in the coun-
try ; but this general desire to mov6 is evidence that the open country
is not satisfying as a permanent abode. This tendency is not peculiar
to any region. In difficult farming regions, and where the competi-
tion with other farming sections is most severe, the young people may
go to town to better their condition. In the best regions the older
people retire to town, because it is socially more attractive and they
see a prospect of living in comparative ease and comfort on the rental
of their lands. Nearly everywhere there is a townward movement
for the purpose of securing school advantages for the children. All
this tends to sterilize the open country and to lower its social status.
Often the farm is let to tenants. The farmer is likely to lose active
interest in life when he retires to town, and he becomes a stationary
citizen, adding a social problem to the town. He is likely to find his
expenses increasing and is obliged to raise rents to his tenant,
thereby making it more difficult for the man who works on the land.
On his death his property enriches the town rather than the country.
The withdrawal of the children from the farms detracts from th^
interest and efficiency of the country school and adds to the interest
of the town school. Thus the country is drained of the energy of

22 KEPOET OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION.

youth on the one hand and the experience and accumulation of age on
the other, and three problems more or less grave are created — a prob-
lem for the town, a problem for the public school, and also a problem
of tenancy in the open country.

The farmi ng _mterest jsjiot, as^a jwhole^ receiving the full rewards
to ihichit is .entitled, nor has country life attained to anywhere near
its possibiliti^^f attractiveness _aAd. comfort. The farmer is neces-
sarily TTajidicapped in the development of social life and in the con-
duct of his business because of his separateness, the small volume of
his output, and the lack of capital. He often begins with practically
no capital, and expects to develop his capital and relationships out of
the annual business itself; and even when he has capital with which
to set up a business and operate it the amount is small when com-
pared with that required in other enterprises. He is not only handi-
capped in his farming but is disadvantaged wTien he deals with other
business interests and with other social groups. It is peculiarly nec-
essary, therefore, that Government should give him adequate consid-
eration and protection. There are difficulties of the separate man,
living quietly on his land, that government should understand.

THE PURPOSE OF THE COMMISSION.

The commission is requested to report on the means that are " now
available for supplying the deficiencies which exist" in the country
life of the United States and " upon the best methods of organized
permanent effort in investigation and actual work " along the lines of
betterment of rural conditions.

The President's letter appointing the commission is as follows :

Otsteb Bat, N. T., August 10, 1908.
Mt DBAS Peofessob Bailet : No nation has ever achieved permanent great-
ness unless this greatness was basfed on the wellbeing of the great farmer class,
the men who live on the soil ; for it Is upon their welfare, material and moral,
that the welfare of the rest of the nation untimately rests. In the United
States, disregarding certain sections and taking the nation as a whole, I,
believe it to be true that the farmers in general are better off to-day than they
ever were before. We Americans are making great progress In the development
of our agricultural resourees. But it Is equally true that the social and eco-
nomic institutions of the open country are not keeping pace with the develop-
ment of the nation as a whole. The farmer is, as a rule, better off than his
forbears; but his increase in well-being has not kept pace with that of the
country as a whole. While the condition of the farmers in some of our best
farming regions leaves little to be desired, we are far from having reached so
high a level in all parts of the country. In portions of the South, for example,
where the Department of Agriculture, through the farmers' cooperative demon-
stration work of Doctor Knapp, is directly Instructing more than 30,000 farmers
In better methods of farming, there is nevertheless much unnecessary suffering
and needless loss of efficiency on the farm. A physician, who is also a careful
Btudent of farm life in the South, writing to me recently about the enormous

EEPOHT OF THE COtTNTBY LIFE COMMISSION. 23

percentage of preventable deaths of hclldren, due to insanitary condition
of southern farms, said:

" Personally, from the health point of view, I would prefer to see my own
daughter, 9 years old, at work in a cotton mill than have her live as tenant on
the average southern tenant one-horse farm. This apparently extreme state-
ment is based upon actual life among both classes of people."

I doubt if any other nation can bear comparison with our own in the amount
of attention given by the Government, both Federal and State, to agricultural
matters. But practically the whole of this effort has hitherto been directed to-
ward increasing the production of crops. Our attention has been concentrated
almost exclusively on getting better farming. In the beginning this was un-
questionably the right. thing to do. The farmer must first of all grow good
crops In order to support himself and his family. But when this has been se-
cured the effort for better farming should cease to stand alone, and should be
accompanied by the effort for better business and better living on the farm.
It is at least as important that the farmer should get the largest possible re-
turn in money, comfort, and social advantages from the crops he grows as that
he should get the largest possible return in crops from the land he farms.
Agriculture is not the whole of country life. The great rural interests are
human interests, and good crops are of little value to the farmer unless they
open the door to a good kind of life on the farm.

This problem of country life is in the truest sense a national problem. In an
address delivered at the semicentennial of the founding of agricultural colleges
in the United States a year ago last May, I said :

"There is but one person whose welfare is as vital to the welfare of the
whole country as is that of the wage-worker who does manual labor, and that is
the tiller of the soil — the farmer. If there is one lesson taught by history, it is
that the permanent greatness of any State must ultimately depend more upon
the character of its country population than upon anything else. No growth of
cities, no growth of wealth can make up for loss in either the number or the
character of the farming population."

* * * • • * •

" The farm grows the raw material for the food and clothing of all our citi-
zens ; it supports directly almost half of them ; and nearly half the children
of the United States are born and brought up on the farms. How can the life
of the farm family be made less solitary, fuller of opportunity, freer from
drudgery, more comfortable, happier, and more attractive? Such a result is
most earnestly to be desired. How can life on the farm be kept on the highest
level, and, where it is not already on that level, be so improved, dignified, and
brightened as to awaken and keep alive the pride and loyalty of the farmer's
boys and girls, of the farmer's wife, and of the farmer himself? How can a
compelling desire to live on the farm be aroused in the children that are born
on the farm? All these questions are of vital importance not only to the
farmer but to the whole nation.

" We hope ultimately to double the average yield of wheat and com per
acre; it will be a great achievement; but it Is even more important to double
the desirability, comfort, and standing of the farmer's life."

It is especially important that whatever will serve to prepare country chil-
dren for life on the farm and whatever will brighten home life in the country
and make it richer and more attractive for the mothers, wives, and daughters
of farmers should be done promptly, thoroughly, and gladly. There is no more
Important person, measured in influence upon the life of the nation, than the

24 BEPOET Of THE COTJNTKY LIFE COMMISSION.

farmer's wife, no more important home^ than the country home, and It Is of
national importance to do the best we can for both.

The farmers have hitherto had less than their full share of public attention
along the lines of business and social life. There Is too much belief among all
our people that the prizes of life lie away from the farm. I am therefore
anxious to bring before the people of the United States the question of securing
better business and better living on the farm, whether by cooperation between
farmers for buying, selling, and borrowing; by promoting social advantages
and opportunities in the country; or by any other legitimate means that will
help to make country life more gainful, more attractive, and fuller of opportu-
nities, pleasures, and rewards for the men, women, and children of the farms.

I shall be very glad indeed if you will consent to serve upon a commission
on country life, upon which I am asking the following gentlemen to act : Prof.
L. H. Bailey, New York State College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y., chairman ;
Mr. Henry Wallace, Wallace's Parmer, Des Moines, Iowa; President Kenyon
L. Butterfleld, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass. ; Mr. GifCord
Pinchot, United States Forest Service; Mr. Walter H. Page, editor of The
World's Work, New York.

My immediate purpose in appointing this commission Is to secure from it such
Information and advice as will enable me to make recommendations to Congress
upon this extremely important matter. I shall be glad if the commission will
report to me upon the present condition of country life, upon what means are
now available for supplying the deficiencies which exist, and upon the best
methods of organized permanent effort in investigation and actual work along
the lines I have indicated. You will doubtless also find it necessary to suggest
means for bringing about the redirection or better adaptation of rural schools
to the training of children for life on the farm. The national and state agri-
cultural departments must ultimately join with the various farmers' and
agricultural organizations In the effort to secure greater efficiency and attrac-
tiveness in country life.

In view of the pressing importance of this subject I should be glad to have
you report before the end of next December. For that reason the commission
will doubtless find it impracticable to undertake extensive investigations, but
will rather confine itself to a summary of what is already known, a statement
of the problem, and the recommendation of measures tending toward its solu-
tion. With the single exception of the conservation of our natural resources,
which underlies the problem of rural life, there is no other material question
of greater importance now before the American people. I shall look forward
with the keenest Interest to your report.

Sincerely, yours, Theodore Roosevelt.

Prof. L. H. Bailey,

New York State College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y.

Subsequently Charles S. Barrett, of Georgia, and William A.
Beard, of California, were added to the commission.

The means that may be suggested for amelioration of country life
fall under one or more of three general classes : (a) Definite recom-
mendations for executive or legislative action by the Federal Gov-
ernment; (&) suggestions for legislative enactment on the part of
States; (c) suggestions or recommendations to the public at large
as to what the commission thinks would bo the most fruitful lines of
action and policy on the part of individuals, communities, or States.

EEPOKT OF THE COUNTKY LIFE COMMISSION. 25

The problem before the commission is to state, with some fullness
of detail, the present conditions of country life, to point out the
causes that may have led to its present lack of organization, to sug-
gest methods by which it may be redirected, the drift to the city
arrested, the natural rights of the farmer maintained, and an or-
ganized rural life developed that will promote the prosperity of the
whole nation.

We are convinced that the forces that make for rural betterment
must themselves be rural. We must arouse the country folk to the
necessity for action, and suggest agencies which, when properly em-
ployed, will set them to work to develop a distinctly rural civilization.

In making its inquiries, thei commission has had constantly in
mind the relation of the farmer to his community and to society in
general. It has made no inquiry into problems of technical farming
except as they may have bearing on general welfare and public
questions. ''

The commission has not assumed that country-life conditions are
either good or bad, nor is it within its province to compare country
conditions with city conditions ; but it has assumed that we have not
yet arrived at that state of society in which conditions may not be
bettered.

It is our place, therefore, to point out the deficiencies rather than
the advantages and the progress. In doing this we must be distinctly
understood as speaking onl^in general terms. The conditions that
we describe do not, of course, apply equally in all parts of the coun-
try, and we have not been able to make studies of the problems of
particular localities.

Before discussing the shortcomings more fully, we may explain
how the commission undertook its work.

METHODS PT7KSUED BY THE COMMISSION.

The field of inquiry has been the general social, economic, sanitary,
educational, and labor conditions of the open country. Within the
time at its disposal, the commission has not been able to make scien-
tific investigations into any of these questions, but, following the
suggestion of the President, has endeavored to give " a summary of
what is already known, a statement of the problem, and the recom-
mendation of measures looking toward its solution." We have been
able to make a rather extensive exploration or reconnoissance of the
field, to arrive at a judgment as to the main deficiencies of country
life in the United States to-day, and to suggest some of the means
of supplying these deficiencies.

The commission and its work have met with the fullest cooperation
and confidence on the part of the farmers and others, and the interest
in the subject has been widespread, The people have been frank in
giving information and expressing opinions, and in stating their

26 EEPOET OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

problems and discouragements. There is every evidence that the
people in rural districts. have welcomed the commission as an agency
that is much needed in the interest of country life, and in many of
the hearings they have asked that the commission be continued in
order that it may make thorough investigations of the subjects that
it has considered. The press has taken great interest in the work,
and in many cases has been of special service to the commission in
securing direct information from country people.

The activities of the commission have been directed mainly along
four lines: The issuing of questions designed to bring out a state-
ment of conditions in all parts of the United States; correspond-
ence and inquiries by different members of the commission, so far
as time would permit, each in a particular field; the holding of hear-
ings in many widely separated places; discussions in local meetings
held in response to a special suggestion by the President.

THE CIECULAE OF QTJESTIONa.

As a means of securing the opinions of the people themselves on
some of the main aspects of country life, a set of questions was dis-
tributed, as follows:

I. Are the farm homes In your neighborhood as good as they should be

under existing conditions?
II. Are the schools in your neighborhood training boys and girls satis-
factorily for life on the farm? •
III. Do the farmers in your neighborhood get the returns they reasonably

should from the sale of their products?
IV. Do the farmers in your neighborhood receive from the railroads,
highroads, trolley lines, etc., the services they reasonably should
have?
V. Do the farmers In your neighborhood receive from the United States
postal service, rural telephones, etc., the service they reasonably
should expect?
VI. Are the farmers and their veives in your neighborhood satisfactorily

organized to promote their mutual buying and selling interest?
VII. Are the renters of farms in your neighborhood making a satisfactory

living?
VIII. Is the supply of farm labor in your neighborhood satisfactory?
IX. Are the conditions surrounding hired labor on the farms In your
neighborhood satisfactory to the hired man?
X. Have the farmers in your neighborhood satisfactory facilities for

doing their business In banking, credit, insurance, etc.?
XI. Are the sanitary conditions of farms in your neighborhood satis-
factory?
XII. Do the farmers and their wives and families in your neighborhood
get together for mutual improvement, entertainment, and social
Intercourse as much as they should?
What, In your judgment, is the most important single thing to be done for
the general betterment of country life?

(Note. — Following each question are the subquestlons : (a) Why? (6) What
Buggestiona h»ve you to make?)

BEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 27

About 550,000 copies of the circular questions were sent to names
supplied by the United States Department of Agriculture, state ex-
periment stations, farmers' societies, women's clubs, to rural free
deliverymen, country physicians and ministers, and others. To these
inquiries about 115,000 persons have now replied, mostly with much
care and with every evidence of good faith. Nearly 100,000 of these
circulars have been arranged and some of the information tabulated
in a preliminary way by the Census Bureau. In addition to the re-
plies to the circulars, great numbers of letters and carefully written
statements have been received, making altogether an invaluable body
of information, opinion, and suggestion.

THE HEABINGS.

Hearings were held at 30 places by the whole commission, or part
of it, between November 9 and December 22, 1908; and frequently
two or more long sessions were held. Very full notes were taken of
the proceedings. They were attended by good audiences, in some in-
stances overflowing the hall. At several, especially in the Northwest,
delegates were in attendance representing associations and conmiuni-
ties in the vicinity, who were anxious to present their views and needs.
Speeches were numerous- and usually short and pithy, and represented
every sort of person concerned with rural life, including many
women, who contributed much to the domestic and educational as-
pects of the subject. The governors and principal officials of the
States were often present; and also the presidents and professors of
institutions of learning, clergymen, physicians, librarians, and others,
but the bulk of the speakers and audiences was country people. No
attempt was made to follow a definite programme of questioning, but
general discussions proceeded, with an occasional show of hands or
outburst of applause to signify general assent to the speaker's words.

The hearings were held as follows :

November 9. — College Park, Md.

10. — Richmond, Va.

11. — Raleigh, N. C, and Athens, Ga.

12. — Spartanburg, S. C.

13. — KnoxvUle, Tenn.

14. — Lexington, Ky.
16-18.— Washington, D. a
19-21.— Dallas, Tex.
22-23. — El Paso, Tex.

24. — Tucson, Ariz.
25-26. — Los Angeles, Cal.
27-28. — Fresno, Cal.
28-29. — San Francisco, CaL

SO. — Sacramento, Cal,

28 EEPOKT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

December 1. — Reno, Nev.

2. — Portland, Oreg.
2-3.— SaJt Lake City, Utah.

4-5. — Spokane, Wash, (and at Opportunity, near by).
5. — Cheyenne, Wyo.
6. — Bozeman, Mont
7-8. — Denver, Colo.
9-10. — Omaha, Nebr.

10.— Council Bluffs, Iowa.

11.— Minneapolis, Minn. (St. Anthony Park).

12. — Madifeon, Wis.

14. — Champaign, 111.

16.— Ithaca, N. Y.

17. — Springfield, Mass.

18. — Boston, Mass.

22.— Washington, D. O.

THE SOHOOLHOUSE MEETINGS.

The suggestion of the President that, the country people of the
United States come together in their district schoolhouses to discuss
country-life questions under consideration by the commission was
oflScially transmitted by the commission to the state and county super-
intendents of schools of every State and Territory. A great part of
the press of the country quoted the suggestion in full, often printing
with it the original list of questions issued by the commission. . School
officials, ministers of country churches, and other persons concerned
in the advancement of country matters contributed their active efforts
for organizing such meetings. Reports of meetings have already
come in from almost every State, and we have notice of many meet-
ings still to be held. Separate States have set specific days for simul-
taneous meetings in all their country schoolhouses, notably Nebraska
and Missouri. The States of Washington, Oregon, Montana, and
Idaho, by concerted arrangement, held meetings December 5, the date
suggested by the President. Suggestion has come from many partS
of the country for the regular establishment of such meetings for|
annual national observance by the country people as an inventory-'
taking day and for planning community advancement for the ensuing
year.

II. THE MAIN SPECIAL DEFICIENCIES IN COUNTRY LIFE.

The numbers of problems and suggestions that have been presented
to the commission in the hearings and through the correspondence are
very great. We have chosen for special discussion those that are most
significant and that seem most to call for immediate action. The
main single deficiencv is. of course, la^k of the prop er kind of educa^
tion, but inasmuch as the redirectio n of educationa l'methods "is~al£
the main remedy for the shor tcomings of country life, as also of an
other life7EHe discussion pTit may be reserved fgip Part III.

BEPOBT OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 29

1. DISREGARD OP THE INHERENT RIGHTS OP LAND WORKERS.

Notwithstanding an almost universal recognition of the importance
of agriculture to the maintenance of our people there is nevertheless
a widespread disregard of the rights of the men who "own and work
the land. This results directly in social depression, as well as in
economic disadvantage.

The organized and corporate interests represented in mining, manu-
facturing, merchandising, transportation, and the like, seem often to
hold the idea that their business may be developed and exploited
without regard to the farmers, who should, however, have an equal
opportunity for enjoyment of the land, forests, and streams and of
the right to buy and sell in the open markets without prejudice.

The question of the moral intention of the consolidated interests is
not involved in these statements. The present condition has grown
up, and without going into the reasons it is imperative that we rec-
ognize these disadvantages to country-life interests and seek to correct
them. The way in which discriminating conditions may arise is well
illustrated in the inequalities of taxation of farm property. It is
natural that visible and stationary property should be taxed freely
under our present system; it is equally natural that invisible and
changeable property should tend to evade taxation. The inevitable
result is that the farmer's property bears an unjust part in taxation
schemes.

Nor is this disregard of the inherent rights of the land worker con-
fined to corporations and companies or to the recognized inequalities
of taxation. It is often shared by cities. Instead of taking care of
their own undesirables, they often turn them off on the country dis-
tricts. The " fringe " of a city thereby becomes a low-class or even
vicious community, and its influence often extends far into the coun-
try districts. The commission hears complaints that hoboes are
driven from the cities and towns into the country districts, where
there is no machinery for controlling them.

; The subjects to which we are here inviting attention are, of course,
'not confined to country life alone. They express an attitude toward
public questions in general. We look for the development of a sen-
timent that will protect and promote the welfare of all the people
whenever there is a conflict with the interests of a small or particular
class.

The handicaps that we now have specially in mind may be stated
under four heads : Speculative holding of lands ; monopolistic control
of streams ; wastage and monopolistic control of forests ; restraint of
trade.

30 EEPOKT OF THE COUNTRT LIFE COMMISSION,

(a) SPECULATIVE HOLDING OF LANDS.

Certain landowners procure large areas of agricultural land in
the most available location, sometimes by questionable methods, and
hold it for speculative purposes. This not only withdraws the land
itself from settlement, but in many cases prevents the development of
an agricultural community. The smaller landowners are isolated
and unable to establish their necessary institutions or to attract the
attention of the market. The holding of large areas by one party
tends to develop a system of tenantry and absentee farming. The
whole development may be in the direction of social and economic
ineffectiveness. In parts of the West and South this evil is so pro-
nounced that persons have requested the commission to recommend
measures of relief by restricting, under law, the size of speculative
holdings of agricultural lands.

A similar problem arises in respect to the u tilization of the s ammp
lands of the United States. According to the reports of the United
States Geological Survey, there are more than 75,000,000 acres of
swamp land in this country, the greater part of which are capable
of reclamation at probably a nominal cost as compared to their
value. It is important to the development of the best type of coun-
try life that the reclamation of the lands in rural regions proceed
under conditions insuring their subdivision into small farm units
and their settlement by men who would both own them and till
them. Some of these lands are near the centers of population. They
become a menace to health, and they often prevent the development
of good social conditions in very large areas of country. As a rule,
they' are extremely fertile. They are capable of sustaining an agri-,
cultural population numbering many millions, and the conditions
under which these millions must live are properly a matter of
national concern. In view of these facts, the Federal Government
should act to the fullest extent of its constitutional powers in secui"-
ing the reclamation of these lands under proper safeguards agains^
speculative holding and landlordism. It may be that .in.. the .case„Qri
those lands ceded to the States for the purpose of reclamation, the
greater part of which are unreclaimed, there exists a special author-
ity on tKe""parT^of the Federal Governxngnt by reason o£ failure to
comply with the Terms of the. grajit^ and -there- shottldr be a vigorous
• legal inquiryJ,ntoth«. present, rights of -the Government- with respect
to them, followed, if the status warrants it, by legaV steps to rescind
the^amte andjto begin the. practical work of reclamation.

(6) MONOPOLISTIC CONTROL OF BTEEAMS.

The legitimate farming interests of the whole country would be
vastly benefited by a systematic conservation and utilisation, under
the auspices of the State and Federal Governments, of our watei

KEPOET OP THE COUNTRY LIEE COMMISSION. 31

ways, both great and small. Important advantafyes of thesa wa tsr-
^ays are likely to he apprapriaifirl in pprpetuity-and-MJAliQuLadeqjiate
return to J^he people bj monopolistic i]i,^gxQ§^^J^at.,d£priYg the, perma-
nent agriculturaTinhabitants of theuse of them.

The rivers are valuable to the farmers as drainage lines, as sources
of irrigation supply, as carriers and equalizers of transportation
rates, as a readily available power resource, and for the raising of
food fish. The wise development of these and other uses is important
to both agricultural and other interests; their protection from
monoply is one of the first responsibilities of government. The
streams belong to the people ; under a proper system of development
their resources would remain an estate of all the people, and become
available as needed. A broad constructive programme involving
coordinate development of the many uses of streams, under condi-
tions insuring their permanent control in the interest of the people
themselves, is urgently needed, and none should be more concerned
in this than the farmers.

River navigation affords the best and cheapest transportation of
farm products of a nonperishable nature. The rivers afford the best
means of competition with railroads, because river carriage is cheap,
' and because the rivers once opened by the Government for navigation
are open to all, and monoply of their use should be an impossibility.
Interest in river improvement for the purpose of navigation is very
keen among the farmers who actually use river transportation, and
to some extent among farmers who enjoy advantages in railway
rates due to parallel water lines ; but the great mass of farmers, while
complaining of what they affirm to be unjust and exorbitant railway
rates, have given too little thought to the means of relief with which
nature has favored them. This is probably due to lack of knowledge
of the actual economies of river transportation. For example, one
community located 200 miles from a former head of navigation ships
wheat by rail to a market that is 1,033 miles distant, at a cost of 21
cents per bushel, yet it showed no interest in the reopening of the
channel that would reduce the train haul to less than one-fifth the
distance.
./ This failure to consider the waterways is probably due very largely

(to the high rates per ton-mile charged by railroads for short hauls..
Under the present methods of fixing th^ railway tariffs, local rates
lire often almost or quite as great as between points far distant, and
Shere is small inducement to use cheap river freights because of the
Icost of reaching the river banks. The remedy for this lies in two
[directions: It must come either from a rearrangement of freight
schedules, which may involve a complete change in the present policy
of the railway companies with reference thereto, or by means of
competition by independent or local companies.

32 BEPOBT OF THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION.

It must be remembered, also, that no interests inimical to the public
welfare should be allowed to acquire permanent control of the stream
banks. Facilities for ready and economical approach, are practically
as important as the channels themselves.

River transportation is not usually antagonistic to railway interests.
Population and production are increasing rapidly, with correspond-
ing increase in the demands made on transportation facilities. It .
may be reasonably expected that in the evolution of the transporta-
tion business, the rivers will eventually carry a large part of the
freight that does not require prompt delivery, while the railways
will carry that requiring expeditious handling. This is already fore-
seen by leading railway men; and its importance to the farmer is
such that he should encourage and aid, by every means in his power,
the movement for large use of the rivers. The country will produce
enough business to tax both streams and railroads to their utmost.

In many regions the streams afford facilities for the development
of power, which, since the successful inauguration of electrical trans-
mission, is available for local rail lines and offers the best solution of
local transportation problems. In many parts of the country local
and interurban lines are providing transportation to farm areas,
thereby increasing the facilities for moving crops and adding to the
profit and convenience of farm life. Notwithstanding this develop-
ment, however, there seems to be a very general lack of appreciation
on the part of farmers of the possibilities of this water-power resource
as a factor in governing transportation costs.

The streams may also be used as a source of small water power on
thousands of farms. This is particularly true of the small streams.
Much of the manual labor about the house and barn can be performed
from transmission of power from small water wheels running on the
farms themselves or in the neighborhood. This power could be used
for electric lighting and for small manufacture. It is more impor-
tant that small power be developed on the farms of the United States
than that we harness Niagara.

Unfortunately, the tendency of the present laws is to encourage th?;
acquisition of these resources on easy terms, or on their own term^
by the first applicants, and the power of the streams is rapidly beinOT
acquired under conditions that lead to the concentration of owner-1
ship in the hands of monopolies. This state of things constitutes al
real and immediate danger, not to the country-life interests alone, bu| I
to the entire nation, and it is time that the whole people becom(l
aroused to it. 1

The laws under which water is appropriated or flowage rightsf
secured for power were enacted prior to the introduction of electrical
transmission, and, consequently, before there was any possibility of
water power becoming of more than local importance or value.

EEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 33

Monopoly of water power was practically impossible while the sources
and uses were alike isolated, but the present ability to concentrate the
power of streams and to develop transportation, manufacturing,
heating, and lighting on a vast scale invites monopolization.

It appears as a result of governmental investigation that practically
in the last five years there has been a very significant concentration
of water powers ; that this concentration has now placed about 33 per
cent of the total developed water powers of the country under the
control of a group of 13 companies or interests ; that there are very
strong economic and technical reasons forcing such concentration.
The rapid concentration already accomplished, together with the
obvious technical reasons for further control and the financial advan-
tages to be gained by a substantial monopoly, justifies the fear that
the concentration already accomplished is but the forerunner of a far
greater degree of monopoly of water power. Unless the people be-
come aroused to the danger to their interests, there will probably be
developed a monopoly greater than any the world has yet seen.

The development of power plants and of industries using this
power ought to be encouraged by every legitimate and proper means.
It should not be necessary, however, to grant perpetual rights in
order to encourage this development. There should be no perpetual
grant of water-power privileges. On the contrary, the ownership of
the people should be perpetually maintained, and grants should be in
the nature of terminable franchises.

The irrigation water should be protected. Farm life in the irri-
gated regions is usually of an advanced type, due principally to thq
small size of farms and the resulting social and educational ad-
vantages and to intensive agriculture. Because of these facts the
development of the arid regions by irrigation may be a distinct con-
tribution to the improvement of the country life of the nation. In
the use of streams for irrigation, as in other uses, monopoly should
be discouraged. The ownership of water for irrigation is no less
important than the ownership of land ; " waterlordism " is as much to
\he feared as landlordism. In the irrigated regions the water is more
raluable than the land to which it is applied ; the availability of the
fvater supply often gives to the land all the value that it has, and
vhen this is true it must follow that the farmer must own both the
vater and the land if he is to be master of his own fortunes. One of
;he very best elements of any population is the independent home-
jwning farmer, and the tendency of government, so far as may be
'prfx^t^icable, should be toward securing the ownership of the land by
' shipnan who lives on it and tills it. It should seek to vest in the
is Ver of the irrigated region the title to his water supply and to
*r°|ect his tenure of it. The natjo iLal rer1 a mo tion act, under which
: S. Doc. 705, 60-2 3

34 BEPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

l arge areas of arid land are now being placed unde r irrigation, js
commended as a conlribution^tojtlie development of a good country
TiTe^yiEe W ^LjD£>t alone because it renders available for sefflement
large areas of previously wortHIe^ land, but still more" because~4t
insures to settlers the ownership of both the land an3~the water.

The need to utilize the streams is to be ccmsidieried" in tlie East as
well as in the West.

The commission suggests that a special inquiry be made of the con-
trol and stream resources of the United States, with the object of pro-
tecting the people in their ownership and of reserving to agricultural
uses such benefits as should be reserved for these purposes.

(C) WASTAGE AND CONTROL Or TOEESTS.

The forests have been exploited for private gain until not only has
the timber been seriously reduced, but until streams have been ruined
for navigation, power, irrigation, and common water supplies and
whole regions have been exposed to floods and disastrous soil erosion.
Probably there has never occurred a more reckless destruction of
property that of right should belong to all the people. These devas-
tations are checked on the government lands, but similar devastation
in other parts of the country is equally in need of attention. The
commission has heard strong demands from farmers for the estab-
lishment of forest reservations in the White Mountains and the South-
ern Appalachian region to save the timber and. to control the sources
of streams, and no statements in opposition to the proposal. Meas-
ures should be enacted creating such reservations. The forests as
well as the streams should be saved from monopolistic control.

The conservation of forests and brush on watershed areas is impor-
tant to the farmer along the full length of streams, regardless of the
distance between the farm and these areas. The loss of soil in de-
nuded areas increases the menace of flood, not alone because of the
more rapid run-off, but by the filling of channels and the greater ero-
sion of stream banks when soil matter is carried in suspension. t

Loss of soil by washing is a serious menace to the fertility of tha
American farm. A high authority on this subject recently made the
statement that soil wash is " the heaviest impost borne by the Amerif
can farmer." *■

The wood-lot property of the country needs to be saved and in-,'

creased. Wood-lot yield is one of the most important crops of the

farm, and is of great value to the public in controlling streams,'

saving the run-off, checking winds, and in adding to the attratr; " -

ness of the region. In many regions, where poor and hilly f^hts

prevail, the town or county could well afford to purchase f,p*^^^

land, expecting thereby to add to the value of the property f

|lue.

BEPOET OP THE COXJNTBY LIFE COMMISSION. 35

eventually to make the forests a source of revenue. Such conununal
forests in Europe yield revenue to the cities and towns by which
they are owned and managed.

(d) EESTBAINT OF TRADE.

The commission has heard much complaint, in all parts of th^
country and by all classes of farmers, of injustice, inequalities, and
discrimination on the part of transportat ion-companies-and middle-
jnen. These are the most universal direct complaints that have been
presented to the commission. If the statements can be trusted, th&
business of farming as a whole is greatly repressed by lack of mutual
understanding and good faith in the transportation and marketing
of agricultural produce.

Without expressing an opinion on these questions, we feel that
there should be a free understanding between transportation com-
panies and farmers in respect to their mutual business. We find
that farmers who have well-informed opinions on tariff, education,
and other public questions are yet wholly uninformed in respect tb
the transportation man's point of view on freight rates and express
rates that may be in dispute. A disposition on the part of all parties
to discuss the misunderstandings fairly would probably accomplish
much.

The whole matter of railway freight rates should be made mora
understandable. There should be a simplifying or codifying of
rates that will enable the farmer or a group of farmers or of other
citizens who use the railways to ascertain readily from the published
tariffs the actual rate on any given commodity between two points.
Railway rate making is fundamentally- a matter of public impor-
tance. The rate ^are a large fa^t,of jn fhp. dpyplopm ent of BQiml a-
tion ; in many instances the rail way rates determme.^bflth- the xharac-
< 1er o Xihj&--popul-ati&n.an34EeZaavMQpnieD^^ industry. The railway
companies, by their rates, may decide where the centers of distribu-
tion shall be, what areas shall develop manufactures, and other
special industries. To the extent that they do this they exercise a
ipurely public function, and for this reason alone, if for no othe»,
(the QfiXfirnmLeat should exercise a wise supervision over the, making
ind publication of rates. Favo ritism to large ship persh as been one
^^igprincipaJjibuses oijlie Jtrajisportati&n--b«siness and has con-
ftributed to the growth of monopolies of trade. While rebating .is
flargely discontinued, it is very generally believed that this favoritism
lis still practiced, in various forms, to an extent that works a hard-
ship on the small shipper and the unorganized interests. Complaint
is not confined to steam roads alone, but is directed toward the
trolley lines as well. There is a feeling that trolley systems should
be feeders to the steam roads, and that these systems, which are

36 RBPOBT OF THE COUNTBY UFE COMMISSION.

rapidly being extended through rural districts, should afford to
farmers a freight service that is ready, rapid, and cheap. It is
charged that this is not done; that steam lines discourage the use of
the trolleys for freight, or absorb them and eliminate competition, to
the detriment of the farm population which they should most benefit.

T hft Tntq rstatp. Commerce Commission exercises a most valu able
goyerjamental_ function! It is a body to which complaint may be
made of any rate coifsidered to be unreasonable. It has been of
great benefit to the farmers of the' country. What is needed now is
a careful study of the railway situation with a view to reaching
and correcting abuses and practices still in existence that operate
against the unorganized and the rural interests.

In this connection attention is invited to the fact that many States
have railway commissions charged with the duty of protecting the
public from paying exorbitant freight rates, and farmers who feel
that they are charged more than is fair should see to it, first, that
their state railway commissions are composed of men who will do
their duty ; and second, that these men are sustained in honest efforts
to do their duty with fairness to all concerned. The charge is
frequently made that these commissions are not effective ; but as they
are a part of the machinery of the State, it would seem that the
farmers have here an excellent opportunity to serve their interests
by active devotion to a plain political duty.

Dissatisfaction with the prevailing systems of marketing is very
general. There is a widespread belief that certain middlemen con-
sume a share of agricultural sales out of all proportion to the serv-
ices they render, either to the consumer or the producer, making
a larger profit — often without risk — in the selling of the product
than the farmer makes in producing it. We have no desire to con-
demn middlemen as a class. We have no doubt that there are many
businesses of this kind that are conducted on a square-deal basis,
but we are led to believe that grave abuses are practiced by unscrupu-
lous persons and firms, and we recommend a searching inquiry into
the methods employed in the sale of produce on commission.

(e) EEMEDIES FOB THE DISEEGAED OP THE INHEEENT BIGHTS OF THB FABMKB.

We need, in the first place, as a people, to recognize the necessarj]
rights of the individual farmer to the use of the native resources an,
agencies th^t go with the utilization of agricultural lands and to pre
tect him from hindrance and encroachment in the normal develop,
ment of his business. If the farmer suffers because his business il
small, isolated, and unsyndicated, then it is the part of government
to see that he has a natural opportunity among his fellows anc
square deal.

EEPOBT OF THE OOUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION. 31

In the second place, we need such an attitude of government, both
state and national, as will safeguard the separate and individual
rights of the farmer, in the interest of the public good. As a con-
tribution toward this attitude, we commend the general policy of the
present administration to safeguard the streams, forests, coal lands,
and phosphate lands, and in endeavoring to develop a home-owning
settlement in the irrigated regions.

At the moment, one of the most available and effective single means
of giving the farmer the benefit of his natural opportunities is the
enlargement of government service to the country people through the
post-office. We hold that a„parcels post anji a postal savings bank
system are necessities; and-as-iapidly ,as, possible Jl]g_rural_jree de-
" liverv of ma ils should _be_6stfiiuied. — Eatery where, we iiaye Jpuiid the
farmers demandiiig; the paceels- post. It is opposed by many mer-
chants, transportation organizations, and established interests. We
do not think that the parcels post will injure the merchant in the
small town or elsewhere. Whatever will permanently benefit th«
farmer will benefit the country as a whole. Both town and country
would readjust themselves to the new conditions. We recognize the
great value of the small town to the country districts and would not
see it displaced or crippled; but the character of the open country
largely makes or unmakes the country town.

In order that fundamental correctives may be applied, we recom-
mend that a thoroughgoing study or investigation be made of the
relation of business practices and of taxation to the welfare of the
farmer, with a view to ascertaining what discriminations and de-*^
ficiencies may exist, whether legislation is needed, and to give pub-
licity to the entire subject. This investigation should include the
entire middleman system, farmers' cooperative organizations, trans-
portation rates and practices, taxation of agricultural property,
methods of securing funds on reasonable conditions for agricultural
uses, and the entire range of economic questions involved in the rela-
tion of the farmer to the accustomed methods of doing business.

We find that there is need of a new general attitude toward legisla-
tion, in the way of safeguarding the farmer's natural rights and
jhterests. It is natural that the organized and consolidated interests
ihould be strongly in mind in the making of legislation. We recom-
Inend that the welfare of the farmer and countryman be also kept
In mind in the construction of laws. We specially recommend that ■
fiis interests be considered and safeguarded in any new legislation on
jche tariff, on regulation of railroads, control or regulating of corpora-
tions and of speculation, river, swamp, and forest legislation, and
public-health regulation. At the present moment it is especially
important that the farmer's interests be well considered in the re-
vision of the tariff. One of the particular needs is such an applica-

38 REPOET OF THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION.

tion of the reciprocity principle as to open European markets for
our flour, meats, and live cattle. One of the great economic problems
of our agriculture is how to feed the corn crop and other grains
profitably, for it must be fed if the fertility of the land is to be
maintained; to dispose of the crop profitably requires the best mar-
kets that can be secured.

2. HIGHWAYS.

The demand for good highways is general among the farmers of
the entire United States. Education and good roads are the two
need s most, frequently men tioned intiie h Mirin^ r'~E[ighways lEat^
are usable at all times of the year are now miperative not only for
the marketing of produce, but for the elevation of the social and
intellectual status of the open country and the improvement of health
by insuring better medical and surgical attendance.

The advantages are so well understood that arguments for better
roads are not necessary here. Our respondents are now concerned
largely with the methods of organizing and financing the work.
With only unimportant exceptions, the farmers w.ho have expressed
themselves to us on this question consider that the Federal Govern-
ment is fairly under obligation to aid in the work.

We hold that the development of a fully serviceable highway sys-
tem is a matter of national concern, coordinate with the development
of waterways and the conservation of our native resources. It is
absolutely essential to our internal development. The first thing nec-
essary is to provide expert supervision and direction and to develop
a natioiraI~plan. All~~tiie-work~should be cboperaliye "between the
PedSGaLfjovernmentand the States. The question of federal appro-
priation for highway work in the States may well be held in abey-
ance until a national service is provided and tested. We sugg^t
thaFiEhe United States Government establish a highway engineering
service, or equivalent organization, to be at the call of the States in
working out effective and economical highway systems. 1

8. SOIL DEPLETION AND ITS EFFECTS. i |

A condition calling for serious comment is the lessening productive\|
ness of the land. Our farming has been largely exploitational, coni
gisting of mining the virgin fertility. On the better lands this primi-|
tive system of land exploitation may last for two generations with-V
out results pernicious to society, but on the poorer lands the limit of I
satisfactory living conditions may be reached in less than one gen-
eration. '

The social condition of any agricultural community is closely re-
lated to the available fertility of the soil. " Poor land, poor people "

EEPOBT OF THE COTJNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 39

and " rough land, rough people " have long since passed into prov-
erbs. Rich land well farmed does not necessarily naean high ideals
or good. SQpiety. It may mean land greed and dollar worship; but,
on the other hand, high ideals can not be realized without at least a
fair degree of prosperity, and this can not be secured without the
maintenance of fertility.

When the land begins to yield with difficulty the farmer may move
to new land, develop a system of self-sustaining agriculture (becom-
ing thereby a real farmer), or be driven into poverty and degrada-
tion. The first of these results has been marked for many years, but
it is now greatly checked because most of the available lands have been
occupied. The second result — ^the evolution of a really scientific and
self-perpetuating agriculture — is beginning to appear here and there,
mostly in the long-settled regions. The drift to poverty and degra-
dation is pronounced in many parts of the country, jn ever y region
a certain clasa j^mie4aapulatiQa. is iarced to the^poor laELdSybecomriTg
a han dicap to the community and constituting a very difficult social
proHemT^ "*"

There are two great classes of farmers — ^those who make farming.
a real and active constructive business, as much as the successful ^
manufacturer or merchant makes his effort a business; and those
who merely passively live on the land, often because they can not,
do anything else, and by dint of hard work and the strictest economy [
manage to subsist. Each class has its difficulties. The problems!
of the former class are largely those arising from the man's relation
to the whole at large. The farmer of the latter class is not only
powerless as against trade in general, but is also more or less help^
less in his own farming problems. In applying corrective meas-
ures, we must recognize these two classes of persons.

When no change of system has followed the depletion of the virgin
fertility, the saddest results have followed. The former owners
have often lost the land, and a system of tenantry farming has grad-
ually developed. This is marked in all regions that are dominated
by a one-crop system of agriculture. In parts of the Southern
States this loss of available fertility is specially noticeable, particu-
larly where cotton is the main if not the only crop. In some parts
(if the country this condition and the social results are pathetic,
tttnd particularly where the farmers, whether white or black, by
Reason of poverty and lack of credit and want of experience in
•f .her kinds of farming, are compelled to continue to grow cotton.
rLarge numbers of southern farmers are still obliged to mortgage
their unplanted crop to secure the means of living while it is grow-
ing; and, as a matter of course, they pay exorbitant prices for the
barest necessities of life. The only security that the man can give,
either to the banker or the merchant, is cotton, and this fcH-ces the

40 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSIOIT.

continued cultivation of a crop that decreases the soil fertility in a
country of open winters where the waste by erosion is necessarily at
the maximum. The tenants have little interest in the land, and
move from year to year in the vain hope of better luck. The average
income of the tenant-farmer family growing cotton is about $150
a year; and the family usually does not raise its poultry, meat,
fruit, vegetables, or breadstuffs. The landlords in large sections
are little better off than the tenants. The price of the product is
manipulated by speculators. The tenant farmer, and even the
landlord, is preyed upon by other interests, and is practically power-
less. The effect of the social stratification into landlord, tenant,
and money-lending merchant still further complicates a situation
that in some regions is desperate and that demands vigorous treat-
ment.

The recent years of good prices for cotton have enabled many
farmers to get out of debt and to be able to handle their own business.
These farmers are then free to begin a new system of husbandry.
The problems still remain, however, of how to help the man who is
still in bondage.

While these conditions are specially marked in the cotton-growing
States, they are arising in all regions of a single-crop system, except,
perhaps, in the case of fruit regions and vegetable regions. They
are beginning to appear in the exclusive wheat regions, where the
yields are constantly growing less and where the social life is usually
monotonous and barren. The hay-selling system of many parts of
the Northeastern States presents similar results, as does also the ex-
clusive corn growing for the general market when stock raising is
not a part of the business.

The loss of fertility in the Northern States is less rapid because of
the climatic conditions that arrest the winter waste ; fewer landlords,
and these for the most part retired farmers who live near their farms
and largely control the methods of cultivating the land ; and a differ-
ent kind of agriculture and a different social structure. It is, however,
serious enough even in the Northern States, and especially in the Mis-
sissippi Valley, particularly when lands are held as an investment by
capitalists who know nothing about farming and care only for annua|i
returns, and also when held by speculators in the hope of harvestinji
the unearned increment, which has been large of late years, due prob-i
ably to some world-wide cause which it is beyond our province to disH
cuss. In any case, whether North or South, it has become a matterfl
of very serious concern, whether farmers are to continue to dominate 1
and direct the policy of the people as they do now in large part in '
the more prosperous agricultural sections, or whether because of soil
deterioration they shall become a dependent class or shall be tenants
in name but laborers in fact and working for an uncertain wage.

BEPOET OF THE OOUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 41

Fortunately, there is abundant evidence on every hand, both North
and South, that the fertility of the soil can be maintained, or where
it has been greatly decreased can be restored at least approximately to
its virgin fertility. The hope of the future lies in the work of the
public institutions that are devoted to the new agriculture. The
United States Department of Agriculture, experiment stations, col-
leges of agriculture, and other agencies are making great progress
in correcting these and other deficiencies, and these institutions de- y
serve the sympathetic support of all the people. The demonstratioij'
work of the Department of Agriculture in the Southern States is a
marked example of the good that can be done by teaching the people
how to diversify their farming and to redeem themselves from the
bondage of an hereditary system. Similar work is needed in many
parts of the United States, and it is already under way, in various
forms, under the leadership of the land-grant institutions.

The great agricultural need of the open country is a system of
diversified and rotation farming, carefully adapted in every case to
the particular region. Such systems conserve the resources of the
land and develop diversified and active institutions. Nor is this
wastage of soil resources peculiar to one-crop systems, although it is
more marked in such cases. It is a general feature of our agriculture,
due to a lack of appreciation of our responsibility to society to protect
and save the land. Although we have reason to be proud of our
agricultural achievements, we must not close our eyes to the fact
that our soil resources are still being lost through poor farming.

This lessening of soil fertility is marked in every part of the United
States, even in the richest lands of the prairies. It marks the pioneer
stage of land usage. It has now become an acute national danger,
and the economic, social, and political problems arising out of it must
at once receive the best attention of statesmen. The attention that
has been given to these questions is wholly inadequate to the urgency
of the dangers involved.

4. AGRICULTURAL LABOR.

iiv&ere is a general, but not a universal, complaint of scarcity of
^*Th^ labor. This scarcity is not an agricultural difficulty alone, but
4oldJphase for expression of the general labor-supply problem.
ApSo long as the United States continues to be a true democracy it
Kill have a serious labor problem. As a democracy, we honor labor,
Lnd the higher the efficiency of the labor the greater the honor. The
flaborer, if he has the ambition to be an efficient agent in the develop-
toient of the country, will be anxious to advance from the lower to the
/higher forms of effort, and from being a laborer himself he becomes
a director of labor. If he has nothing but his hands and brains, he
aims to accumulate sufficient capital to become a tenant, and event-

42 EEPOKT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

ually to become the owner, of a farm home. A large number of our
immigrants share with the native-born citizen this laudable ambition.
Therefore there is a constant decrease of efficient farm labor by these
upward movements.

At the same time, there is a receding column of farm owners who,
through bad management, have become farm tenants, and who from
farm tenants may become farm laborers. While the percentage of
this class is small, there are, nevertheless, some who fail to make good,
and if they are tenants farm for a living rather than as a business,
and if laborers become watchers of the sun rather than efficient
workers.

(O) STATEMENT OF THE GENEEAL FARM PROBLEM,

The farm labor problem, however, is complicated by several special
conditions, such as the fact that the need for labor is not continuous,
the lack of conveniences of living for the laborer, long hours, the want
of companionship, and in some places the apparently low wages.
Because of these conditions the necessary drift of workmen is from
the open country to the town. On the part of the employer the prob-
lem is complicated by the difficulty of securing labor, even at the
relatively high prices now prevailing, that is competent to handle
modem farm machinery and to care for live stock and to handle
the special work of the improved dairy. It is further complicated
in all parts of the country by the competition of railroads, mines, and
factories, which, by reason of shorter hours, apparently higher pay,
and the opportunities for social diversion and often of dissipation,
attract the native farm hand to the towns and cities.

The difficulty of securing good labor is so great in many parts of
the country that farmers are driven to dispose of their farms, leaving
their land to be worked on shares by more or less irresponsible ten-
ants, or selling them outright, often to foreigners. All absentee and
proxy farming (which seems to be increasing) creates serious social
problems in the regions thus affected. There is not sufficinet good,
labor available in the country to enable us to farm our lands unri-
present systems of agriculture and to develop our institutions ef^* ^7^
ively. Our native labor supply could be much increased by '^nualf
hygienic measures as would lessen the unnecessary death rate am^in^
country children and insure better health to workmen. "^h-'

So long as the labor supply is not equal to the demand the country1|
can not compete with the town in securing labor. The country must I
meet the essential conditions offered by the town or change the kind
of farming.

The most marked reaction to the labor difficulty is the change in
modes of farm management, whereby farming is slowly adapting
itself to the situation. In some cases this change is in the nature of

BEPOBT OP THE COUNTRY LIFE CaMMISSION. 43

more intensive and busineslike methods whereby the farmer becomes
able to secure a better class of labor and to employ it more contin-
uously. More frequently, however, the change is in the nature of a
simplification of the business and a less full and active farm life. In
the sod regions of the Northeast the tendency is toward a simple or
even a primitive nature farming, with the maximum of grazing and
meadow and the minimum of hand labor. In many States the more
difficult lands are being given up and machinery farming is extend-
ing. This results in an unequal development of the country as a
whole, with a marked shift in the social equilibrium. The only real
solution of the present labor problem must lie in improved methods
of farming. These improvements will be forced by the inevitable
depletion of soil fertility under any and all one-crop systems in every
part of the country, and realized by the adoption on the part of in-
telligent, progressive farmers of a rotation of crops and a system of
husbandry that will enable them to employ their labor by the year and
thereby secure a higher type of workman by providing him a home
with all its appurtenances. The development of local industries will
also contribute to the solution of the problem.

The excessive hours of labor on farms must be shortened. This will
come through the working out of the better farm scheme just men-
tioned and substituting planning for some of the muscular work;
Already in certain regions of well-systematized diversified farming
the average hours of labor are less than ten.

There is a growing tendency to rely on foreigners for the farm
labor supply, although the sentiment is very strong in some regions
against immigration. It is the general testimony that the native
American labor is less efficient and less reliable than much of the
foreign labor. This is due to the fact that the American is less
pressed by the dire necessity to labor and to save, and because the
better class of laborers is constantly passing on to land ownership
on their own account. Because of their great industry and thrift cer-
tain foreigners are gradually taking possession of the land in some
regions, and it seems to be only a question of time until they wiU
#ive out the native stock in those regions.

J The most difficult rural labor problem is that of securing house-
iold help on the average farm. The larger the farm the more
Krious the problem becomes. The necessity of giving a suitable
Iducation to her children deprives the farm woman largely of home
lelp*, while the lure of the city, with its social diversions, more reg-
ular hours of labor, and its supposed higher respectability, deprives
her of help bred and born in the country. Under these circum-
stances she is compelled to provide the food that requires the least
labor. This simple fact explains much of the lack of variety, in the

44 EEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

midst of the greatest possible abundance, so often complained of on
the farmer's table. The development of the creamery system over
large sections of the country has relieved the farmer's wife of a
heavy burden. This gives the hint for further improvemfint. The
community laundering and other work could be done in an estab-
lishment connected with the creamery. Labor-saving appliances in
the future will greatly lighten the burdens of those who are willing
to use them. With the teaching of home subjects in the schools,
household labor will again become respectable as well as easier and
more interesting.

There is widespread conviction that the farmer must give greater
attention to providing good quarters to laborers and to protect them
from discouragement and from the saloon. The shortage of labor
seems to be the least marked where the laborer is best cared for. It
is certain that farming itself must be so modified and organized as
to meet the labor problem at least halfway. While all farmers feel
the shortage of help, the commission has found that the best farmers
usually complain least about the labor diflSculty.

(B) THE QUESTION OF INTEMPEBANOB.

Thejiquor question has been empha_sized ta the commission in all
parts of the country as complicating the labor question. It. seems to
be regarded ^s a burning coun£fy"life_problem. IntemperanceT^
largely the result of the Barrerihess ol farm life, particularly of the
lot of the hired man. The commission has made no inquiryinto
intemperance as such, but it is impressed, from the testimony -^at
ha£ accumulated, that drunkenness is often a very serious menace to
country li fe. And that the saloon is an institution that must be ban-
ished f rom at .least, all country districts and. rural towns if our agri-
cuitural interests^ are,,tQ... develop to the. extent to which they "are
capable. The evil JBjpecially damning in the South, because it seri-
ously complicate s the race problem. Certain States have recently -
MopiEed prohibitory regulations, but liquor is shipped into dry terr\^
tory from adjoining regions, and the evil is thereby often increased'
D ry ter ritories must rouse themselves to self-preservation in the f aq;e
of this grave danger, and legislation must be enacted that will pro|l
tectjthem. When a State goes dry, it should. be„allQwed to keep drjl

There is most urgent need for a quickened public sentiment on thif <
whole question of intoxication in rural communities in order tM
relieve country life of one of its most threatening handicaps. Afl
the same time it is incumbent on every person to exert his best effort!
to provide the open country with such intellectual and social interests
as will lesson the appeal and attractiveness of the saloon.

BEPOBT OF THE COTJNTBY LIFE COMMISSION. 45

(C) DEVELOPING THE LOCAL ATTACHMENTS OF THE FABM LABOBEB.

The best labor, other things being equal, is resident labor. Such
reorganization of agriculture must take place as will tend more and
more to employ the man the year round and to tie him to the land.
The employer bears a distinct responsibility to the laborer, and also
to society, to house him well and to help him to contribute his part
to the community welfare.

Eventually some kind of school or training facilities must be pro-
vided for the farm laborer to cause him to develop skill and to in-
terest him intellectually in his work.

Some kind of simple saving institution should also be developed
in order to encourage thrift on the part of the laborer. It would be
well, also, to study systems of life insurance in reference to farm
workmen. The establishment of postal savings banks should con-
tribute toward greater stability of farm labor.

The development of various kinds of cooperative buying and selling
associations might be expected to train workmen in habits of thrift,
if the men were encouraged to join them.

5. HEALTH IN THE OPEN COUNTRY.

Theoretically the farm should be the most healthful place in which
to live, and there are numberless farm-houses, especially of the farm-
owner class, that possess most excellent modern sanitary conven-
iences. Still it is a fact that there are also numberless other farm-
houses, especially of the tenant class, and even numerous rural school-
houses, that do not have the rudiments of sanitary arrangement.
Health conditions in many parts of the open country, therefore, are
in urgent need of betterment. There are many questions of nation-
wide importance, such as soil, milk, and water pollution; too much
visiting in case of contagious diseases ; patent medicines, advertising
quacks, and intemperance ; feeding of offal to animals at local slaugh-
terhouses and general insanitary conditions of those houses not
under federal or other rigid sanitary control; in some regions un-
wholesome and poorly prepared and monotonous diet; lack of recrea-
tion ; too long hours of work.

p Added to these and other conditions, are important regional ques-
faons, such as the extensive spread of the hook-worm disease in the
irge Gulf-Atlantic States, the prevalence of typhoid fever and
lalaria, and other difficulties due to neglect in the localities.
In general, the rural population is less safeguarded by boards of
lealth than is the urban population. The physicians are farther
apart and are called in later in case of sickness, and in some districts
medical attendance is relatively more expensive. The necessity for
disease prevention is therefore self-evident, and it becomes even more

46 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

emphatic when we recall that infection may be spread from farms
to cities in the streams and also in the milk, meat, and other farm
products. Quite aside from the humanitarian point of view, the
aggregate annual loss to the nation from insanitary conditions on
the farms must, when expressed in money values, reach an enormous
sum, and a betterment of these conditions is a nation-wide obligation.

There is great need for the teaching of the simplest and com-
monest laws of hygiene and sanitation in all the schools. The people
need knowledge, and no traditions should prevent them from having
it. How and what to eat, the nature of disease, the importance of
fresh air, the necessity of physical training even on the farm, the
ineffectiveness or even the danger of nostrums, the physical evils of
intemperance, all should be known in some useful degree to every
boy and girl on leaving school.

Some of the most helpful work in improving rural sanitary con-
ditions and in relieving suffering is now proceeding from women's
organizations. This work should be encouraged in every way. We
especially commend the suggestion that such organizations, and other
interests, provide visiting nurses for rural communities when they
are needed.

We find urgent need for better supervision of public health in
rural communities on the part of States and localities. The control
is now likely to be exercised only when some alarming condition pre-
vails. We think, that the Federal Government should be given the
right to send its health officers into the various. States on request of
t&ese States, at any time, for the purpose of investigating and con-
trolling public health; it does not now have this right except at
quarantine stations, although it may attend to -diseases of domestic
animals. It should also engage in publicity work on this, subject.

«. WOMAN'S WORK ON THE FARM.

Realizing that the success of country life depends in very large
degree on the woman's part, the commission has made special effort
to ascertain the condition of women on the farm. Often this con-
dition is all that can be desired, with home duties so organized that
the labor is not excessive, with kindly cooperation on the part of
husbands and sons, and with household machines and conveniences
well provided. Very many farm homes in all parts of the countr
are provided with books and periodicals, musical instruments, anS
all the nec&sary amenities. There are good gardens and attractiv|
premises and a sympathetic love of nature and of farm life on the
part of the entire family.

On the other hand, the reverse of these conditions often obtainsJ
sometimes because of pioneer conditions and more frequently because!

EEPO&T OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 47

of lack of prosperity and of ideals. Conveniences for outdoor work
are likely to have precedence over those for household work.

The routine work of woman on the farm is to prepare three meals
a day. This regularity of duty recurs regardless of season, weather,
planting, harvesting, social demands, or any other factor. The only
differences in different seasons are those of degree rather than of
kind. It follows, therefore, that whatever general hardships, such as
poverty, isolation, lack of labor-saving devices, may exist on any
given farm, the burden of these hardships falls more heavily on the
farmer's wife than on the farmer himself. In general, her life is
more monotonous and the more isolated, no matter what the wealth or
the poverty of the family may be.

The relief to farm women must come through a general elevation
of country living. The women must have more help. In particular
these matters may be mentioned : Development of a cooperative spirit
in the home, simplification of the diet in many cases, the building of
convenient and sanitary houses, providing running water in the
house and also more mechanical help, good and convenient gardens,
a less exclusive ideal of money getting on the part of the farmer, pro-
viding better means of communication, as telephones, roads, and read-
ing circles, and developing of women's organizations. These and
other agencies should relieve the woman of many of her manual bur-
dens on the one hand and interest her in outside activities on the
other. The farm woman should have sufficient free time and strength
so that she may serve the community by participating in its vital
affairs.

"VVe have found good women's organizations in some country dis-
tricts, but as a rule such organizations are few or even none, or where
they exist they merely radiate from towns. Some of the stronger
central organizations are now pushing the country phase of their
work with vigor. Mothers' clubs, reading clubs, church societies,
home economics organizations, farmers' institutes, and other associa-
tions can accomplish much for farm women. Some of the regular
farmers' organizations are now giving much attention to domestic
subjects, and women participate freely in the meetings. There is
much need among country women themselves of a stronger organiz-
ing sense for real cooperative betterment. It is important also that
£^11 rural organizations that are attended chiefly by men should dis-
mss the home-making subjects, for the whole difficulty often lies with
dhe attitude of the men.

I There is the most imperative need that domestic, household, and
■health que^stions be taught in all schools. The home may well be
■made the center of rural school teaching. The school is capable of
Ichanging the whole attitude of the home life and the part that women
[should play in the development of the best country living.

48 REPORT OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

III. THE GENERAL COERECTIVE FORCES THAT SHOULD BE SET IN

MOTION.

The ultimate need of the open country is the development of com-
munity effort and of social resources. Here and there the commission
has found a rural neighborhood in which the farmers and their wives
come together frequently and effectively for social intercourse, but
these instances seem to be infrequent exceptions. There is a general
lack of wholesome societies that are organized on a social basis. In
the region in which the Grange is strong this need is best supplied.

There is need of the greatest diversity in country-life affairs, but
there is equal need of a social cohesion operating among all these
affairs and tying them all together. This life must be developed, as
we have said, directly from native or resident forces. It is neither
necessary nor desirable that an exclusive hamlet system be brought
about in order to secure these ends. The problem before the commis-
sion is to suggest means whereby this development may be directed
and hastened directly from the land.

The social disorder is usually unrecognized. If only the farms
are financially profitable, the rural condition is commonly pronounced
good. Country life must be made thoroughly attractive and satis-
fying, as well as remunerative and able to hold the center of interest
throughout one's lifetime. With most persons this can come only
with the development of a strong community sense of feeling. The
first condition of a good country life, of course, is gqod and profit-
able farming. The farmer must be enabled to live comfortably.
Much attention has been given to better farming, and the progress
of a generation has been marked. Small manufacture and better
handicrafts need now to receive attention, for the open country
needs new industries and new interests. The schools must help to
bring these things about.

The economic and industrial questions are, of course, of prime im-
portance, and we have dealt with them; but they must all be studied
in their relations to the kindof life that should ultimately be estab-
lished in rural communities. The commission will fail of its pur--
pose if it confines itself merely to providing remedies or correctives
for the present and apparent troubles of the farmer, however urgent;
and important these troubles may be. All these matters must bl
conceived of as incidents or parts in a large constructive programmll
We must begin a campaign for rural progress. Ip

-^ To this end local government must be developed to its highest!
pomt of efficiency, and all agencies that are capable of furtherinM
a better country life must be federated. It will be necessary to sel
the resident forces in motion by means of outside agencies, or at least!
to direct them, if we are to secure the best results. It is specially^

BEPOKT OP THE COUNTBT LIFE COMMISSION. 49

necessary to develop the coopp-rativp. g p i rit, w^^^r'Ql^y "H p p/^plp partipi-
pate and all become partakers.

The cohesion that is so marked among the different classes of farm
folk in older countries can not be reasonably expected at this period
in American development, nor is it desirable that a stratified
society should be developed in this country. We have here no rem-
nants of a feudal system, fortunately no system of entail, and no
clearly drawn distinction between agricultural and other classes.
We are as yet a new country with undeveloped resources, many far-
away pastures which, as is well known, are always green and invit-
ing. Our farmers have been moving, and numbers of them have not
yet become so well settled as to speak habitually of their farm as
"home." We have farmers from every European nation and with
every phase of religious belief often grouped in large communities,
naturally drawn together by a common language and a common
faith, .and yielding but slowly to the dominating and controlling
forces of American farm life. Even where there was once social
organization, as in the New, England town (or township), the compe-
tition of the newly settled West and the wonderful development of
urban civilization have disintegrated it. The middle-aged farmer
of the Central States sells the old homestead without much hesita-
tion or regret and moves westward to find a greater acreage for his
sons and daughters. The farmer of the Middle West sells the old
home and moves to the Mountain States, to the Pacific coast, to the
South, to Mexico, or to Canada.

Even when permanently settled, the farmer does not easily com-
bine with others for financial or social betterment. The training
of generations has made him a strong individualist, and he has been
obliged to rely mainly on himself. Self-reliance being the essence
of his nature, he does not at once feel the need of cooperation for
business purposes or of close association for social objects. In the
main, he has been prosperous, and has not felt the need of coopera-
tion. If he is a strong man, he prefers to depend on his own ability.
If he is ambitious for social recognition, he usually prefers the
society of the town to that of the country. If he wishes to educate
his children, he avails himself of the schools of the city. He does
not as a rule dream of a rural organization that can supply as com-
pletely as the city the four great requirements of man— health,
education, occupation, society. While his brother in the city is
striving by moving out of the business section into the suburbs to
get as much as possible of the country in the city, he does not dream
that it is possible to have most that is best of the city in the country.

The time has come when we must give as much attention to the
constructive development of the open country as we have given to
S. Doc. 705, 60-2 4

60 EEPORT OF THE COTJNTEY LIFE COMMISSION.

other affairs. This is necessary not only in the interest of the open
country itself, but for the safety and progress of the nation.

It is impossible, of course, to suggest remedies for all the short-
comings of country life. The mere statement of the conditions, as
we find them, ought of itself to challenge attention to the needs.
We hope that this report of the commission will accelerate all the
movements that are now in operation for the betterment of country
life. Many of these movements are beyond the reach of legislation.
The most important thing for the commission to do is to apprehend
the problem and to state the conditions.

The philosophy of the situation requires that the disadvantages
and handicaps that are not a natural part of the farmer's business
shall be removed, and that such forces shall be encouraged and set
in motion as will stimulate and direct local initiative and leadership.

The situation calls for concerted action. It must be aroused and
energized. The remedies are of many kinds, and they must come
slowly. We need a redirection of thought to bring about a new
atmosphere, and a new social and intellectual contact with life. This
means that the habits of the people must change. The change will
come gradually, of course, as a result of new leadership; and the
situation must develop its own leaders.

Care must be taken in all the reconstructive work to see that local
initiative is relied on to the fullest extent, and that federal and even
state agencies do not perform what might be done by the people
in the communities. The centralized agencies should be stimulative
and directive, rather than mandatory and formal. Every effort must
be made to develop native resources, not only of material things, but
also of people.

It is necessary to be careful, also, not to copy too closely the recon-
structive methods that have been so successful in Europe. Our con-
ditions and problems differ widely from theirs. We have no his-
torical, social peasantry, a much less centralized form of govern-
ment, unlike systems of land occupancy, wholly different farming
schemes, and different economic and social systems. Our country
necessities are peculiarly American.

The correctives for the social sterility of the open country are
already in existence or under way, but these agencies all need to be
strengthened and especially to be coordinated and federated; and the
problem needs to be recognized by all the people. The regular agri-
cultural departments and institutions are aiding in making farming ^
profitable and attractive, and they are also giving attention to the'
social and community questions. There is a widespread awakening
as a result of this work. This awakening is greatly aided by the^
rural free delivery of malls, telephones, the gradual improvement of '

BEPOBT OP THE COTTNTET LIFE COMMISSION. 51

highways, farmers' institutes, cooperative creameries and similar
organizations, and other agencies.

The good institutions of cities may often be applied or extended
to the open country. It appears that the social evils are in many
cases no greater in cities in proportion to the number of people than
in country districts ; and the very concentration of numbers draws
attention to the evils in cities and leads to earlier application of reme-
dies. Recently much attention has been directed, for example, to the
subject of juvenile crime, and the probation system in place of jail
sentences for young offenders is being put into operation in many
places. Petty crime and immorality are certainly not lacking in
rural districts, and it would seem that there is a place for the exten-
sion of the probation system to towns and villages.

Aside from the regular churches, schools, and agricultural socie-
ties, there are special organizations that are now extending their
work to the open country, and others that could readily be adapted
to country work. One of the most promising of these newer agencies
is the rural library that is interested in its community. The libraries
are increasing, and they are developing a greater sense of responsi-
bility to the community, not only stimulating the reading habit and
directing it, but becoming social centers for the neighborhood. A
library, if provided with suitable rooms, can afford a convenient
meeting place for many kinds of activities and thereby serve as a
coordinating influence. Study clubs and traveling libraries may
become parts of it. This may mean that the library will need itself
to be redirected so that it will become an active rather than a passive
agency ; it must be much more than a collection of books.

Another new agency is the county work of the Young Men's
Christian Association, which, by placing in each county a field secre-
tary, is seeking to promote the solidarity and effectiveness of rural
social life, and to extend the larger influence of the country church.
The commission has met the representatives of this county work at
the hearings, and is impressed with the purpose of the movement to
act as a coordinating agency in rural life.

The organizations in cities and towns that are now beginning to
agitate the development of better play, recreation, and entertain-
ment offer a suggestion for country districts. It is important that
recreation be made a feature of country life, but we consider it to be
important that this recreation, games and entertainment, be devel-
oped as far as possible from native sources rather than to be trans-
planted as a kind of theatricals from exotic sources.

Other organizations that are helping the country social life, or that
might be made to help it, are women's clubs, musical clubs, reading
clubs, athletic and playground associations, historical and literary

62 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

societies, local business men's organizations and chambers of com-
merce, all genuinely cooperative business societies, civic and village
improvement societies, local political .organizations, granges and
other fraternal organizations, and all groups that associate with the
church and school.

There is every indication, t herefore, that the social j ifeoflha, open
country is m process of improvement, al though the progress at the
"present moment has not been great. The leaders need to be~en c6ur-
aged by an avyateened "public sentiment, and all the forces snou ld~be
so related to each ot her as to increase their total eHe ctiv eness^ hile
not inte rfering with the autonomy of any of them.~

The proper correctives of the underlying structural deficiencies of
the open country are knowledge, education, cooperative organiza-
tions, and personal leadership. These we may now discuss in more
detail.

7. NEED OF AGRICCLTUEAL OR COUNTET LIFE SURVEYS.

The time has now come when we should know in detail what our
agricultural resources are. We have long been engaged in making
geological surveys, largely with a view to locating our mineral
wealth. The country has been explored and mapped. The main
native resources have been located in a general way. We must now
know what are the capabilities of every agricultural locality, for
agriculture is the basis of our prosperity and farming is always a
local business. We can not make the best and most permanent prog-
ress in the developing of a good country life until we have com-
pleted a very careful inventory of the entire country.

This inventory or census should take into account the detailed
topography and soil conditions of the localities, the local climate, the
whole character of streams and forests, the agricultural products,
the cropping systems now in practice, the conditions of highways,
markets, facilities in the way of transportation and communication,
the institutions and organizations, the adaptability of the neighbor-
hood to the establishment of handicrafts and local industries, the
general economic and social status of the people and the character of
the people themselves, natural attractions and disadvantages, his-
torical data, and a collation of community experience. This would
result in the collection of local fact, on which we could proceed to
build a scientifically and economically sound country life.

Beginnings have been made in several States in the collection of
these geographical facts, mostly in connection with the land-grant
colleges. The United States Department of Agriculture is begin-
ning by means of soil surveys, study of farm management, and
other investigations, and its demonstration work in the Southern
States is in part of this character. These agencies are beginning thci

HEPOBT OP THE COUNTBT LIFE COMMISSION. 53

study of conditions in the localities themselves. It is a kind of
extension work. All these agencies are doing good work; but we
have not yet, as a people, come to an appreciation of the fact that wq
must take account of stock in detail as well as in the large. We are
working mostly around the edges of the problem and feeling of it.
The larger part of the responsibility of this work must lie with the
different States, for they should develop their internal resources.
The whole work should be coordinated, however, by federal agencies
acting with the States, and some of the larger relations will need. to
be studied directly by the Federal Government itself. "We must
come to a thoroughly nationalized movement to understand what
property we have and what uses may best be made of it. This in
time will call for large appropriations by State and nation.

In estimating our natural resources we must not forget the value
of scenery. This is a distinct asset, and it will be more recognized
as time goes on. It will be impossible to develop a satisfactory coun-
try life without conserving all the beauty of landscape and develop-
ing the people to the point of appreciating it. In parts of the East
a regular system of parking the open country of the entire State is
already begun, constructing the roads, preserving the natural fea-
tures, and developing the latent beauty in such a way that the whole
country becomes part of one continuing landscape treatment. This
in no way interferes with the agricultural utilization of the land, but
rather increases it. The scenery is, in fact, capitalized, so that it
adds to the property values and contributes to local patriotism and to
the thrift of the commonwealth.

8. NEED OF A REDIRECTED EDUCATION.
Tho, ffl^ bjppf nf poramnnnf impnrtgnpQ in nnr PorrogpondenPA and

in the hearin gs is education. In every part of the United States
th ere seems to be one mind", on tneljart ot tli.ose capable ot judging^
on the nec essity of redirecting the rural schools. There is no s uch
unanimity on any other subject. It is remarkable with what simi-
larity of phrase the subject has been discussed in all parts of the
country before the commission. Everywhe re there i s a demand th at
education have relation to living , t hat the schoo ls shnnld express thft
daily life, and th at in the rural districts thev should p<\nrafp. by
means of agricultur e and count r:y_-jila--s ubject s. It is re cognized
that all difficulties resolve them selves^ in the end into a question of
education .

T he schools are held to be largply responsibl e for ineffective far m-
ing,Tack of ideals, and th e driftjo to wn. This is not because the
nuirscEools7asirwh6l6, are declimng,15irt because they are in a state
of arrested development and have not yet put themselves in con-

54 EEPOBT OF THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION.

sonance with all the recently changed conditions of life. The very
forces that have built up the city and town school have caused the
neglect of the country school. It is probable that the farming popu-
lation will willingly support better schools as soon as it becomes
convinced that the schools will really be changed in such a way as to
teach persons how to live.

The country communities are in need of social centers — places
where persons may naturally meet, and where a real neighborhood
interest exists. There is difference of opinion as to where this
center should be, some persons thinking it should be in the town
or village, others the library, others the church or school or grange
hall. It is probable that more than one social center should develop
in large and prosperous communities. Inasmuch as the school is
supported by public funds, and is therefore an institution connected
with the government of the community, it should form a natural
organic center. If the school develops such a center, it must concern
itself directly with the interests of the people. It is difficult to make
people understand what this really means, for school-teaching is
burdened with tradition. The school must express the best coopera-
tion of all social and economic forces that make for the welfare
of the community. Merely to add new studies will not meet the
need, although it may break the ground for new ideas. The school
must be fundamentally redirected, until it becomes a new kind of
institution. This will require that the teacher himself be a part of.
the community and not a migratory factor.

The feeling that agriculture must color the work of rural public
schools is beginning to express itself in the interest in nature study,
in the introduction of classes in agriculture in high schools and
elsewhere, and in the establishment of separate or special schools
to teach farm and home subjects. These agencies will help to brinw
about the complete reconstruction of which we have been speakino'.
It is specially important that we make the most of the existing
public-school system, for it is this very system that should serve the
real needs of the people. The real needs of the people are not alone
the arts by which they make a living, but the whole range of their
customary activities. As the home is the center of our civilization,
so the home subjects should be the center of every school.

The most necessary thing now to be done for public-school educa-
tion in terms of country life is to arouse all the people to the necessity
of such education, to coordinate the forces that are beginning to
operate, and to project the work beyond the schools for youth into
continuation schools for adults. The schools must represent and
express the community in which they stand, although, of course
they should not be confined to the community. They should teach
health and sanitation, even if it is necessary to modify the customary

BEPOBT OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 55

teaching of physiology. The teaching should be visual, direct, and
applicable. Of course the whole tendency of the schools will be
ethical if they teach the vital subjects truthfully; but particular
care should be taken that they stand for the morals of the pupils
and of the communities.

We find a general demand for federal encouragement in educa-
tional propaganda, to be in some way cooperative with the States.
The people realize that the incubus of ignorance and inertia is so
heavy and so widespread as to constitute a national danger, and that
it should be removed as rapidly as possible. It will be increasingly
necessary for the national and state governments to cooperate to
bring about the results that are needed in agricultural and other
industrial education. — -

The consideration of the educational problem raises the greatest
single question that has come before the commission, and which the
commission has to place before the American people. Educatioii
has now come to have vastly more significance than the mere estab-
lishing and maintaining of schools. The education motive has
been taken into all kinds of work with the people, directly in their
homes and on their farms, and it reaches mature persons as well as
youths. Beyond and behind all educational work there must be
an aroused intelligent public sentiment; to make this sentiment is
the most important work immediately before us. The whole country
is alive with educational activity. While this activity may all be
good, it nevertheless needs to be directed and correlated, and all
the agencies should be more or less federated. -'

The arousing of the people must be accomplished in terms of
their daily lives or of their welfare. For the country people this
means that it must be largely in terms of agriculture. Some of the
colleges of agriculture are now doing this kind of work effectively
although on a pitiably small scale as compared with the needs. This
is extension work, by which is meant all kinds of educational effort
directly with the people, both old and young, at their homes and on
their farms; it comprises all educational work that is conducted
away from the institution and for those who can not go to schools
and colleges. The best extension work now proceeding in this
country — if measured by the effort to reach the people in their homes
and on their own ground — is that coming from some of the colleges
of agriculture and the United States Department of Agriculture.
Within the last five or ten years the colleges of agriculture have
been able to attack the problem of rural life in a new way. This
extension work includes such efforts as local agricultural surveys,
demonstrations on farms, nature study, and other work in schools,
boys' and girls' clubs of many kinds, crop organizations, redirection

56 BEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

j of rural societies, reading clubs, library extension, lectures, traveling

'schools, farmers' institutes, inspections of herds, barns, crops,
orchards, and farms, publications of many kinds, and similar educa-
tional effort directly in the field.

~- To accomglish these ends, we suggest the establishment of a
nation-wide extension._worEr^The first, or original, work of the
agricultural bran£h^ of the land-grant colleges was academic injhe

jold^ensej„|a.tai: there was added the great field of experiment-and
,?Si§fiarciu«.^J:fi. now -shauld. be .added the Jidiul. coordinate braneh,
compriRing^ Rxt, ^.nsiop , Tynrk, without which no college ojf agriculture
can adequately serve its State. It is to the extension department~bf
Jhese colleges, if properly conducted,'that we must now' look for
the most etfeciive rousing of the people on the land.

In order that all public educational work in the United States may

'>be adequately studied and guided, we also recommend that the
United States Bureau of Education be enlarged and supported in
such a way that it will really represent the educational activities
of the nation, becoming a clearing house, and a collecting, distribut-

^ing, and investigating organization. It is now wholly inadequate to
accomplish these ends. In a country in which education is said to
be the national religion, this condition of our one expressly federal
educational agency is pathetic. The good use already made of the
small appropriations provided for the bureau shows clearly chat it
can render a most important service if sufficient funds are made avail-
able for its use.

9. NECESSITY OF WORKING TOGETHER.

It is of the greatest consequence that the people of the open country
should learn to work together, not only for the purpose of forward-
ing their economic interests and of competing with other men who
are organized, but also to develop themselves and to establish an
effective community spirit. This effort should be a genuinely cooper-
[ative or common effort in which all the associated persons have a voice
in the management of the organization and share proportionately
in its benefits. Many of the so-called " cooperative " organizations are
really not such, for they are likely to be controlled in the interest
of a few persons rather than for all and with no thought of the good
of the community at large. Some of the societies that are cooperative
m name are really strong centralized corporations or stock com-
panies that have no greater interest in the welfare of the patrons than
other corporations have.

At present the cooperative spirit works itself out chiefly in busi
ness organizations devoted to selling and buying. So far as possible
these business organizations should have more or less social uses- but

REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 57

even if the organizations can not be so used, the growth of the coop-
erative spirit should of itself have great social value, and it should
give the hint for other cooperating groups. There is great need of
associations in which persons cooperate directly for social results.
The primary cooperation is social and should arise in the home, be-
tween all members of the family.

The associations that have an educational purpose are very numer-
ous, such as the common agricultural societies and clubs devoted to
stock raising, fruit growing, grain growing, poultry keeping, flori-
culture, bee culture, and the like, mostly following the lines of occu-
pation. These are scarcely truly cooperative, since they usually do
not effect a real organization to accomplish a definite end, and they
may meet only once or twice a year ; they hold conventions, but usu-
ally do not maintain a continuous activity. These societies are of the
greatest benefit, however, and they have distinct social value. No
doubt a great many of them could be so reorganized or developed as
to operate continuously throughout the year and become truly coop-
erative in effort, thereby greatly increasing their influence and im-
portance.

A few great farmers' organizations have included in their declara-
tions of purposes the whole field of social, educational, and economic
work. Of such, of national scope, are Patrons of Husbandry and
the Farmers' Union. These and similar large societies are effective in
proportion as they maintain local branches that work toward specific
ends in their communities.

While there are very many excellent agricultural cooperative or-
ganizations of many kinds, the farmers nearly everywhere complain
that there is still a great dearth of association that really helps them
in buying and selling and developing their communities. Naturally
the effective cooperative groups are in the most highly developed com-
munities ; the general farmer is yet insufficiently helped by the socie-
ties. The need is not so much for a greater number of societies as
for a more complete organization within them and for a more con-
tinuous active work.

Farmers seem to be increasingly feeling the pressure of the organ-
ized interests that sell to them and buy from them. They complain
of business understandings or agreements between all dealers, from
the wholesaler and jobber to the remote country merchants, that pre-
vent farmers and their organizations from doing an independent
business.

The greatest pressure on the farmer is felt in regions of undi-
versified one-crop farming. Tinder such conditions he is subject to
great risk of crop failure ; his land is soon reduced in productiveness;
he usually does not raise his home supplies, and is therefore depend-

58 HEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. /

ent on the store for his living, and his crop, being a staple and pro-
duced in enormous quantities, is subject to world prices and to specu-
lation, so that he has no personal market. In the exclusive cotton
and wheat regions the hardships of the farmer and the monotony of
rural life are usually very marked. Similar conditions are likely to
obtain in large-area stock ranging, hay raising, tobacco growing, and
the like. In such regions great discontent is likely to prevail and
economic heresies to breed. The remedy is diversification in farming
on one hand and organization on the other.

The commission has found many organizations that seem to be
satisfactorily handling the transporting, distributing, and market-
ing of farm products. They are often incorporated stock companies,
in which the cooperators have the spur of money investment to hold
them to their mutual obligations. In nearly all cases the most suc-
cessful organizations are in regions that are strongly dominated by
similar products, as fruit, dairy, grain, or live stock.

Two principles may be applied in these business societies: In one
class the organization is in the nature of a combination, and attempts
to establish prices and perhaps to control the production ; in the other
class the organization seeks its results by studying and understanding
the natural laws of trade and taking advantage of conditions and reg-
ulating such evils as may arise, in the same spirit as a merchant
studies them, or as a good farmer understands the natural laws of
fertility.

With some crops, notably cotton and the grains, it is advantageous
to provide cooperative warehouses in which the grower may hold his
products till prices rise, and also in which scientific systems of grad-
ing of the products may be introduced. In certain fruit regions
community packing houses have proved to be of the greatest benefit.
In the meantime the cotton or grain in the warehouse becomes, for
business purposes, practically as good as cash (subject to charge for
insurance) in the form of negotiable warehouse receipts. This form
of handling products is now coming to be well understood, and, com-
bined with good systems of farming, it is capable of producing most
satisfactory results.

Organized effort must come as the voluntary expression of the peo-
ple; but it is essential that every State should enact laws that will
stimulate and facilitate the organization of such cooperative associa-
tions, care being taken that the working of the laws be not cumber-
some. These laws should provide the associations with every legal
facility for the transaction of the business in which they are to en-
gage. They are as important to the State as other organizations of
capital and should be fostered with as much care, and their members
and patrons be adequately safeguarded. It is especially important
that these organizations be granted all the powers and advantag(

EEPOBT OP THE CPUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 59

given to coiporatious or other aggregations of capital, to the end that
they may meet these corporations on equal legal ground when it is
necessary to compete with them. Such laws should not only protect
the cooperative societies but should provide means that will allow
the societies to regulate themselves, so that they may be safeguarded
from becoming merely commercial organizations through the pur-
chase or control of the stock by dealers in the products that they
handle. It is not unlikely that federal laws may also be needed to
encourage cooperation.

Organized associative effort may take on special forms. It is prob-
able, for example, that cooperation to secure and to employ farm labor
would be helpful. It may have for its object the securing of tele-
phone service (which is already contributing much to country life,
and is capable of contributing much more) , the extension of electric
lines, the improvement of highways, and other forms of betterment.
Particular temporary needs of the neighborhood may be met by com-
bined effort, and this may be made the beginning of a broader per-
manent organization.

A method of cooperative credit would undoubtedly prove of great
service. In other countries credit associations loan money to their
members on easy terms and for long enough time to cover the mak-
ing of a crop, demanding security not on the property of the bor-
rower but on the moral warranty of his character and industry. The
American farmer has needed money less, perhaps, than land workers
in some other countries, but he could be greatly benefited by a different
system of credit, particularly where the lien system is still in opera-
tion. It would be the purpose of such systems, aside from providing
loans on the best terms and with the utmost freedom consistent with
safety, to keep as much as possible of the money in circulation in the
open country, where the values originate. The present banking sys-
tems tend to take the money out of the open country and to loan it in
town or to town-centered interests. We suggest that the national-
bank examiners be instructed to determine, for a series of years, what
proportion of the loanable funds of rural banks is loaned to the
farmers in their localities, in order that data may be secured on this
question. All unnecessary drain from the open country should be
checked, in order that the country inay be allowed and encouraged to
develop itself.

It is essential that all rural organizations, both social and economic,
should develop into something like a system, or at least that all the
efforts be known and studied by central authorities. There should
be, in other words, a voluntary union of associative effort, from the
localities to the counties. States, and the nation. Manifestly, gov-
ernment in the United States can not manage the work of voluntary
rural organization. Personal initiative and a cultivated cooperative

60 REPORT OP THE COTTNTKY XIFE COMMISSION.

spirit are the very core of this kind of work; yet both State and
National Government, as suggested, might exert a powerful influence
toward the complete organization of rural affairs.

Steps should be taken whereby the United States Department of
Agriculture, the State departments of agriculture, the land-grant col-
leges and experiment stations, the United States Bureau of Education,
the normal and other schools, shall cooperate in a broad programme
for aiding country life in such a way that each institution may do its
appropriate work at the same time that it aids all the others and
contributes to the general effort to develop a new rural social life.

10. THE COUNTRY CHURCH.

This commission has no desire to give advice to the institutions of
religion nor to attempt to dictate their policies. Yet any considera-
tion of the problem of rural life that leaves out of account the func-
tion and the possibilities of the church, and of related institutions,
would be grossly inadequate. This is not only because in the last
analysis the country life problem is a moral problem, or that in the
best development of the individual the great motives and results are
religious and spiritual, but because from the pure sociological point
of view the church is fundamentally a necessary institution in
country life. In a peculiar way the church is intimately related to
the agricultural industry. The work and the life of the farm are
closely bound together, and the institutions of the country react on
that life and on one another more intimately than they do in the
city. This gives the rural church a position of peculiar difficulty
and one of unequaled opportunity. The time has arrived When the
church must take a larger leadership, both as an institution and
through its pastors, in the social reorganization of rural life.

The great spiritual needs of the country community just at present
are higher personal and community ideals. Eural people need to
have an aspiration for the highest possible development of the com-
munity. There must be an ambition on the part of the people them-
selves constantly to progress in all of those things that make the
community life wholesome, satisfying, educative, and complete.
There must be a desire to deve],op a permanent environment for the
country boy and girl, of which they will become passionately fond.
As a pure matter of education, the countryman must learn to love
the country and to have an intellectual appreciation of it. More
than this, the spiritual nature of the individual must be kept
thoroughly alive. His personal ideals of conduct and ambition must
be cultivated.

Of course the church has an indispensable function as a con-
servator of morals. But from the social point of view, it is to hold

BEPOBT OF THE OOTJNTBY LIFE COMMISSION. 61

aloft the torch of personal and community idealism. It must be a
leader in the attempt to idealize country life.

The country church doubtless faces special diflSculties. As a rule,
it is a small field. The country people are conservative. Ordinarily
the financial support is inadequate. Often there are too many
churches in a given community. Sectarian ideas divide unduly and
unfortunately. While there are many rural churches that are effect-
ive agents in the social evolution of their communities, it is true that
as a whole the country church needs new direction and to assume new
responsibilities. Few of the churches in the open country are pro-
vided with resident pastors. They are supplied mostly from the
neighboring towns and by a representative of some single denomina-
tion. Sometimes the pulpit is supplied by pastors of different de-
nominations in turn. Without a resident minister the church work
is likely to be confined chiefly to services once a week. In many
regions there is little personal visitation except in cases of sickness,
death, marriage, christening, or other special circumstance. The
Sunday school is sometimes continued only during the months of
settled weather. There are young people's organizations to some
extent, but they are often inactive or irregular. The social activity
of the real country church is likely to be limited to the short informal
meetings before and after services and to suppers that are held for
the purpose of raising funds. Most of the gatherings are designed
for the church people themselves rather than for the community.
The range of social influence is therefore generally restricted to the
families particularly related to the special church organization, and
there is likely to be no sense of social responsibility for the entire
community.

In the rural villages there are generally several or a number of
churches of different denominations, one or more of which are likely
to be weak. The salaries range from $400 to $1,000. Among Prot-
estants there is considerable denominational competition and conse-
quent jealousy or even conflict. United effort for cooperative activity
is likely to be perfunctory rather than sympathetic and vital. The
pastor is often overloaded with station work in neighboring commu-
nities.

It is not the purpose of the commission to discuss the difficulties of
the rural church at this time nor to present a solution for them, but
in the interests of rural betterment it seems proper to indicate a few
considerations that seem to be fundamental.

1. In New England and in some other parts of the North the
tremendous drawback of denominational rivalry is fairly well rec-
ognized and active measures for church federation are well under
way. This does not mean organic union. It means cooperation for

62 REPOKT OF THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION.

the purpose of trying to reach and influence every individual in the
community. It means that " some church is to be responsible for
every square mile." When a community is overchurched, it means
giving up the superfluous church or churches. When a church is
needed, it means a friendly agreement on the particular church to be
placed there. This movement for federation is one of the most prom-
ising in the whole religious field, because it does not attempt to break
down denominational influence or standards of thought. It puts
emphasis, not on the church itself, but on the work to be done by the
church for all men — churched and unchurched. It is possible that
all parts of the country are not quite ready for federatidn, although
a national church federation movement is under way. But it hardly
seems necessary to urge that the spirit of cooperation among churches,
the diminution of sectarian strife, the attempt to reach the entire
community, must become the guiding principles everywhere if the
rural church is long to retain its hold.

The rural church must be more completely than now a social center.
This means not so much a place for holding social gatherings, al-
though this is legitimate and desirable, but a place whence con-
stantly emanates influences that go to build up the moral and spirit-
ual tone of the whole community. The country church of the future
is to be held responsible for the great ideals of community life as
well as of personal character.

2. There should be a large extension of the work of the Young
Men's Christian Association into the rural communities. There is
apparently no other way to grip the hearts and lives of the boys and
young men of the average country neighborhood. This association
must regard itself as an ally of the church, with a special function
and a special field.

3. We must have a complete conception of the country pastorate.
The country pastor must be a community leader. He must know
the rural problems. He must have sympathy with rural ideals and
aspirations. He must love the country. He must know country life,
the difficulties that the farmer has to face in, his business, some of the
great scientific revelations made in behalf of agriculture, the great
industrial forces at work for the making or the unmaking of the
farmer, the fundamental social problems of the life of the open
country.

Consequently, the rural pastor must have special training for his
work. Ministerial colleges and theological seminaries should unite
with agricultural colleges in this preparation of the country clergy-
man. There should be better financial support for the clergyman.
In many country districts it is pitiably small. There is little incen-
tive for a man to stay in a country parish, and yet this residence is
just what must come about. Perhaps it will require an appeal to the

EEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 63

heroic young men, but we must have more men going into the coun-
try pastorates, not as a means of getting a foothold, but as a perma-
nent work. The clergyman has an excellent chance for leadership
in the country. In some sections he is still the dominating person-
ality. But everywhere he may become one of the great community
leaders. He is the key to the country church problem,

11. PERSONAL IDEALS AND LOCAL LEADERSHIP.

Everything resolves itself at the end into a question of personality.
Society or government can not do much for country life unless there
is voluntary response in the personal ideals of those who live in the
country. Inquiries by the commission, for example, find that one reason
for the shift from the country to to^yn is the lack of ideals in many
country homes and even the desire of the countryman and his wife
that the children do not remain on the farm. The obligation to keep
as many youths on the farms as are needed there rests on the home
more than on the school or on society.

It is often said that better rural institutions and more attractive
homes and yards will necessarily follow an increase in profitableness
of farming; but, as a matter of fact, high ideals may be quite inde-
pendent of income, although they can not be realized without suffi-
cient income to provide good support. Many of the most thrifty
farmers are the least concerned about the character of the home and
school and church. One often finds the most attractive and useful
farm homes in the difficult farming regions. On the other hand,
some of the most prosperous agricultural regions possess most unat-
tractive farm premises and school buildings. Many persons who
complain most loudly about their incomes are the last to improve
their home conditions when their incomes are increased; they are
more likely to purchase additional land and thereby further empha-
size the barrenness of home life. Land hunger is natyrally strongest
in the most prosperous regions.

When an entire region or industry is not financially prosperous, it
is impossible, of course, to develop the best personal and community
ideals. In the cotton-growing States, for example, the greatest social
and mental development has been apparent in the years of high
prices for cotton; and the same is true in exclusive wheat regions^
hay regions, and other large areas devoted mainly to one industry.

While it is of course necessary that the farmer receive good remu-
neration for his efforts, it is nevertheless true that the money consid-
eration is frequently too exclusively emphasized in farm homes.
This consideration often obscures every other interest, allowing little
opportunity for the development of the intellectual, social, and moral
qualities. The open country abounds in men and women of the finest
ideals; yet it is necessary to say that other ends in life than the mak-

64 BEPOET OP THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION.

ing of more money and the getting of more goods are much needed u
country districts ; and that this, more than anything else, will correc
the unsatisfying nature of rural life.

Teachers of agriculture have placed too much relative emphasi
on the remuneration and production sides of country life. Mone;
hunger is as strong in the open country as elsewhere, and as there ar
fewer opportunities and demands for the expenditure of this monej
for others aijd for society, there often develops a hoarding and !
lack of public spirit that is disastrous to the general good. So com
pletely does the money purpose often control the motive that othei
purposes in farming often remain dormant. The complacent con
tentment in many rural neighborhoods is itself the very evidence o;
social incapacity or decay.

It must not be assumed that these deficiencies are to be charged as
a fault against the farmer as a group. They are rather to be looked
-on as evidence of an uncorrelated and unadjusted society. Society is
itself largely to blame. The social structure has been unequallj
developed. The townsman is likely to assume superiority and tc
develop the town in disregard of the real interests of the open coun-
try or even in opposition to them. The city exploits the country; tht
country does not exploit the city. The press still delights in archaic
cartoons of the farmer. There is as much need of a new attitude
on the part of the townsman as on the part of the farmer.

This leads us to say that the country ideals, while derived largely
from the country itself, should not be exclusive ; and the same applies
to city and village ideals. There .should be more frequent social inter-
course on equal terms between the people of the countiy and those oi
the city or village. This community of interests is being accom-
plished to a degree at present, but there is hardly yet the knowledge
and sympathy and actual social life that there should be between
those who live on the land and those who do not. The business men's
organizations of cities could well take the lead in some of this work.
The country town in particular has similar interests with the open
country about it; but beyond this, all people are bettered and broad-
«ned by association with those of far different environment.

We have now discussed some of the forces and agencies that will
aid in bringing about a new rural society. The development of the
best country life in the United Staltes is seen, therefore, to be largely
a question of guidance. The exercise of a wise advice, stimulus,
and direction from some central national agency, extending over a
series of years, could accomplish untold good, not only for the open
country, but for all the people and for our institutions.

In the communities themselves, the same kind of guidance is
needed, operating in good farming, in schools, churches, societies
and all useful public work. The great need everywhere is new and

REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 65

young leadership, and the commission desires bo make an appeal to
all young men and women who love the open country to consider this
field when determining their careers. We need young people of
quality, energy, capacity, aspiration, and conviction, who will live
in the open country as permanent residents on farms, or as teachers,
or in other useful fields, and who, while developing their own business
or affairs to the greatest perfection, will still have unselfish interest
in the welfare of their communities. The farming country is by
no means devoid of leaders, and is not lost or incapable of helping
itself, but it has been relatively overlooked by persons who are seek-
ing great fields of usefulness. It will be well for us as a people if
we recognize the opportunity for usefulness in the open country and
consider that there is a call for service.

L. H. Baelet.

Henry Wallace.

Kenyon L. Buttekfield,

Walter H. Page.

GlFFORD PiNCHOT.

C. S. Barrett.
W. A. Bearo.

S. Doc. 705, 60-2-

60th Oongkess 1 o-Pio- A T,Tji / Document

SdSemcm / biJ-JNAlJi \ No. 705

I

REPORT OF THE

COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION

SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM THE

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

TRANSMITTING THE REPORT

OF THE COUNTRY LIFE

COMMISSION

February 9, 1909.— Read; ordered to lie on the table and be printed

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

1909

SPECIAL MESSAGE.

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

I transmit herewith the report of the Commission on
Country Life. At the outset I desire to point out that not
a dollar of the public money has been paid to any com-
missioner for his work on the conmiission.

The report shows the general condition of farming life
in the open country, and points out its larger problems ; it
indicates ways in which the Government, National and
State, may show the people how to solve some of these
problems ; and it suggests a continuance of the work which
the commission began.

Judging by thirty public hearings, to which farmers and
farmers' wives from forty States and Territories came, and
from 120,000 answers to printed questions sent out by the
Department of Agriculture, the commission finds that the
general level of country life is high compared with any
preceding time or with any other land. If it has in recent
years slipped down in some places, it has risen in more
places. Its progress has been general, if not uniform.

Yet farming does not yield either the profit or the satis-
faction that it ought to yield and may be made to yield.
There is discontent in the coamtry, and in places discour-
agement. Farmers as a class do not magnify their call-
ing, and the movement to the towns, though, I am happy
to say, less than formerly, is still strong.

Under our system, it is helpful to promote discussion
of ways in which the people c^n help themselves. There
are three main directions in which the farmers can help
themselves; namely, better farming, better business, and
better living on the farm. The National Department of
Agiiculture, which has rendered services equaled by no

4 REPORT OP THE COUNTRY UFE COMMISSION.

other similar department in any other time or place ; the
state departments of agriculture; the state colleges of
agriculture and the mechanic arts, especially through their
extension work; the state agricultural experiment sta-
tions; the Farmers' Union; the Grange; the agricultural
press; and other similar agencies; have all combined to
place within the reach of the American farmer an amount
and quality of agricultural information which, if applied,
would enable him, over large areas, to double the produc-
tion of the farm. ■

The object of the Commission on Country Life therefore
is not to help the farmer raise better crops, but to call Ms
attention to the opportunities for better business and
better living on the farm. If country life is to become
what it should be, and what I believe it ultimately will be —
one of the most dignified, desirable, and sought-after ways
of earning a living — the farmer must take ' advantage not
only of the agricultural knowledge which is at his disposal,
but of the methods which have raised and continue to
raise the standards of living and of intelligence in other
callings.

Those engaged in all other industrial and commercial
callings have found it necessary, under modern economic
conditions, to organize themselves for mutual advantage
and for the protection of their own particular interests in
relation to other interests. The farmers of every pro-
gressive European country have realized this essential
fact and have found in the cooperative system exactly the
form of business combination they need.

Now whatever the State may do toward improving the
practice of agriculture, it is not within the sphere of any
government to reorganize the farmers' business or recon-
struct the social life of farming communities. It is, how-
ever, quite within its power to use its influence and the ma-
chinery of publicity which it can control for calling public
attention to the needs and the facts. For example, it is
the ob'V'ibus duty of the Grovernment to call the attention
of farmers to the growing monopolization of water power.
The farmers above all should have that power, on reason-

BEPOBT OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 5

able terms, for cheap transportation, for lighting their
homes, and for innumerable uses in the daily tasks on the
farm.

It would be idle to assert that life on the farm occupies
as good a position in dignity, desirability, and business
results as the farmers might easily give it if they chose.
One of the chief difficulties is the failure of coimtry life,
as it exists at present, to satisfy the higher social and intel-
lectual aspirations of country people. Whether the con-
stant draining away of so much of the best elements in the
rural population into the towns is due chiefly to this cause
or to the superior business opportunities of city life may be
open to question. But no one at all familiar with farm life
throughout the United States can fail to recognize the
necessity for building up the life of the farm upon its social
as well as upon its productive side.

It is true that country life has improved greatly in at- -
tractiveness, health, and comfort, and that the farmer's
earnings are higher than they were. But city life is ad-
vancing even more rapidly, because of the greater atten-
tion which is being given by the citizens of the towns to
their own betterment. For just this reason the introduc-
tion of effective agricultural cooperation throughout the
United States is of the first importance. Where farmers
are organized cooperatively they not only avail themselves
much more readily of business opportunities and im-
proved methods, but it is found that the organizations
which bring them together in the work of their lives are
used also for social and intellectual advancement.

The cooperative plan is the best plan of organization
wherever men have the right spirit to carry it out. Under
this plan any business undertaking is managed by a com-
mittee; every man has one vote and only one vote; and
everyone gets profits according to what he sells or buys or
supplies. It develops individual responsibility and has a
moral as well as a financial value over any other plan.

I desire only to take counsel with the farmers as fellow-
citizens. It is not the problem of the farmers alone that
I am discussing with them,' but a problem which affects

6 EEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

every city as well as every farm in the country. It is a
problem whicli the working farmers will have to solve for
themselves ; but it is a problem which also affects in only
less degree all the rest of us, and therefore if we can render
any help toward its solution, it is not only our duty but our
interest to do so.

The foregoing will, I hope, make it clear why I ap-
pointed a commission to consider problems of farm life
which have hitherto had far too little attention, and the
neglect of which has not only held back life in the country,
but also lowered the efficiency of the whole nation. The
welfare of the farmer is of vital consequence to the wel-
fare of the whole community. The strengthening of coun-
try life, therefore, is the strengthening of the whole nation.

The commission has tried to help the farmers to see
clearly their own problem and to see it as a whole ; to dis-
tinguish clearly between what the Government can do and
what the farmers must do for themselves ; and it wishes to
bring not only the farmers but the Nation as a whole to
realize that the growing of crops, though an essential part,
is only a part of country life. Crop growing is the essen-
tial foundation ; but it is no less essential that the farmer
shall get an adequate return for what he grows ; and it is
no less essential — indeed it is literally vital — ^that he and
his wife and his children shall lead the right kind of life.

For this reason, it is of the first importance that the
United States Department of Agriculture, through which
as prime agent the ideas the commission stands for must
reach the people, should become without delay in fact a
Department of Country Life, fitted to deal not only with
crops, but also with all the larger aspects of life in the open
country.

From all that has been done and learned three great gen-
eral and immediate needs of country life stand out :

First, effective cooperation among farmers, to put them
on a level with the organized interests with which they do
business.

Second, a new kind of schools in the country, which shall
teach the children as much outdoors as indoors and per-

BEPOBT OP THE COTJNTBT UPE COMMISSION. 7

haps more, so that they will prepare for country Ufa, and
not as at present, mainly for life in town.

Third, better means of communication, including good
roads and a parcels post, which the country people are
everj'where, and rightly, unanimous in demanding.

To these may well be added better sanitation ; for easily
preventable diseases hold several million country people in
the slavery of continuous ill health.

The commission points out, and I concur in the con-
clusion, that the most important help that the Government,
whether National or State, can give is to show the people
how to go about these tasks of organization, education, and
communication with the best and quickest results. This
can be done by the collection and spread of information.
One community can thus be informed of what other com-
munities have done, and one country of what other coun-
tries have done. Such help by the people's government
would lead to a comprehensive plan of organization, edu-
cation, and communication, and make the farming country
better to live in, for intellectual and social reasons as well
as for purely agricultul-al reasons.

The Government through the department of Agricul-
ture does not cultivate any man's farm for him. But it
does put at his service useful knowledge that he would not
otherwise get. In the same way the National and State
Governments might put into the people's hands the new
and right knowledge of school work. The task of main-
taining and developing the schools Avould remain, as now,
with the people themselves.

The only recommendation I submit is that an appropria-
tion of $25,000 be provided, to enable the commission to
digest the material it has collected, and to collect and to
digest much more that is within its reach, and thus com-
plete its work. This would enable the commission to
gather in the harvest of suggestion which is resulting from
the discussion it has stirred up. The commissioners have
served without compensation, and I do not recommend any
appropriation for their services, but only for the expenses

8 KEPOET OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

that will be required to finish the task that they have
begun.

To improve our system of agriculture seems to me the
most urgent of the tasks which lie before us. But it can
not, in my jud^ent, be effected by measures which touch
only the material and technical side of the subject; the
whole business and life of the farmer must also be taken
into account. Such considerations led me to appoint the
Commission on Country Life. Our object should be
to help develop in the country community the great
ideals of community life as well as of personal char-
acter. One of the most important adjuncts to this end
must be the country church, and I invite your attention
to what the commission says of the country church and of
the need of an extension of such work as that of the Young
Men's Christian Association in country communities.
Let me lay special emphasis upon what the Commission
says at the very end of its report on personal ideals and
local leadership. Everything resolves itself in the end
into the question of personality. Neither society nor gov-
ernment can do much for country life unless there is vol-
untary response in the personal ideals of the men and
women who live in the country. In the development of
character, the home should be more important than the
school, or than society at large. When once the basic ma-
terial needs have been met, high ideals may be quite inde-
pendent of income ; but they can not be realized without
sufficient income to provide adequate foundation; and
where the community at large is not financially prosperous
it is impossible to develop a high average personal and
community ideal. In short, the fundamental facts of hu-
man nature apply to men and women who live in the coun-
try just as they apply to men and women who live in the
towns. Given a sufficient foundation of material well be-
ing, the influence of the farmers and farmers' wives on
their children becomes the factor of first importance in
determining the attitude of the next generation toward
farm life. The farmer should realize that the person who
most needs consideration on the farm is his wife. I do not

EEPOKT OP THE COUNTRY UFE COMMISSION. 9

in the least mean that she should purchase ease at the ex-
pense of duty, Neither man nor woman is really happy
or really useful save on condition of doing his or her duty.
If the woman shirks her duty as housewife, as home keeper,
as the mother whose prime function it is to bear and rear
a sufficient number of healthy children, then she is not en-
titled to our regard. But if she does her duty she is more
entitled to our regard even than the man who does his
duty ; and the man should show special consideration for
her needs.

I warn my countrymen that the great recent progress
made in city Ij-f e is not a full measure of our civilization ;
for our civilization rests at bottom on the wholesomeness,
the attractiveness, and the completeness, as well as the
prosperity, of life in the country. The men and women
on the farms stand for what is fundamentally best and
most needed in our American life. Upon the development
of country Ufe rests ultimately our ability, by methods of
farming requiring the highest intelligence, to continue to
feed and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city
with fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that can
endure the terrific strain of modern life; we need the
development of men in the open country, who will be in
the future, as in the past, the stay and strength of the
nation in time of war, and its guiding and controlling

spirit in time of peace.

Theodoee Roosevelt.

The White House, February 9, 1909.

APPENDIX K.

One of the most illuminating — and incidentally one of
the most interesting and amusing — series of answers sent
to the commission was from a farmer in Missouri. He
stated that he had a wife and 11 living children, he and
and his wife being each 52 years old ; and that they owned
520 acres of land without any mortgage hanging over
their, heads. He had himself done well, and his views
as to why many of his neighbors had done less well are
entitled to consideration. These views are expressed in
terse and vigorous English; they can not always be
quoted in full. He states that the farm homes in his
neighborhood are not as good as they should be because
too many of them are encumbered by mortgages; that
the schools do not train boys and girls satisfactorily
for life on the farm, because they allow them to get
an idea in their heads that city life is better, and that
to remedy this practical farming should be taught. To the
question whether the farmers and their wives in his neigh-
borhood are satisfactorily organized, he answers: "Oh,
there is a little one-horse grange gang in our locality, and
every darned one thinks they aught to be a king." To
the question, "Are the renters of farms in your neigh-
borhood making a satisfactory living*?" he answers : " No ;
because they move about so much hunting a better job."
To the question, " Is the supply of farm labor in your
neighborhood satisfactory? " the answer is: " No; because
the people have gone out of the baby business ;" and when
asked as to the remedy he answers, " Give a pention to
every mother who gives birth to seven living boys on
American soil. " To the question "Are the conditions sur-
rounding hired labor on the farm in your neighbor-
hood satisfactory to the hired men? " he answers: " Yes,

10

BEPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 11

unless he is a drunken cuss," adding that he would
like to blow up the stillhouses and root out whisky
and beer. To the question "Are the sanitary condi-
tions on the farms in your neighborhood satisfactory? "
he answers: "No; to careless about chicken yards (and
the like) and poorly covered Wells, in one Well on neigh-
bor's farm I counted 7 snakes in the Wall of the Well, and
they used the watter daily, his wife dead now and he is
looking for another." He ends by stating that the most
important single thing to be done for the betterment of
country life is " good roads;" but in his answers he shows
very clearly that most important of aU is the individual
equation of the man or woman.

The humor of this set of responses must not blind us to
the shrewd common sense and good judgment they display.
The man is a good citizen; his wife is a good citizen; and
their views are fundamentally sound. Very much infor-
mation of the most valuable kind can be gathered if the
Commission is given the money necessary to enable it to
arrange and classify the information obtained from the
great mass of similar answers which they have received.
But there is one point where the testimony is as a whole
in flat contradiction to that contained above. The general
feeling is that the organizations of farmers, the grangers
and the like, have been of the very highest service not
only to the farmers, but to the farmers' wives, and that
they have conferred great social as well as great industrial
advantages. An excellent little book has recently been
published by Miss Jennie Buell, called " One Woman's
Work for Farm Women." It is dedicated " To fanm
women everywhere," and is the story of Mary A. Mayo's
part in rural social movements. It is worth while to read
this little volume to see how much the hard-working woman
who lives on the farm can do for herself when once
she is given sympathy, encouragement, and occasional
leadership.

REPORT OF COMMISSION ON COUNTRY LIFE.

Washington, January 23, 1909.
To the President:

The Commission on Country Life herewith presents its report,
covering the following topics:

Introductory review or summary:
I. General statement —

The purpose of the Commission.
Methods pursued by the Commission.
(Circulars, hearings, school-house meetings.)
II. The main special deficiencies In country life —

1. Disregard of the Inherent rights of land workers,
(o) Speculative holding of lands.
(B) Monopolistic control of streams.

(c) Wastage and control of forests.

(d) Restraint of trade.

(e) Remedies for the disregard of the inherent rights of the

farmer.

2. Highways.

3. Soil depletion and its effects.

4. Agricultural labor.

(a) Statement of the general problem. .
(B) The question of intemperance.

(c) Development of local attachments of the farm laborer.
6. Health In the open country.

6. Woman's work on the farm.

HI. The general corrective forces that should be set in motion —

7. Need of agricultural or country life surveys.

8. Need of a redirected education.

9. Necessity of working together.

10. The country church.

11. Personal Ideals and local leadership.

INTRODUCTORY REVIEW OR SUMMARY.

The Commission finds that agriculture in the United States, taken
altogether, is prosperous commercially, when measured by the condi-
tions that have obtained in previous years, although there are some
regions in which this is only partially true. The country people are
producing vast quantities of supplies for food, shelter, clothing, and
for use in the arts. The country homes are improving in comfort,

13

14 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

attractiveness, and liealthfulness. Not only in the material wealth
that tliey produce, but in the supply of independent and strong citi-
zenship, the agricultural people constitute the very foundation of
our national efficiency. As agriculture is the immediate basis of
country life, so it follows that the general affairs of the open country,
speaking broadly, are in a condition of improvement.

Many institutions, organizations, and movements are actively con-
tributing to the increasing welfare of the open country. The most
important of these are the United States Department of Agriculture,
the colleges of agriculture and the experiment stations in the States,
and the national farmers' organizations. These institutions and
organizations are now properly assuming leadership in country-life
affairs, and consequently in many of the public questions of national
bearing. With these agencies must be mentioned state departments
of agriculture, agricultural societies, and organizations of very many
kinds, teachers in schools, workers in church and other religious
associations, traveling libraries, and many other groups, all working
witli commendable zeal to further the welfare of the people of the
open country.

THE MOST PKOMINENT DEFICIENCIFS.

Yet it is true, notwithstanding all this progress as measured by
historical standards, that agriculture is not commercially as profitable
as it is entitled to be for the labor and energy that the farmer ex-
pends and the risks that he assumes, and that the social conditions in
the open country are far short of their possibilities. We must meas-
ure our agricultural efficiency by its possibilities rather than by com-
parison with previous conditions. The farmer is almost necessarily
handicapped in the development of his business, because his capital
is small and the volume of his transactions limited ; and he usually
stands practically alone against organized interests. In the general
readjustment of modern life due to the great changes in manufactures
and commerce inequalities and discriminations have arisen, and
naturally the separate man suffers most. The unattached man has
problems that government should understand.

The reasons for the lack of a highly organized rural society are
very many, as the full report explains. The leading specific causes
are:

A lack of knowledge on the part of farmers of the exact agriculr
tural conditions and possibilities of their regions ;

Lack of good training for country life in the schools;

The disadvantage or handicap of the farmer as against the estab-
lished business systems and interests, preventing him from securing
adequate returns for his products, depriving him of the benefits that
would result from unmonopolized rivers and the conservation of

KEPOKT OF THE COUNTKT LIFE COMMISSION. 15

forests, and depriving the community, in many cases, of the good
that would come from the use of great tracts of agricultural land
that are now held for speculative purposes ;

Lack of good highway facilities;

The widespread continuing depletion of soils, with the injurious
effect on rural life;

A general need of new and active leadership.

Other causes contributing to the general result are: Lack of any ade-
quate system of agricultural credit, whereby the farmer may readily
secure loans on fair terms ; the shortage of labor, a condition that is
often complicated by intemperance among workmen; lack of insti-
tutions and incentives that tie the laboring man to the soil; the bur-
dens and the narrow life of farm women; lack of adequate super-
vision of public health.

THE NATURE OF THE REMEDIES.

Some of the remedies lie with the National Government, some of
them with the States and communities in their corporate capaci-
ties, some with voluntary organizations, and some with individuals
acting alone. From the great number of suggestions that have been
made, covering every phase of country life, the commission now
enumerates those that seem to be, most fundamental or most needed
at the present time.

Congress can remove some of the handicaps of the farmer, and it
can also set some kinds of work in motion, such as :

The encouragement of a system of thoroughgoing surveys of all
agricultural regions in order to take stock and to collect local fact,
with the idea of providing a basis on which to develop a scientifically
and economically sound country life ;

The encouragement of a system of extension work of rural com-
munities through all the land-grant colleges with the people at their
homes and on their farms;

A thoroughgoing investigation by experts of the middleman system
of handling farm products, coupled with a general inquiry into the
farmer's disadvantages in respect to taxation, transportation rates,
cooperative organizations and credit, and the general business system ;

An inquiry into the control and use of the streams of the United
States with the object of protecting the people in their ownership and
of saving to agricultural uses such benefits as should be reserved for
these purposes ;

The establishing of a highway engineering service, or equivalent
organization, to be at the call of the States in working out effective
and economical highway systems;

The establishing of a system of parcels posts and postal savings

banks;

16 BEPOET OF THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION.

And providing some means or agency for the guidance of public
opinion toward the development of a real rural society that shall rest
directly on the land.

Other remedies reconmaended for consideration by Congress are :

The enlargement of the United States Bureau of Education, to
enable it to stimulate and coordinate the educational work to the
nation ;

Careful attention to the farmers' interests in legislation on the
tariff, on regulation of railroads, control or regulation of corporations
and of speculation, legislation in respect to rivers, forests, and the
utilization of swamp lands;

Increasing the powers of the Federal Government in respect to the
supervision and control of the public health ;

Providing such regulations as will enable the States that do not
permit the sale of liquors to protect themselves from traffic from
adjoining States.

In setting all these forces in motion, the cooperation of the States
will be necessary ; and in many cases definite state laws may greatly
aid the work.

Remedies of a more general nature are: A broad campaign of
publicity, that must be undertaken until all the people are informed
on the whole subject of rural life, and until there is an awakened
appreciation of the necessity of giving this phase of our national de-
velopment as much attention as has been given to other phases or
interests; a quickened sense of responsibility in all country people,
to the community and to the State, in the conserving of soil fer-
tility, and in the necessity for diversifying farming in order to con-
serve this fertility and to develop a better rural society, and also in
the better safe guarding of the strength and happiness of the farm
women ; a more widespread conviction of the necessity for organiza-
tion, not only for economic but for social purposes, this organization
to be more or less cooperative, so that all the people may share
equally in the benefits and have voice in the essential affairs of the
community; a realization on the part of the farmer that he has a
distinct natural responsibility toward the laborer in providing him
with good living facilities and in helping him in every way to be a
man amqng men ; and a realization on the part of all the people of
the obligation to protect and develop the natural scenery and attract-
iveness of the open country.

Certain remedies lie with voluntary organizations and institutions.
All organized forces, both in town and country, should understand
that there are country phases as well as city phases of our civilization,
and that one phase needs help as much as the other. AU these
agencies should recognize their responsibility to society. Many exist-
ing organizations and institutions might become practically coopera-

EEPOKT OF THE COUNTKY LIFE COMMISSION. 17

tive or mutual in spirit, as, for example, all agricultural societies,
libraries, Youn^ Men's Christian Associations, and churches. All the
organizations standing for rural progress should be federated, in
States and nation.

THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM OF COtTNTRY LIFE.

The mere enumeration of the foregoing deficiencies and remedies
indicates that the problem of country life is one of reconstruction,
and that temporary measures and defense work alone will not solve
it. The underlying problem is to develop' and maintain on our farms
a civilization in full harmony with the best American ideals. To
build up and retain this civilization means, first of all, that the busi-
ness of agriculture must be made to yield a reasonable return to those
who follow it intelligently ; and life on the farm must be made per-
manently satisfying to intelligent, progressive people. The work be-
fore us, therefore, is nothing more or less than the gradual rebuilding
of a new agriculture' and new rural life.- We regard it as absolutely
essential that this great general work should be understood by all the
people. Separate difficulties, important as they are, must be studied
and worked out in the light of the greater fundamental problem.

The commission has pointed out a number of remedies that are
extremely important; but running through all of these remedies are
several great forces, or principles, which must be utilized in the en-
deavor to solve the problems of country life. All the people should
recognize what those fundamental forces and agencies are.

Knowledge. — To improve any situation, the underlying facts must
be understood. The farmer must have exact knowledge of his busi-
ness and of the particular conditions under which he works. The
United States Department of Agriculture and the experiment sta-
tions and colleges are rapidly acquiring and distributing this knowl-
edge; but the farmer may not be able to apply it to the best. advan-
tage because of lack of knowledge of his own soils, climate, animal
and plant diseases, markets, and other local facts. The farmer is
entitled to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of his
conditions and environment. A thoroughgoing system of surveys
in detail of the exact conditions underlying farming in every locality
is now an indispensable need to complete and apply the work of the
great agricultural institutions. As an occupation, agriculture is a
means of developing our internal resources; we can not develop these
resources until we know exactly what they are.

Education. — There must be not only a fuller scheme of public

education, but a new kind of education adapted to the real needs

of the farming people. The country schools are to be so redirected

that they shall educate their pupils in terms of the daily life. Op-

S. Doc. 705, 60-2 2

18 REPORT OF THE COUISTTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

portunities for training toward agricultural edijings are to be
multiplied and made broadly effective. Every per*n on the land,
old or young, in school or out of school, educated or illiterate, must
have a chance to receive the information necessary for a successful
business, and for a healthful, comfortable, resourceful life, both in
home and neighborhood. This means redoubled efforts for better
country schools, and a vastly increased interest in the welfare of
country boys and girls on the part of those who pay the school
taxes. Education by means of agriculture is to be a part of our
regular public school worl^. Special agricultural schools are to be
organized. There is to be a well-developed plan of extension teach-
ing conducted by the agricultural colleges, by means of the printed
page, face-to-face talks, and demonstration or object lessons, designed
to reach every farmer and his family, at or near their homes, with
knowledge and stimulus in every department of country life.

Organization. — There must be a vast enlargement of voluntary
organized effort among farmers themselves. It is indispensable that
farmers shall work together for their common interests and for the
national welfare. If they do not do this, no governmental activity,
no legislation, not even better schools, will greatly avail. Much has
been done. There- is a multitude of clubs and associations for social,
educational, and business purposes; and great national organizations
are effective. But the farmers are nevertheless relatively unorgan-
ized. We have only begun to develop business cooperation in Amer-
ica. Farmers do not influence legislation as they should. They
need a more fully organized social and recreative life.

Spiritual forces. — The forces and institutions that make for moral-
ity and spiritual ideals among rural people must be energized. We
miss the heart of the problem if we neglect to foster personal char-
acter and neighborhood righteousness. The best way to preserve
ideals for private conduct and public life is to build up the institu-
tions of religion. The church has great power of leadership. The
whole people should understand that it is vitally important to stand
behind the rural church and to help it to become a great power in
developing concrete country life ideals. It is especially important
that the country church recognize that it has a social responsibility
to the entire community as well as a religious responsibility to its
own group of people.

RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMISSION.

The commission recommends all the correctives that have been
mentioned under the head of " The nature of the remedies." It does
not wish to discriminate between important measures of relief for
existing conditions. It has purposely avoided indorsing any partic-
ular bill now before Congress, no matter what its value or object.

EEPOBT OF THE COtTNTET LIFE COMMISSION. 19

There are, however, in the opinion of the commission, two or three
great movements of the utmost consequence that should be set under
way at the earliest possible time, because they are fundamental to
the whole problem of ultimate permanent reconstruction; these call
for special explanation.

1. Taking stock of country life. — ^There should be organized, as
explained in the main report, under government leadership, a com-
prehensive plan for an exhaustive study or survey of all the condi-
tions that surround the business of farming and the people who live
in the country, in order to take stock of our resources and to supply
the farmer with local knowledge. Federal and state governments,
agricultural colleges and other educational agencies, organizations
of various types, and individual students of the problem should be
brought into cooperation for this great work of investigating with
minute care all agricultural and country life conditions.

2. Nationalized extension work. — ^Each state college of agriculture
should be empowered to organize as soon as practicable a complete
department of college extension, so managed as to reach every person
on the land in its State, with both information and inspiration. The
work should include such forms of extension teaching as lectures,
bulletins, reading courses, correspondence courses, demonstration, and
other means of reaching the people at home and on their farms. It
should be designed to forward not only the business of agriculture,
but sanitation, education, home making, and all interests of country
life.

3. A campaign for rural jyrogress. — We urge the holding of local,
state, and even national conferences on rural progress, designed to
unite the interests of education, organization, and religion into one
forward movement for the rebuilding of country life. Eural teach-
ers, librarians, clergymen, editors, physicians, and others may well
unite with farmers in studying and discussing the rural question in
all its aspects. We must in some way unite all institutions, aU organ-
izations, all individuals having any interest in country life into one
great campaign for rural progress.

THE CALL FOK LEADERSHIP.

We must picture to ourselves a new rural social structure, devel-
oped from the strong resident forces of the open country ; and then
we must set at work all the agencies that will tend to bring this about.
The entire people need, to be roused to this avenue of usefulness.
Most of the new leaders must be farmers who can find not only a
satisfying business career on the farm, but who will throw them-
selves into the service of upbuilding the community. A new race of
teachers is also to appear in the country. A new rural clergy is to

-J

20 EEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

be trained. These leaders will see the great underlying problem of
country life, and together they will work, each in his own field, for
the one goal of a new and permanent rural civilization. Upon the de-
velopment of this distinctively rural civilization rests ultimately our
ability, by methods of farming requiring the highest intelligence, to
continue to feed and clothe the hungry nations; to supply the city
and metropolis with fresh blood, clean bodies, and clear brains that
can endure the strain of modern urban life; and to preserve a race
of men in the open country that, in the future as in the past, will be
the stay and strength of the nation in time of war and its guiding
and controlling spirit in time of peace.

It is to be hoped that many young men and women, fresh from our
schools and institutions of learning, and quick with ambition and
trained intelligence, will feel a new and strong call to service.

I. GENERAL STATEMENT.

Broadly speaking, agriculture in the United States is prosperous
and the conditions in many of the great farming regions are improv-
ing. The success of the owners. and cultivators of good land, in the
prosperous regions, has been due partly to improved methods, largely
to good prices for products, and also to the general advance in the
price of farm lands in these regions. Notwithstanding the general
advance in rentals and the higher prices of labor, tenants also have
enjoyed a good degree of prosperity, due to fair crops, and an advance
in the price of farm products approximately corresponding to the
advance in the price of land. Farm labor has been fully employed
and at increased wages, and many farm hands have become tenants
and many tenants have become landowners.

There is marked improvement, in many of the agricultural regions,
in the character of the farm home and its surroundings. There is
increasing appreciation on the part of great numbers of country
people of the advantage of sanitary water supplies and plumbing, of
better construction in barns and all farm buildings, of good reading
matter, of tasteful gardens and lawns, and the necessity of good
education.

Many institutions are also serving the agricultural needs of the
open country with great effectiveness, as the United States Depart-
ment of Agriculture, the land-grant colleges and experiment stations,
and the many kinds of extension work that directly or indirectly
emanate from them. The help that these institutions render to the
coimtry-life interests is everywhere recognized. State departments
of agricultural, national, state, and local organizations, many schools
of secondary grade, churches, libraries, and many other agencies are
also contributing actively to the betterment of agricultural conditions.

KEPOKT OF THE COUNTKY LIFE COMMISSIOIT. 21

There has never been a time when the American farmer was as well
off as he is to-day, when we consider not only his earning power, but
the comforts and advantages he may secure. Yet the real efficiency ~'
in farm life, and in country life as a whole, is not to be measured by
historical standards, but in terms of its possibilities. Considered from "
this point of view, there are very marked deficiencies. There has been ~
a complete and fundamental change in our whole economic system
within the past century. This has resulted in profound social changes
and the redirection of our point of view on life. In some occupations
the readjustment to the new conditions has been rapid and complete ;
in others it has come with difficulty. In all the great series of farm
occupations the readjustment has been the most tardy, because the
whole structure of a traditional and fundamental system has been
involved. It is not strange, therefore, that development is still
arrested in certain respects ; that marked inequalities have arisen ; or
that positive injustice may prevail even to a very marked and wide-
spread extent. All these difficulties are the results of the unequal
development of our contemporary civilization. All this may come
about without any intention on the part of anyone that it should be
so. The problems are nevertheless just as real, and they must be
studied and remedies must be found.

These deficiencies are recognized by the people. We have found,
not only the testimony of the farmers themselves but of all persons
in touch with farm life, more less serious agricultural unrest in every
part of the United States, even in the most prosperous regions.
There is a widespread tendency ^or farmers to move to town. It is
not advisable, of course, that all country persons remain in the coun-
try ; but this general desire to move is evidence that the open country
is not satisfying as a permanent abode. This tendency is not peculiar
to any region. In difficult farming regions, and where the competi-
tion with other farming sections is most severe, the young people may
go to town to better their condition. In the best regions th* older
l)eople retire to towff, because it is socially more attractive and they
see a prospect of living in comparative ease and comfort on the rental
of their lands. Nearly everywhere there is a townward movement
for the purpose of securing school advantages' for the children. All
this tends to sterilize the open country and to lower its social status.
Often the farm is let to tenants. The farmer is likely to lose active
interest in life when he retires to town, and he becomes a stationary
citizen, adding a social problem to the town. He is likely to find his
expenses increasing and is obliged to raise rents to his tenant,
thereby making it more difficult for the man who works on the land.
On his death his property enriches the town rather than the country.
The withdrawal of the children from the farms detracts from th^
interest and efficiency of the country school and adds to the interest
of the town school. Thus the country is drained of the energy of

22 EEPOBT OP THE COTJNTBY LIFE COMMISSIOK.

youth on the one hand and the experience and accumulation of age on
the other, and three problems more or less grave are created — a prob-
lem for the town, a problem for the public school, and also a problem
of tenancy in the open country.

The farming interest is not, as a whole, receiving the full rewards
to which it is entitled, nor has country life attained to anywhere near
its possibilities of attractiveness and comfort. The farmer is neces-
sarily handicapped in the development of social life and in the con-
duct of his business because of his separateness, the small volume of
his output, and the lack of capital. He often begins with practically
no capital, and expects to develop his capital and relationships out of
the annual business itself; and even when he has capital with which
to set up a business and operate it the amount is small when com-
pared with that required in other enterprises. He is not only handi-
capped in his farming but is disadvantaged when he deals with other
business interests and with other social groups. It is peculiarly nec-
essary, therefore, that Government should give him adequate consid-
eration and protection. There are difficulties of the separate man,
living quietly on his land, that government should understand.

THE PURPOSE OF THE COMMISSION.

The commission is requested to report on the means that are " now
available for supplying the deficiencies which exist" in the country
life of the United States and "upon the best methods of organized
permanent effort in investigation and actual work " along the lines of
betterment of rural conditions.

The President's letter appointing the commission is as follows :

Otstee Bat, N. Y., August 10, 1908.
Mt deae Peofes.sob Bailey: No nation has ever achieved permanent great-
ness unless this greatness was based on the wellbeing of the great farmer class,
the men who live on the soil; for it is upon their welfare, material and moral,
that the welfare of the rest of the nation untlmately rests. In the United
States, disregarding certain sections and taking the nation as a whole, I
believe it to be true that the farmers in general are better ofC to-day than they
ever were before. We Americans are making great progress in the development
of our agricultural resourees. But it is equally true that the social and eco-
nomic institutions of the open country are not keeping pace with the develop-
ment of the nation as a whole. The farmer is, as a rule, better ofC than his
forbears; but his increase in well-being has not kept pace with that of the
country as a whole. While the condition of the farmers in some of our best
farming regions leaves little to be desired, we are far from having reached so
high a level in all parts of the country. In portions of the South, for example, •
where the Department of Agriculture, through the farmers' cooperative demon-
stration work of Doctor Knapp, is directly instructing more than 30,000 farmers
In better methods of farming, there is nevertheless much unnecessary suffering
and needless loss of efficiency on the farm. A physician, who Is also a careful
Btudent of farm life in the South, writing to me recently about the enormous

REPOET OP THE COTJNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 23

percentage of preventable deaths of hcUdren, due to Insanitary condition
of southern farms, said:

" Personally, from the health point of view, I would prefer to see my own
daughter, 9 years old, at work in a cotton mill than have her live as tenant on
the average southern tenant one-horse farm. This apparently extreme state-
ment is based upon actual life among both classes of people."

I doubt if any other nation can bear comparison with our own in the amount
of attention given by the Government, both Federal and State, to agricultural
matters. But practically the whole of this effort has hitherto been directed to-
ward increasing the production of crops. Our attention has been concentrated
almost exclusively on getting better farming. In the beginning this was un-
questionably the right thing to do. The farmer must first of all grow good
crops in order to support hiinself and his family. But when this has been se-
cured the effort for better farming should cease to stand alone, and should be
accompanied by the effort for better business and better living on the farm.
It is at least as important that the farmer should get the largest possible re-
turn in money, comfort, and social advantages from the crops he grows as that
he should get the largest possible return in crops from the land he farms.
Agriculture Is not the whole of country life. The great rural interests are
human Interests, and good crops are of little value to the farmer unless they
open the door to a good kind of life on the farm.

This problem of country life is in the truest sense a national problem. In an
address delivered at the semicentennial of the founding of agricultural colleges
In the United States a year ago last May, I said :

"There is but one person whose welfare is' as vital to the welfare of the
whole country as is that of the wage-worker-who does manual labor, and that Is
the. tiller of the soil — the farmer. If there is one lesson taught by history, it Is
that the permanent greatness of any 'State must ultimately depend more upon
the character of Its country population than upon anything else. No growth of
cities, no growth of wealth can make up for loss in either the number or the
character of the farming population."

« • * • » » •

" The farm grows the raw material for the food and clothing of all our citi-
zens; It supports directly almost half of them; and nearly half the children
of the United States are born and brought up on the farms. How can the life
bf the farm family be made less solitary, fuller of opportunity, freer from
drudgery, more comfortable, happier, and more attractive? Such a result Is
most earnestly to be desired. How can life on the farm be kept on the highest
level, and, where it is not already on that level, be so Improved, dignified, and
brightened as to awaken and keep alive the pride and loyalty of the farmer's
boys and girls, of the farmer's wife, and of the farmer himself? How can a
compelling desire to live on the farm be aroused in the children that are born
on the farm? All these questions are of vital importance not only to the
farmer but to the whole nation.

"We hope ultimately to double the average yield of wheat and corn per
acre ; It will be a great achievement ; but It Is even more important to double
the desirability, comfort, and standing of the farmer's life."

It is especially Important that whatever will serve to prepare country chil-
dren for life on the farm and whatever will brighten home life In the country
and make it richer and more attractive for the mothers, wives, and daughters
of farmers should be done promptly, thoroughly, and gladly. There Is no more
Important person, measured in influence upon the life of the nation, than the

24 REPORT 0¥ THE COUNTRY UFE COMMISSION.

farmer's wife, no more Important home than the country home, and It Is of
national Importance to do the best we can for both.

The farmers have hitherto had less than their full share of public attention
along the lines of business and social life. There is too much belief among all
our people that the prizes of life lie away from the farm. I am therefore
anxious to bring before the people of the United States the question of securing
better business and better living on the farm, whether by cooperation between
farmers for buying, selling, and borrowing; by promoting social advantages
and opportunities in the country; or by any other legitimate means that will
help to make country life more gainful, more attractive, and fuller of opportu-
nities, pleasures, and rewards for the men, women, and children of the farms.

I 'shall be very glad indeed if you will consent to serve upon a commission
on country life, upon which I am asking the following gentlemen to act: Prof.
L. H. Bailey, New York State College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y., chairman;
Mr. Henry Wallace, Wallace's Farmer, Des Moines, Iowa; President Kenyon
L. Butterfield, Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Mass. ; Mr. GifCord
Pinchot, United States Forest Service; Mr. Walter H. Page, editor of The
World's Work, New York.

My Immediate purpose in appointing this commission is to secure from it such
Information and advice as will enable me to make recommendations to Congress
upon this extremely important matter. I shall be glad If the commission will
report to me upon the present condition of country life, upon what means are
now available for supplying the deficiencies which exist, and upon the best
methods of organized permanent effort in investigation and actual work along
the lines I have indicated. You will doubtless also find it necessary to suggest
means for bringing about the redirection or better adaptation of rural schools
to the training of children for life on the farm. The national and state agri-
cultural departments must ultimately join with the various farmers' and
agricultural organizations In the effort to secure greater efficiency and attrac-
tiveness in country life.

In view of the pressing importance of this subject I should be glad to have
you report before the end of next December. For that reason the commission
will doubtless find it impracticable to undertake extensive investigations, but
will rather confine Itself to a summary of what is already known, a statement
of the problem, and the recommendation of measures tending toward its solu-
tion. With the single exception of the conservation of our natural resources,
which underlies the problem of rural life, there is no other material question
of greater importance now before the American people. I shall look forward
with the keenest interest to your report.

Sincerely, yours, Theodore Roosevelt.

Prof. L. H. Bailey,

New York State College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y.

Subsequently Charles S. Barrett, of Georgia, and William A.
Beard, of California, were added to the commission.

The means that may be suggested for amelioration of country life
fall under one or more of three general classes : (a) Definite recom-
mendations for executive or legislative action by the Federal Gov-
ernment; (&) suggestions for legislative enactment on the part of
States; (c) suggestions or recommendations to the public at large
as to what the commission thinks would be the most fruitful lines of
actiyn and policy on the part of individuals, communities, or States.

EEPOBT OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 25

The problem before the commission is to state, with some fullness
of detail, the present conditions of country life, to point out the
causes that may have led to its present lack of organization, to sug-
gest methods by which it may be redirected, the drift to the city
arrested, the natural rights of the farmer maintained, and an or-
ganized rural life developed that will promote the prosperity of the
whole nation.

We are convinced that the forces that make for rural betterment
must themselves be rural. We must arouse the country folk to the
necessity for action, and suggest agencies which, when properly em-
ployed, will set them to work to develop a distinctly rural civilization.

In making its inquiries, the commission has had constantly in~^
mind the relation of the farmer to his community and to society in
general. It has made no inquiry into problems of technical farming
except as they may have bearing on general welfare and public
questions. "

The commission has not assumed that country-life conditions are
either good or bad, nor is it within its province to compare country
conditions with city conditions ; but it has assumed that we have not
yet arrived at that state of society in which conditions may not be
bettered.

It is our place, therefore, to point out the deficiencies rather than
the advantages and the progress. In doing this we must be distinctly
understood as speaking only in general terms. The conditions that
we describe do not, of course, apply equally in all parts of the coun-
try, and we have not been able to make studies of the problems of
particular localities.

Before discussing the shortcomings more fully, we may explain
how the commission undertook its work.

METHODS PUKSTJED BY THE COMMISSION.

The field of inquiry has been the general social, economic, sanitary,
educational, and labor conditions of the open country. Within the
time at its disposal, the commission has not been able to make scien-
tific investigations into any of these questions, but, following the
suggestion of the President, has endeavored to give " a summary of
what is already known, a statement of the problem, and the recom-
mendation of measures looking toward its solution." We have been
able to make a rather extensive exploration or reconnoissance of the
field, to arrive at a judgment as to the main deficiencies of country
life in the United States to-day, and to suggest some of the means
of supplying these deficiencies.

The commission and its work have met with the fullest cooperation
and confidence on the part of the farmers and others, and the interest
in the subject has been widespread. The people have been frank in
giving information and expressing opinions, and in stating their

26 BEPOKT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

problems and discouragements. There is every evidence that the
people in rural districts have welcomed the commission as an agency
that is much needed in the interest of country life, and in many of
the hearings they have asked that the commission be continued in
order that it may make thorough investigations of the subjects that
it has considered. The press has taken great interest in the work,
and in many cases has been of special service to the commission in
securing direct information from country people.

The activities of the commission have been directed mainly along
four lines: The issuing of questions designed to bring out a state-
ment of conditions in all parts of the United States; correspond-
ence and inquiries by different members of the commission, so far
as time would permit, each in a particular field ; the holding of hear-
ings in many widely separated places; discussions in local meetings
held in response to a special suggestion by the President.

THE CIECULAB OF QUESTIONS.

As a means of securing the opinions of the people themselves on
some of the main aspects of country life, a set of questions was dis-
tributed, as follows:

I. Are the farm homes In your neighborhood as good as they should be

under existing conditions?
II. Are the schools in your neighborhood training boys and girls satis-
factorily for life on the farm?

III. Do the farmers in your neighborhood get the returns they reasonably

should from the sale of their products?

IV. Do the farmers In your neighborhood receive from the railroads,

highroads, trolley lines, etc., the services they reasonably should
have?
V. Do the farmers in your neighborhood receive from the United States
postal service, rural telephones, etc., the service they reasonably
should expect?
VI. Are the farmers and their wives in your neighborhood satisfactorily
organized to promote their mutual buying and selling Interest?
VII. Are the renters of farms in your neighborhood making a satisfactory

living?
VIII. Is the supply of farm labor in your neighborhood satisfactory?
IX. Are the conditions surrounding hired labor on the farms In your

neighborhood satisfactory to the hired man?
X. Have the farmers in your neighborhood satisfactory facilities for

doing their business in banking, credit, insurance, etc.?
XI. Are the sanitary conditions of farms in your neighborhood satis-
factory?
XII. Do the farmers and their wives and families In your neighborhood
get together for mutual improvement, entertainment, and social
Intercourse as much as they should?
, What, In your Judgment, Is the most important single thing to be done for
the general betterment of country life?

(Note.— Following each question are the subquestlons : (a) Why? (6) What
suggestions h»ve you to make?)

EEPOBT OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 27

About 550,000 copies of the circular questions were sent to names
supplied by the United States Department of Agriculture, state ex-
periment stations, farmers' societies, women's clubs, to rural free
deliverymen, country physicians and ministers, and others. To these
inquiries about 115,000 persons have now replied, mostly with much
care and with every evidence of good faith. Nearly 100,000 of these
circulars have been arranged and some of the information tabulated
in a preliminary way by the Census Bureau. In addition to the re-
plies to the circulars, great numbers of letters and carefully written
statements have been received, making altogether an invaluable body
of information, opinion, and suggestion.

THE HEABINGS.

Hearings were held at 30 places by the whole commission, or part
of it, between November 9 and December 22, 1908; and frequently
two or more long sessions were held. Very full notes were taken of
the proceedings. They were attended by good audiences, in some in-
stances overflowing the hall. At several, especially in the Northwest,
delegates were in attendance representing associations and communi-
ties in the vicinity, who were anxious to present their views and needs.
Speeches were numerous and usually short and pithy, and represented
every sort of person concerned with rural life, including many
women, who contributed much to the domestic and educational as-
pects of the subject. The governors and principal officials of the
States were often present; and also the presidents and professors of
institutions of learning, clergymen, physipians, librarians, and others,
but the bulk of the speakers and audiences was country people. No
attempt was made to follow a definite programme of questioning, but
general discussions proceeded, with an occasional show of hands or
outburst of applause to signify general assent to the speaker's words.

The hearings were held as follows :

November 9. — College Park, Md.

10. — Richmond, Va.

11. — Raleigh, N. C, and Athens, Ga.

12. — Spartanburg, S. C.

13. — Knoxville, Tenn.

14. — Lexington, Ky.
16-18. — Washington, D. O.
19-21.— Dallas, Tex.
22-23. — El Paso, Tex.

24. — Tucson, Ariz.
25-26. — Los Angeles, Cal.
27-28. — Fresno, Cal.
28-29. — San Francisco, CaL

30. — Sacramento, Cal.

28 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

December 1. — Reno, Nev.

2. — Portland, Oreg.
2-3.— Salt Lake City, Utah.

4-5.— Spokane, Wash, (and at Opportunity, near by).
5. — Cheyenne, Wyo.
6. — Bozeman, Mont.
7-8. — Denver, Colo.
9-10.— Omaha, Nebr.

10. — Council Bluffs, Iowa.

11.— Minneapolis, Minn. (St. Anthony Park).

12.— Madison, Wis.

14. — Champaign, 111.

16.— Ithaca, N. Y.

17. — Springfield, Mass.

18. — Boston, Mass.

22.— Washington, D. 0.

THE SCHOOLHOUSE MEETINGS.

The suggestion of the President that the country people of the
United States come together in their district schoolhouses to discuss
country-life questions under consideration by the commission was
officially transmitted by the commission to the state and county super-
intendents of schools of every State and Territory. A great part of
the press of the country quoted the suggestion in full, often printing
with it the original list of questions issued by the commission. School
officials, ministers of country churches, and other persons concerned
in the advancement of country matters contributed their active efforts
for organizing such meetings. Reports of meetings have already
come in from almost every State, and we have notice of many, meet-
ings still to be held. Separate States have set specific days for simul-
taneous meetings in all their country schoolhouses, notably Nebraska
and Missouri. The States of Washington, Oregon, Montana, and
Idaho, by concerted arrangement, held meetings December 5, the date
suggested by the President. Suggestion has come from many parts
of the country for the regular establishment of such meetings for
annual national observance by the country people as an inventory-
taking day and for planning community advancement for the ensuing
year.

II. THE MAIN SPECIAL DEFICIENCIES IN COUNTRY LIFE.

The numbers of problems and suggestions that have been presented
to the commission in the hearings and through the correspondence are
very great. "We have chosen for special discussion those that are most
significant and that seem most to call for immediate action. The
main single deficiency is, of course, lack of the proper kind of educa-
tion, but inasmuch as the redirection of educational methods is also
the main remedy for the shortcomings of country life, as also of any
other life, the discussion of it may be reserved for Part III.

BEPOBT or THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 29

1. DISREGARD OF THE INHERENT RIGHTS OP LAND WORKERS.

l-

Notwithstanding an almost universal recognition of the importance
of agriculture to the maintenance of our people there is nevertheless
a widespread disregEfrd of the rights of the men who own and work
the land. This results directly in social depression, as well as in
economic disadvantage.

The organized and corporate interests represented in mining, manu-
facturing, merchandising, transportation, and the like, seem often to
hold the idea that their business may be developed and exploited
without regard to the farmers, who should, however, have an equal
opportunity for enjoyment of the land, forests, and streams and of
the right to buy and sell in the open markets without prejudice.

The question of the moral intention of the consolidated interests is
not involved in these statements. The present condition has grown
up, and without going into the reasons it is imperative that we rec-
ognize these disadvantages to country-life interests and seek to correct
them. The way in which discriminating conditions may arise is well
illustrated in the inequalities of taxation of farm property. It is
natural that visible and stationary property should be taxed freely
under our present system; it is equally natural that invisible and
changeable property should tend to evade taxation. The iaevitable
result is that the farmer's property bears an unjust part in taxation
schemes.

Nor is this disregard of the inherent rights of the land worker con-
fined to corporations and companies or to the recognized inequalities
of taxation. It is often shared by cities. Instead of taking care of
their own undesirables, they often turn them off on the country dis-
tricts. The " fringe " of a city thereby becomes a low-class or even
vicious community, and its influence often extends far into the coun-
try districts. The commission hears complaints that hoboes are
.driven from the cities and towns into the country districts, where
there is no machinery for controlling them.

The subjects to which we are here inviting attention are, of course,
not confined to country life alone. They express an attitude toward
public questions in general. "We look for the development of a sen-
timent that will protect and promote the welfare of all the people
whenever there is a conflict with the interests of a small or particular
class.

The handicaps that we now have specially in mind may be stated
under four heads: Speculative holding of lands; monopolistic control
of streams ; wastage and monopolistic control of forests ; restraint of
trade.

30 EEPOKT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

(a) SPECULATIVE HOLDING OF LANDS.

Certain landowners procure large areas of agricultural land in
the most available location, sometimes by questionable methods, and
hold it for speculative purposes. This not only withdraws the land
itself from settlement, but in many cases prevents the development of
an agricultural community. The smaller landowners are isolated
and unable to establish their necessary institutions or to attract the
attention of the market. The holding of large areas by one party
tends to develop a system of tenantry and absentee farming. The
whole development may be in the direction of social and economic
ineffectiveness. In parts of the West and South this evil is so pro-
nounced that persons have requested the commission to recommend
measures of relief by restricting, under law, the size of speculative
holdings of agricultural lands.

A similar problem arises in respect to the utilization of the swamp
lands of the United States. According to the reports of the United
States Geological Survey, there are more than 75,000,000 acres of
swamp land in this country, the greater part of which are capable
of reclamation at probably a nominal cost as compared to their
value. It is important to the development of the best type of coun-
try life that the reclamation of the lands in rural regions proceed
under conditions insuring their subdivision into small farm units
and their settlement by men who would both own them and till
them. Some of these lands are near the centers of population. They
become a menace to health, and they often prevent the development
of good social conditions in very large areas of country. As a rule,
they are extremely fertile. They are capable of sustaining an agri-
cultural population numbering many millions, and the conditions
under which these millions must live are properly a matter of
national concern. In view of these facts, the Federal Government
should act to the fullest extent of its constitutional powers in secur- *
ing the reclamation of these lands under proper safeguards against
speculative holding and landlordism. It may be that in the case of
those lands ceded to the States for the purpose of reclamation, the
greater part of which are unreclaimed, there exists a special author-
ity on the part of the Federal Government by reason of failure to
comply with the terms of the grant; and there should be a vigorous
legal inquiry into the present rights of the Government' with respect
to them, followed, if the status warrants it, by legal steps to rescind
the grants and to begin the practical work of reclamation.

(6) MONOPOLISTIC CONTEOL OF STEEAMS.

The legitimate farming interests of the whole country would be
vastly benefited by a systematic conservation and utilization, under
the auspices of the State and Federal Governments, of our water-

EEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 31

ways, both great and small. Important advantages of these water-
ways are likely to be appropriated in perpetuity aiid without adequate
return to the people by monopolistic interests that deprive the perma-
nent agricultural inhabitants of the use of them.

The rivers are valuable to the farmers as drainage lines, as sources
of irrigation supply, as carriers and equalizers of transportation
rates, as a readily available power resource, and for the raising of
food fish. The wise development of these and other uses is important
to both agricultural and other interests; their protection from
monoply is one of the first responsibilities of government. The
streams belong to the people ; under a proper system of development
their resources would remain an estate of all the people, and become
available as needed. A broad constructive programme involving
coordinate development of the many uses of streams, under condi-
tions insuring their permanent control in the interest of the people
themselves, is urgently needed, and none should be more concerned
in this than the farmers.

River navigation affords the best and cheapest transportation of
farm products of a nonperishable nature. The rivers afford the best
means of competition with railroads, because river carriage is cheap,
and because the rivers once opened by the Government for navigation
are open to all, and monoply of their use should be an impossibility.
Interest in river improvement for the purpose of navigation is very
keen among the farmers who actually use river transportation, and
to some extent among farmers who enjoy advantages in railway
rates due to parallel water lines; but the great mass of farmers, while
complaining of what they affirm to be unjust and exorbitant railway
rates, have given too little thought to the means of relief with which
nature has favored them. This is probably due to lack of knowledge
of the actual economies of river transportation. For example, one
community located 200 miles from a former head of navigation ships
wheat by rail to a market that is 1,033 miles distant, at a cost of 21
cents per bushel, yet it showed no interest in the reopening of the
channel that would reduce the train haul to less than one-fifth the
distance.

This failure to consider the waterways is probably due very largely
to the high rates per ton -mile charged by railroads for short hauls.
Under the present methods of fixing the railway tariffs, local rates
are often almost or quite as great as between points far distant, and
there is small inducement to use cheap river freights because of the
cost of reaching the river banks. The remedy for this lies in two
directions: It must come either from a rearrangement of freight
schedules, which may involve a complete change in the present policy
of the railway companies with reference thereto, or by means of
competition by independent or local companies.

32 BEPOET OF THE COUNTRY UFB COMMISSION.

It must be remembered, also, that no interests inimical to the public
welfare should be allowed to acquire permanent control of the stream
banks. Facilities for ready and economical approach are practically
as important as the channels themselves.

River transportation is not usually antagonistic to railway interests.
Population and production are increasing rapidly, with correspond-
ing increase in the demands made on transportation facilities. It
may be reasonably expected that in the evolution of the transporta-
tion business, the rivers will eventually carry a large part of the
freight that does not require prompt delivery, while the railways
will carry that requiring expeditious handling. This is already fore-
seen by leading railway men; and its importance to the farmer is
such that he should encourage and aid, by every means in his power,
the movement for large use of the rivers. The country will produce
enough business to tax both streams and railroads to their utmost.

In many regions the streams afford facilities for the development
of power, which, since the successful inauguration of electrical trans-
mission, is available for local rail lines and offers the best solution of
local transportation problems. In many parts of the country local
and interurban lines are providing transportation to farm areas,
thereby increasing the facilities for moving crops and adding to the
profit and convenience of farm life. Notwithstanding this develop-
ment, however, there seems to be a very general lack of appreciation
on the part of farmers of the possibilities of this water-power resource
as a factor in governing transportation costs.

The streams may also be used as a source of small water power on
thousands of farms. This is particularly true of the small streams.
Much of the manual labor about the house and barn can be performed
from transmission of power from small water wheels running on the
farms themselves or in the neighborhood. This power could be used
for electric lighting and for small manufacture. It is more impor-
tant that small power be developed on the farms of the United States
than that we harness Niagara.
Unfortunately, the tendency of the present laws is to encourage the
, acquisition of these resources on easy terms, or on their own terras,
by the first applicants, and the power of the streams is rapidly being
acquired under conditions that lead to the concentration of owner-
ship in the hands of monopolies. This state of things constitutes a
real and immediate danger, not to the country-life interests alone, but
tx) the entire nation, and it is time that the whole people become
aroused to it.

The laws under which water is appropriated or flowage rights
secured for power were enacted prior to the introduction of electrical
transmission, and, consequently, before there was any possibility of
water power becoming of more than local importance or value.

EEPOBT OF THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION. 33

Monopoly of water power was practically impossible while the sources
and uses were alike isolated, but the present ability to concentrate the
power of streams and to develop transportation, manufacturing,
heating, and lighting on a vast scale invites monopolization.

It appears as a result of governmental investigation that practically
in the last five years there has been a very significant concentration
of water powers; that this concentration has now placed about 33 per
cent of the total developed water powers of the country under the
control of a group of 13 companies or interests; that there are very
strong economic and technical reasons forcing such concentration.
The rapid concentration already accomplished, together with the
obvious technical reasons for further control and the financial advan-
tages to be gained by a substantial monopoly, justifies the fear that
the concentration already accomplished is but the forerunner of a far
greater degree of monopoly of water power. Unless the people be-
come aroused to the danger to their interests, there will probably be
developed a monopoly greater than any the world has yet seen.

The development of power plants and of industries using this
power ought to be encouraged by every legitimate and proper means.
It should not be necessary, however, to grant perpetual rights in
order to encourage this development. There should be no perpetual
grant of water-power privileges. On the contrary, the ownership of
the people should be perpetually maintained, and grants should be in
the nature of terminable franchises.

The irrigation water should be protected. Farm life in the irri-
gated regions is usually of an advanced type, due principally to thq
small size 6i farms and the resulting social and educational ad-
vantages and to intensive agriculture. Because of these facts the
development of the arid regions by irrigation may be a distinct con-
tribution to the improvement of the country life of the nation. In
the use of streams for irrigation, as in other uses, monopoly should
be discouraged. The ownership of water for irrigation is no less
important than the ownership of land ; " waterlordism " is as much to
be feared as landlordism. In the irrigated regions the water is more
valuable than the land to which it is applied ; the availability of the
water supply often gives to the land all the value that it has, and
when this is true it must follow that the farmer must own both the
water and the land if he is to be master of his own fortunes. One of
the very best elements of any population is the independent home-
owning farmer, and the tendency of government, so far as may be
practicable, should be toward securing the ownership of the land by
the man who lives on it and tills it. It should seek to vest in the
farmer of the irrigated region the title to his water supply and to
protect his tenure of it. The national reclamation act, under which
S. Doc. 705, 60-2 3

34 BEPOBT OF THE COUNTKY LIFE COMMISSION.

large areas of arid land are now being placed under irrigation, is
commended as a contribution to the development of a good country
life in the West, not alone because it renders available for settlement
large areas of previously worthless land, but still more because it
insures to settlers the ownership of both the land and the water.

The need to utilize the streams is to be considered in the East as
well as in the West.

The commission suggests that a special inquiry be made of the con-
trol and stream resources of the United States, with the object of pro-
tecting the people in their ownership and of reserving to agricultural
uses such benefits as should be reserved for these purposes.

(C) WASTAGE AND CONTEOL OF FOBESTS.

The forests have been exploited for private gain until not only has
the timber been seriously reduced, but until streams have been ruined
for navigation, power, irrigation, and common water supplies and
whole regions have been exposed to floods and disastrous soil erosion.
Probably there has never occurred a more reckless destruction of
property that of right should belong to all the people. These devas-
tations are checked on the government lands, but similar devastation
in other parts of the country is equally in need of attention. The
commission has heard strong demands from farmers for the estab-
lishment of forest reservations in the White Mountains and the South-
ern Appalachian region to save the timber and to control the sources
of streams, and no statements in opposition to the proposal. Meas-
ures should be enacted creating such reservations. The forests as
well as the streams should be saved from monopolistic control.

The conservation of forests and brush on watershed areas is impor-
tant to the farmer along the full length of streams, regardless of the
distance between the farm and these areas. The loss of soil in de-
nuded areas increases the menace of flood, not alone because of the
more rapid run-oflF, but by the filling of channels and the greater ero-
sion of stream banks when soil matter is carried in suspension.

Loss of soil by washing is a serious menace to the fertility of the
American farm. A high authority on this subject recently made the
statement that soil wash is " the heaviest impost borne by the Ameri-
can farmer."

The wood-lot property of the country needs to be saved and in-
creased. Wood-lot yield is one of the most important crops of the
farm, and is of great value to the public in controlling streams,
saving the run-off, checking winds, and in adding to the attractive-
ness of the region. In many regions, where poor and hilly lands
prevail, the town or county could well afford to purchase forest
land, expecting thereby to add to the value of the property and

EEPOBT OP THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION. 35

eventually to make the forests a source of revenue. Such communal
forests in Europe yield revenue to the cities and towns by which
they are owned and managed,

(d) EESTEAINT OF TRADE.

The commission has heard much complaint, in all parts of the
country and by all classes of farmers, of injustice, inequalities, and
discrimination on the part of transportation companies and middle-
men. These are the most universal direct complaints that have been
presented to the commission. If the statements can be trusted, tlij»x
business of farming as a whole is greatly repressed by lack of mutual
understanding and good faith in the transportation and marketing /
of agricultural produce.

Without expressing an opinion on these questions, we feel that
there should be a free understanding between transportation com-
panies and farmers in respect to their mutual business. We find
that farmers who have well-informed opinions on tariff, education,
and other public questions are yet wholly uninformed in respect to
the transportation man's point of view on freight rates and express
rates that may be in dispute. A disposition on the part of all parties
to discuss the misunderstandings fairly would probably accomplish
much.

The whole matter of railway freight rates should be made moria
understandable. There should be a simplifying or codifying of
rates that will enable the farmer or a group of farmers or of other
citizens who use the railways to ascertain readily from the published
tariffs the actual rate on any given commodity between two points.
Railway rate making is fundamentally a matter of public jmpor^
tance. The rates are a large factor in the development of popula-"'
tion ; in many instances the railway rates determine both the charac-
ter of the population and the development of industry. The railway
companies, by their rates, may decide where the centers of distribu-
tion shall be, what areas shall develop manufactures, and other |
special industries. To the extent that they do this they exercise a''
purely public function, and for this reason alone, if for no othe»,
the Government should exercise a wise supervision over the making
and publication of rates. Favoritism to large shippers has been one
of the principal abuses of the transportation business and has con-
tributed to the growth of monopolies of trade. While rebating is
largely discontinued, it is very generally believed that this favoritism
is still practiced, in various forms, to an extent that works a hard-
ship on the small shipper and the unorganized interests. Complaipt
is not confined to steam roads alone, but is directed toward the
trolley lines as well. There is a feeling that trolley systems should
be feeders to the steam roads, and that these systems, which are

36 BEPOBT OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION.

rapidly being extended through rural districts, should afford to
farmers a freight service that is ready, rapid, and cheap. It is
charged that this is not done; that steam lines discourage the use of
the trolleys for freight, or absorb them and eliminate competition, to
the detriment of the farm population which they should most benefit.

The Interstate Conmierce Commission exercises a most valuable
governmental function. It is a body to which complaint may be
made of any rate considered to be unreasonable. It has been of
great benefit to the farmers Of the country. What is needed now is
a careful study of the railway situation with a view to reaching
and correcting abuses and practices still in existence that operate
against the unorganized and the rural interests.

In this connection attention is invited to the fact that many States
have railway commissions charged with the duty of protecting the
public from paying exorbitant freight rates, and farmers who feel
that they are charged more than is fair should see to it, first, that
their state railway commissions are composed of men who will do
their duty ; and second, that these men are sustained in honest efforts
to do their duty with fairness to all concerned. The charge is
frequently made that these commissions are not effective; but as they
are a part of the machinery of the State, it would seem that the
farmers have here an excellent opportunity to serve their interests
by active devotion to a plain political duty.

Dissatisfaction with the prevailing systems of marketing is very
general. There is a widespread belief that certain middlemen con-
sume a share of agricultural sales out of all proportion to the serv-
ices they render, either to the consumer or the producer, making
a larger profit — often without risk — in the selling of the product
than the farmer makes in producing it. We have no desire to con-
demn middlemen as a class. We have no doubt that there are many
businesses of this kind that are conducted on a square-deal basis,
but we are led to believe that grave abuses are practiced by unscrupu-
lous persons and firms, and we recommend a searching inquiry into
the methods employed in the sale of produce on commission.

(e) EEMEDIES FOE THE DISREGARD OF THE INHERENT RIGHTS OF THE FARMER.

We need, in the first place, as a people, to recognize the necessary
rights of the individual farmer to the use of the native resources and
agencies that go with the utilization of agricultural lands and to pro-
tect him from hindrance and encroachment in the normal develop-
ment of his business. If the farmer suffers because his business is
small, isolated, and unsyndicated, then it is the part of government
to see that he has a natural opportunity among his fellows and a
square deal.

EEPORT OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 37

In the second place, we need such an attitude of government, both
state and national, as will safeguard the separate and individual
rights of the farmer, in the interest of the public good. As a con-
tribution toward this attitude, we commend the general policy of the
present administration to safeguard the streams, forests, coal lands,
and phosphate lands, and in endeavoring to develop a home-owning
settlement in the irrigated regions.

At the moment, one of the most available and effective single means
of giving the farmer the benefit of his natural opportunities is the
enlargement of government service to the country people through the
post-office. We hold that a parcels post and a postal savings bank
system are necessities; and as rapidly as possible the rural free de-
livery of mails should be extended. Everywhere we have found the
farmers demanding the parcels post. It is opposed by many mer-
chants, transportation organizations, and established interests. We
do not think that the parcels post will injure the merchant in the
small town or elsewhere. Whatever will permanently benefit the
farmer will benefit the country as a whole. Both town and country
would readjust themselves to the new conditions. We recognize the
great value of the small town to the country districts and would not
see it displaced or crippled; but the character of the open countiy
largely makes or unmakes the country town.

In order that fundamental correctives may be applied, we recom-
mend that a thoroughgoing study or investigation be made of the
relation of business practices and of taxation to the welfare of the
farmer, with a view to ascertaining what discriminations and de-
ficiencies may exist, whether legislation is needed, and to give pub-
licity to the entire subject. This investigation should include the
entire middleman system, farmers' cooperative organizations, trans-
portation rates and practices, taxation of agricultural property,
methods of securing funds on reasonable conditions for agricultural
uses, and the entire range of economic questions involved in the rela-
tion of the farmer to the accustomed methods of doing business.

We find that there is need of a new general attitude toward legisla-
tion, in the way of safeguarding the farmer's natural rights and
interests. It is natural that the organized and consolidated interests
should be strongly in mind in the making of legislation. We recom-
mend that the welfare of the farmer and countryman be also kept
in mind in the construction of laws. We specially recommend that
his interests be considered and safeguarded in any new legislation on
the tariff, on regulation of railroads, control or regulating of corpora-
tions and of speculation, river, swamp, and forest legislation, and
public-health regulation. At the present moment it is especially
important that the farmer's interests be well considered in the re-
vision of the tariff. One of the particular needs is such an applica-

38 EEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

tion of the reciprocity principle as to open European markets for
our flour, meats, and live cattle. One of the great economic problems
of our agriculture is how to feed the corn crop and other grains
profitably, for it must be fed if the fertility of the land is to be
maintained ; to dispose of the crop profitably requires the best mar-
kets that can be secured.

2. HIGHWAYS.

The demand for good highways is general among the farmers of
the entire United States. Education and good roads are the two
needs most frequently mentioned in the hearings. Highways that
are usable at all times of the year are now imperative not only for
the marketing of produce, but for the elevation of the social and
intellectual status of the open country and the improvement of health
by insuring better medical and surgical attendance.

The advantages are so well understood that arguments for better
roads are not necessary here. Our respondents are now concerned
largely with the methods of organizing and financing the work.
With only unimportant exceptions, the farmers who have expressed
themselves to us on this question consider that the Federal Govern-
ment is fairly under obligation to aid in the work.

We hold that the development of a fully serviceable highway sys-
tem is a matter of national concern, coordinate with the development
of waterways and the conservation of our native resources. It is
absolutely essential to our internal development. The first thing nec-
essary is to provide expert supervision and direction and to develop
a national plan. All the work should be cooperative between the
Federal Government and the States. The question of federal appro-
priation for highway work in the States may well be held in abey-
ance until a national service is provided and tested. We suggest
that the United States Government establish a highway engineering
service, or equivalent organization, to be at the call of the States in
working out effective and economical highway systems.

8. SOIL DEPL'ETION AND ITS EFFECTS.

A condition calling for serious comment is the lessening productive-
ness of the land. Our farming has been largely exploitational, con-
sisting of mining the virgin fertility. On the better lands this primi-
tive system of land exploitation may last for two generations with-
out results pernicious to society, but on the poorer lands the limit of
satisfactory living conditions may be reached in less than one gen-
eration.

The social condition of any agricultural community is closely re-
lated to the available fertility of the soil. " Poor land, poor people,"

EEPOET OF THE COTJNTET LIFE COMMISSION. 39

and " rough land, rough people " have long since passed into prov-
erbs. Rich land well farmed does not necessarily mean high ideals
or good society. It may mean land greed and dollar worship; but,
on the other hand, high ideals can not be realized without at least a
fair degree of prosperity, and this can not be secured without the
maintenance of fertility.

When the land begins to yield with difficulty the farmer may move
to new land, develop a system of self-sustaining agriculture (becom-
ing thereby a real farmer), or be driven into poverty and degrada-
tion. The first of these results has been marked for many years, but
it is now greatly checked because most of the available lands have been
occupied. The second result — ^the evolution of a really scientific and
self -perpetuating agriculture — is beginning to appear here and there,
mostly in the long-settled regions. The drift to poverty and degra-
dation is pronounced in many parts qf the country. In every region
a certain class of the population is forced to the poor lands, becoming
a handicap to the community and constituting a very difficult social
problem.

There are two great classes of farmers — ^those who make farming
a real and active constructive business, as much as the successful
manufacturer or merchant makes his effort a business; and those
who merely passively live on the land, often because they can not
do anything else, and by dint of hard work and the strictest economy
manage to subsist. Each class has its difficulties. The problems
of the former class are largely those arising from the man's relation
to the whole at large. The farmer of the latter class is not only
powerless as against trade in general, but is also more or less help-
less in his own farming problems. In applying corrective meas-
ures, we must recognize these two classes of persons.

When no change of system has followed the depletion of the virgin
fertility, the saddest results have followed. The former owners
have often lost the land, and a system of tenantry farming has grad-
ually developed." This is marked in all regions that are dominated
by a one-crop system of agriculture. In parts of the Southern
States this loss of available fertility is specially noticeable, particu-
larly where cotton is the main if not the only crop. In some parts
of the country this condition and the social results are pathetic,
and particularly where the farmers, whether white or black, by
reason of poverty and lack of credit and want of experience in
other kinds of farming, are compelled to continue to grow cotton.
Large numbers of southern farmers are still obliged to mortgage
their unplanted crop to secure the means of living while it is grow-
ing; and, as a matter of course, they pay exorbitant prices for the
barest necessities of life. The only security that the man can give,
either to the banker or the merchant, is cotton, and this forces the

40 KEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

continued cultivation of a crop that decreases the soil fertility in a
country of open winters where the waste by erosion is necessarily at
the maximum. The tenants have little interest in the land, and
move from year to year in the vain hope of better luck. The average
income of the tenant-farmer family growing cotton is about $150
a year; and the family usually does not raise its poultry, meat,
fruit, vegetables, or breadstuffs. The landlords in large sections
are little better off than the tenants. The price of the product is
manipulated by speculators. The tenant farmer^ and -even the
landlord, is preyed upon by other interests, and is practically power-
less. The effect of the social stratification into landlord, tenant,
and money-lending merchant still further complicates a situation
that in some regions is desperate and that demands vigorous treat-
ment.

The recent years of good prices for cotton have enabled many
farmers to get out of debt and to be able to handle their own business.
These farmers are then free to begin a new system of husbandry.
The problems still remain, however, of how to help the man who is
still in bondage.

While these conditions are specially marked in the cotton-growing
States, they are arising in all regions of a single-crop system, except,
perhaps, in the case of fruit regions and vegetable regions. They
are beginning to appear in the exclusive wheat regions, where the
yields are constantly growing less and where the social life is usually
monotonous and barren. The hay-selling system of many parts of
the Northeastern States presents similar results, as does also the ex-
clusive corn growing for the general market when stock raising is
not a part of the business.

The loss of fertility in the Northern States is less rapid because of
the climatic conditions that arrest the winter waste ; fewer landlords,
and these for the most part retired farmers who live near their farms
and largely control the methods of cultivating the land ; and a differ-
ent kind of agriculture and a different social structure. It is, however,
serious enough even in the Northern States, and especially in the Mis-
sissippi Valley, particularly when lands are held as an investment by
capitalists who know nothing about farming and care only for annual
returns, and also when held by speculators in the hope of harvesting
the unearned increment, which has been, large of late years, due prob-
ably to some world-wide cause which it is beyond our province to dis-
cuss. In any case, whether North or South, it has become a matter
of very serious concern, whether farmers are to continue to dominate
and direct the policy of the people as they do now in large part in
the more prosperous agricultural sections, or whether because of soil
deterioration they shall become a dependent class or shall be tenants
in name but laborers in fact and working for an uncertain wage.

REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 41

Fortunately, there is abundant evidence on every hand, both North
and South, that the fertility of the soil can be maintained, or where
it has been greatly decreased can be restored at least approximately to
its virgin fertility. The hope of the future lies in the work of the
public institutions that are devoted to the new agriculture. The
United States Department of Agriculture, experiment stations, col-
leges of agriculture, and other agencies are making great progress
in correcting these and other deficiencies, and these institutions de-
serve the sympathetic support of all the people. The demonstration
work of the Department of Agriculture in the Southern States is a
marked example of the good that can be done by teaching the people
how to diversify their farming and to redeem themselves from the
bondage of an hereditary system. Similar work is needed in many
parts of the United States, and it is already under way, in various
forms, under the leadership of the land-grant institutions.

The great agricultural need of the open country is a system of
diversified and rotation farming, carefully adapted in every case to
the particular region. Such systems conserve the resources of the
land and develop diversified and active institutions. Nor is this
wastage of soil resources peculiar to one-crop systems, although it is
more marked in such cases. It is a general feature of our agriculture,
due to a lack of appreciation of our responsibility to society to protect
and save the land. Although we have reason to be proud of our
agricultural achievements, we must not close our eyes to the fact
that our soil resources are still being lost through poor farming.

This lessening of soil fertility is marked in every part of the United
States, even in the richest lands of the prairies. It marks the pioneer
stage of land usage. It has now become an acute national danger^
and the economic, social, and political problems arising out of it must
at once receive the best attention of statesmen. The attention that
has been given to these questions is wholly inadequate to the urgency
of the dangers involved.

4. AGRICULTURAL LABOR.

There is a general, but not a universal, complaint of scarcity of
farm labor. This scarcity is not an agricultural difficulty alone, but
one phase for expression of the general labor-supply problem.

So long as the United States continues to be a true democracy it
will have a serious labor problem. As a democracy, we honor labor,
and the higher the efficiency of the labor the greater the honor. The
laborer if he has the ambition to be an efiicient agent in the develop-
ment of the country, will be anxious to advance from the lower to the
higher forms of effort, and from being a laborer himself he becomes
a director of labor. If he has nothing but his hands and brains, he
aims to accumulate sufficient capital to become a tenant, and event-

42 REPORT OF THE COTJNTBy LIFE COMMISSION.

ually to become the owner, of a farm home. A large number of our
immigrants share with the native-born citizeii this laudable ambition.
Therefore there is a constant decrease of efficient farm labor by these
upward movements.

At the same time, there is a receding column of farm owners who,
through bad management, have become farm tenants, and who from
farm tenants may become farm laborers. While the percentage of
this class is small, there are, nevertheless, some who fail to make good,
and if they are tenants farm for a living rather than as a business,
and if laborers become watchers of the sun rather than efficient
workers.

(O) STATEMENT OP THE GESTEBAL EABM PEOBLEM.

The farm labor problem, however, is complicated by several special
conditions, such as the fact that the need for labor is not continuous,
the lack of conveniences of living for the laborer, long hours, the want
■of companionship, and in some places the apparently low wages.
Because of these conditions the necessary drift of workmen is from
the open country to the town. On the part of the employer the prob-
lem is complicated by the difficulty of securing labor, even at the
relatively high prices now prevailing, that is competent to handle
modern farm machinery and to care for live stock and to handle
the special work of the improved dairy. It is further complicated
in all parts of the country by the competition of railroads, mines, and
factories, which, by reason of shorter hours, apparently higher pay,
and the opportunities for social diversion and often of dissipation,
Attract the native farm hand to the towns and cities.

The difficulty of. securing good labor is so great in many parts of
the country that farmers are driven to dispose of their farms, leaving
their land to be worked on shares by more or less irresponsible ten-
;ants, or selling them outright, often to foreigners. All absentee and
proxy farming (which seems to be increasing) creates serious social
problems in the regions thus affected. There is not sufficinet good
labor available in the country to enable us to farm our lands under
present systems of agriculture and to develop our institutions effect-
ively. Our native labor supply could be much increased by such
hygienic measures as would lessen the unnecessary death rate among
country children and insure better health, to workmen.

So long as the labor supply is not equal to the demand the country
can not compete with the town in securing labor. The country must
meet the essential conditions offered by the town or change the kind
of farming.

The most marked reaction to the labor difficulty is the change in
modes of farm management, whereby farming is slowly adapting
itself to thp situation. In some cases this change is in the nature of

EEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 43

more intensive and busineslike methods whereby the farmer becomes
able to secure a better class of labor and to employ it more contin-
uously. More frequently, however, the change is in the nature of a
simplification of the business and a less full and active farm life. In
the sod regions of the Northeast the tendency is toward a simple or
even a primitive nature farming, with the maximum of grazing and
meadow and the minimum of hand labor. In many States the more
difficult lands are being given up and machinery farming is extend-
ing. This results in an unequal development of the country as a
whole, with a marked shift in the social equilibrium. The only real
solution of the present labor problem must lie in improved methods
of farming. These improvements will be forced by the inevitable
depletion of soil fertility under any and all one-crop systems in every
part of the country, and realized by the adoption on the part of in-
telligent, progressive farmers of a rotation of crops and a system of
husbandry that will enable them to employ their labor by the year and
thereby secure a higher type of workman by providing him a home
with all its appurtenances. The development of local industries will
also contribute to the solution of the problem.

The excessive hours of labor on farms must be shortened. This will
come through the working out of the better farm scheme just men-
tioned and substituting planning for some of the muscular work.
Already in certain regions of well-systematized diversified farming
the average hours of labor are less than ten.

There is a growing tendency to rely on foreigners for the farm
labor supply, although the sentiment is very strong in some regions
against immigration. It is the general testimony that the native
American labor is less efficient and less reliable than much of the
foreign labor. This is due to the fact that the American is less
pressed by the dire necessity to labor and to save, and because the
better class of laborers is constantly passing on to land ownership
on their own account. Because of their great industry and thrift cer-
tain foreigners are gradually taking possession of the land in some
regions, and it seems to be only a question of time until they will
drive out the native stock in those regions.

The most difficult rural labor problem is that of securing house-
hold help on the average farm. The larger the farm the more
serious the problem becomes. The necessity of giving a suitable
education to her children deprives the farm woman largely of home
help ; while the lure of the city, with its social diversions, more reg-
ular hours of labor, and its supposed higher respectability, deprives
her of help bred and born in the country. Under these circum-
stances she is compelled to provide the food that requires the least
labor. This simple fact explains much of the lack of variety, in the

44 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSIOlir.

midst of the greatest possible abundance, so often complained of on
the farmer's table. The development of the creamery system over
large sections of the country has relieved the farmer's wife of a
heavy burden. This gives the hint for further improvement. The
community laundering and other work could be done in an estab-
lishment connected with the creamery. Labor-saving appliances in
the future will greatly lighten the burdens of those who are willing
to use them. With the teaching of home subjects in the schools,
household labor will again become respectable as well as easier and
more interesting.

There is widespread conviction that the farmer must give greater
attention to providing good quarters to laborers and to protect them
from discouragement and from the saloon. The shortage of labor
seems to be the least miarked where the laborer is best cared for. It
is certain that farming itself must be so modified and organized as
to meet the labor problem at least halfway. While all farmers feel
the shortage of help, the commission has found that the best farmers
usually complain least about the labor difficulty.

(&) THE QUESTION OP INTEMPBBANCB.

The liquor question has been emphasized to the commission in all
parts of the country as complicating the labor question. It seems to
be regarded as a burning country life problem. Intemperance is
largely the result of the barrenness of farm life, particularly of the
lot of the hired man. The commission has made no inquiry into
intemperance as such, but it is impressed, from the testimony that
has accumulated, that drunkenness is often a very serious menace to
country life, and that the saloon is an institution that must be ban-
ished from at least all country districts and rural towns if our agri-
cultural interests are to develop to the extent to which they are
capable. The evil is specially damning in the South, because it seri-
ously complicates the race problem. Certain States have recently
adopted prohibitory regulations, but liquor is shipped into dry terri-
tory from adjoining regions, and the evil is thereby often increased.
Dry territories must rouse themselves to self-preservation in the face
of this grave danger, and legislation must be enacted that will pro-
tect them. When a State goes dry, it should be allowed to keep dry.

There is most urgent need for a quickened public sentiment on this
whole question of intoxication in rural communities in order to
relieve country life of one of its most threatening handicaps. At
the same time it is incumbent on every person to exert his best effort
to provide the open country with such intellectual and social interests
as will lesson the appeal and attractiveness of the saloon.

EBPOBT OP THE COUNTBT LIFE COMMISSION. 45

(C) DEVELOPING THE LOCAL ATTACHMENTS OF THE FABM LABOEBB.

The best labor, other things being equal, is resident labor. Such
reorganization of agriculture must take place as will tend more and
more to employ the man the year round and to tie him to the land.
The employer bears a distinct responsibility to the laborer, and also
to society, to house him well and to help him to contribute his part
to the community welfare.

Eventually some kind of school or training facilities must be pro-
vided for the farm laborer to cause him to develop skill and to in-
terest him intellectually in his work.

Some kind of simple saving institution should also be developed
in order to encourage thrift on the part of the laborer. It would be
well, also, to study systems of life insurance in reference to farm
workmen. The establishment of postal savings banks should con-
tribute toward greater stability of farm labor.

The development of various kinds of cooperative buying and selling
associations might be expected to train workmen in habits of thrift,
if the men were encouraged to join them.

B. HEALTH IN THE OPEN COUNTRY.

Theoretically the farm should be the most healthful place in which
to live, and there are numberless farm-houses, especially of the farm-
owner class, that possess most excellent modern sanitary conven-
iences. Still it is a fact that there are also numberless other farm-
houses, especially of the tenant class, and even numerous rural school-
houses, that do not have the rudiments of sanitary arrangement.
Health conditions in many parts of the open country, therefore, are
in urgent need of betterment. There are many questions of nation-
wide importance, such as soil, milk, and water pollution; too much
visiting in case of contagious diseases ; patent medicines, advertising
quacks, and intemperance ; feeding of offal to animals at local slaugh-
terhouses and general insanitary conditions of those houses not
under federal or other rigid sanitary control; in some regions un-
wholesome and poorly prepared and monotonous diet ; lack of recrea-
tion ; too long hours of work.

Added to these and other conditions, are important regional ques-
tions, such as the extensive spread of the hook-worm disease in the
large Gulf-Atlantic States, the prevalence of typhoid fever and
malaria, and other difficulties due to neglect in the localities.

In general, the rural population is less safeguarded by boards of
health than is the urban population. The physicians are farther
apart and are called in later in case of sickness, and in some districts
medical attendance is relatively more expensive. The necessity for
diisease prevention is therefore self-evident, and it becomes even more

46 REPORT OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

emphatic when we recall that infection may be spread from farms
to cities in the streams and also in the milk, meat, and other farm
products. Quite aside from the humanitarian point of view, the
aggregate annual loss to the nation from insanitary conditions on
the farms must, when expressed in money values, reach an enormous
sum, and a betterment of these conditions is a nation-wide obligation.

There is great need for the teaching of the simplest and com-
monest laws of hygiene and sanitation in all the schools. The people
need knowledge, and no traditions should prevent them from having
it. How and what to eat, the nature of disease, the importance of
fresh air, the necessity of physical training even on the farm, the
ineffectiveness or even the danger of nostrums, the physical evils of
intemperance, all should be known in some useful degree to every
boy and girl on leaving school.

Some of the most helpful work in improving rural sanitary con-
ditions and in relieving suffering is now proceeding from women's
organizations. This work should be encouraged in every way. We
especially commend the suggestion that such organizations, and other
interests, provide visiting nurses for rural communities when they
are needed.

We find urgent need for better supervision of public health in
rural communities on the part of States and localities. The control
is now likely to be exercised only when some alarming condition pre-
vails. We think that the Federal Government should be given the
right to send its health officers into the various States on request of
these States, at any time, for the purpose of investigating and con-
trolling public health; it does not now have this right except at
quarantine stations, although it may attend to diseases of domestic
animals. It should also engage in publicity work on this subject

6. WOMAN'S WORK ON THE) FARM.

Realizing that the success of country life depends in very large
degree on the woman's part, the commission has made special effort
to ascertain the condition of women on the farm. Often this con-
dition is all that can be desired, with home duties so organized that
the labor is not excessive, with kindly cooperation on the part of
husbands and sons,^ and with household machines and conveniences
well provided. Very many farm homes in all parts of the country
are provided with books and periodicals, musical instruments, and
all the necessary amenities. There are good gardens and attractive
premises and a sympathetic love of nature and of farm life on the
part of the entire family.

On the other hand, the reverse of these conditions often obtains
sometimes because of pioneer conditions and more frequently because

EEPOBT OF THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION. 47

of lack of prosperity and of ideals. Conveniences for outdoor work
are likely to have precedence over those for household work.

The routine work of woman on the farm is to prepare three meala
a day. This regularity of duty recurs regardless of season, weather,
planting, harvesting, social demands, or any other factor. The only
differences in different seasons are those of degree rather than of
kind. It follows, therefore, that whatever general hardships, such as
poverty, isolation, lack of labor-saving devices, may exist on any
given farm, the burden of these hardships falls more heavily on the
farmer's wife than on the farmer himself. In general, her life is
more monotonous and the. more isolated, no matter what the wealth or
the poverty of the family may be.

The relief to farm women must come through a general elevation
of country living. The women must have more help. In particular
these matters may be mentioned : Development of a cooperative spirit
in the home, simplification of the diet in many cases, the building of
convenient and sanitary houses, providing running water in the
house and also more mechanical help, good and convenient gardens,
a less exclusive ideal of money getting on the part of the farmer, pro-
viding better means of communication, as telephones, roads, and read-
ing circles, and developing of women's organizations. These and
other agencies should relieve the woman of many of her manual bur-
dens on the one hand and interest her in outside activities on the
other. The farm woman should have sufficient free time and strength
so that she may serve the community by participating in its vital
affairs.

We have found good women's organizations in some country dis-
tricts, but as a rule such organizations are few or even none, or where
they exist they merely radiate from towns. Some of the stronger
central organizations are now pushing the country phase of their
work with vigor. Mothers' clubs, reading clubs, church societies,
home economics organizations, farmers' institutes, and other associa-
tions can accomplish much for farm women. Some of the regular
farmers' organizations are now giving much attention to domestic
subjects, and women participate freely in the meetings. There is
much need among country women themselves of a stronger organiz-
ing sense for real cooperative betterment. It is important also that
all rural organizations that are attended chiefly by men should dis-
cuss the home-making subjects, for the whole difficulty often lies with
the attitude of the men.

There is the most imperative need that domestic, household, and
health questions be taught in all schools. The home may well be
made the center of rural school teaching. The school is capable of
changing the whole attitude of the home life and the part that women
should play in the development of the best country living.

48 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

HI. THE GENERAL CORRECTIVE FORCES THAT SHOULD BE SET IN

MOTION.

The ultimate need of the open country is the development of com-
munity effort and of social resources. Here and there the commission
has found a rural neighborhood in which the farmers and their wives
come together frequently and effectively for social intercourse, but
these instances seem to be infrequent exceptions. There is a general
lack of wholesome societies that are organized on a social basis. In
the region in which the Grange is strong this need is best supplied.

There is need of the greatest diversity in country-life affairs, but
there is equal need of a social cohesion operating among all these
affairs and tying them all together. This life must be developed, as
we have said, directly from native or resident forces. It is neither
necessary nor desirable that an exclusive hamlet system be brought
about in order to secure these ends. The problem before the commis-
sion is to suggest means whereby this development may be directed
and hastened directly from the land.

The social disorder is usually unrecognized. If only the farms
are financially profitable, the rural condition is commonly pronounced
good. Country life must be made thoroughly attractive and satis-
fying, as well as remunerative and able to hold the center of interest
throughout one's lifetime. With most persons this can come only
with the development of a strong community sense of feeling. The
first condition of a good country life, of course, is good and profit-
able farming. The farmer must be enabled to live comfortably.
Much attention has been given to better farming, and the progress
of a generation has been marked. Small manufacture and better
handicrafts need now to receive attention, for the open country
needs new industries and new interests. The schools must help to
bring these things about.

The economic and industrial questions are, of course, of prime im-
portance, and we have dealt with them ; but they must all be studied
in their relations to the kind of life that should ultimately be estab-
lished in rural communities. The commission will fail of its pur-
pose if it confines itself merely to providing remedies or correctives
for the present and apparent troubles of the farmer, however urgent
and important these troubles may be. All these matters must be
conceived of as incidents or parts in a large constructive programme.
We must begin a campaign for rural progress.

To this end local government must be developed to its highest
point of efficiency, and all agencies that are capable of furthering
a better country life must be federated. It will be necessary to set
the resident forces in motion by means of outside agencies, or at least
to direct them, if we are to secure the best results. It is specially

BEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 49

necessary to develop the cooperative spirit, whereby all people partici-
pate and all become partakers.

The cohesion that is so marked among the different classes of farm
folk in older countries can not be reasonably expected at this period
in American development, nor is it desirable that a stratified
society should be developed in this country. We have here no rem-
nants of a feudal system, fortunately no system of entail, and no
clearly drawn distinction between agricultural and other classes.
We are as yet a new country with undeveloped resources, many far-
away pastures which, as is well known, are always green and invit-
ing. Our farmers have been moving, and numbers of them have not
yet become so well settled as to speak habitually of their farm as
"home." We have farmers from every European nation and with
every phase of religious belief often grouped in large communities,
naturally drawn together by a common language and a common
faith, and yielding but slowly to the dominating and controlling
forces of American farm life. Even where there was once social
organization, as in the New England town (or township) , the compe-
tition of the newly settled West and the wonderful development of
urban civilization have disintegrated it. The middle-aged farmer
of the Central States sells the old homestead without much hesita-
tion or regret and moves westward to find a greater acreage for his
sons and daughters. The farmer of the Middle West sells the old
home and moves to the Mountain States, to the Pacific coast, to the
South, to Mexico, or to Canada.

Even when permanently settled, the farmer does not easily com-
bine with others for financial or social betterment. The training
of generations has made him a strong individualist, and he has been
obliged to rely mainly on himself. Self-reliance being the essence
of his nature, he does not at once feel the need of cooperation for
business purposes or of close association for social objects. In the
main, he has been prosperous, and has not felt the need of coopera-
tion. If he is a strong man, he prefers to depend on his own ability.
If he is ambitious for social recognition, he usually prefers the
society of the town to that of the country. If he wishes to educate
his children, he avails himself of the schools of the city. He does
not as a rule dream of a rural organization that can supply as com-
pletely as the city the four great requirements of man— health,
education, occupation, society. While his brother in the city is
striving by moving out of the business section into the suburbs to
get as much as possible of the country in the city, he does not dream
that it is possible to have most that is best of the city in the country.

The time has come when we must give as much attention to the
constructive development of the open country as we have given to
S. Doc. 705, 60-2 i

60 KEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

other affairs. This is necessary not only in the interest of the open
country itself, but for the safety and progress of the nation.

It is impossible, of course, to suggest remedies for all the short-
comings of country life. The mere statement of the conditions, as
we find them, ought of itself to challenge attention to the needs.
We hope that this report of the commission will accelerate all the
movements that are now in operation for the betterment of country
life. Many of these movements are beyond the reach of legislation.
The most important thing for the commission to do is to apprehend
the problem and to state the conditions.

The philosophy of the situation requires that the disadvantages
and handicaps that are not a natural part of the farmer's business
shall be removed, and that such forces shall be encouraged and set
in motion as will stimulate and direct local initiative and leadership.

The situation calls for concerted action. It must be aroused and
energized. The remedies are of many kinds, and they must come
slowly. "We need a redirection of thought to bring about a new
atmosphere, and a new social and intellectual contact with life. This
means that the habits of the people must change. The change will
come gradually, of course, as a result of new leadership; and the
situation must develop its own leaders.

Care must be taken in all the reconstructive work to see that local
initiative is relied on to the fullest extent, and that federal and even
state agencies do not perform what might be done by the people
in the communities. The centralized agencies should be stimulative
and directive, rather than mandatory and formal. Every effort must
be made to develop native resources, not only of material things, but
also of people.

It is necessary to be careful, also, not to copy too closely the recon-
structive methods that have been so successful in Europe. Our con-
ditions and problems differ widely from theirs. We have no his-
torical, social peasantry, a much less centralized form of govern-
ment, unlike systems of land occupancy, wholly different farming
schemes, and different economic and social systems. Our country
necessities are peculiarly American.

The correctives for the social sterility of the open country are
already in existence or under way, but these agencies all need to be
strengthened and especially to be coordinated and federated ; and the
problem needs to be recognized by all the people. The regular agri-
cultural departments and institutions are aiding in making farming
profitable and attractive, and they are also giving attention to the
social and community questions. There is a widespread awakening,
as a result of this work. This awakening is greatly aided by the
rural free delivery of mails, telephones, the gradual improvement of

EEPOBT OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 51

highways, farmers' institutes, cooperative creameries and similar
organizations, and other agencies.

The good institutions of cities may often be applied or extended
to the open country. It appears that the social evils are in many
cases no greater in cities in proportion to the number of people than
in country districts; and the very concentration of numbers draws
attention to the evils in cities and leads to earlier application of reme-
dies. Recently much attention has been directed, for example, to the
subject of juvenile crime, and the probation system in place of jail
sentences for young offenders is being put into operation in many
places. Petty crime and immorality are certainly not lacking in
rural districts, and it would seem that there is a place for the exten-
sion of the probation system to towns and villages.

Aside from the regular churches, schools, and agricultural socie-
ties, there are special organizations that are now extending their
work to the open country, and others that could readily be adapted
to country work. One of the most promising of these newer agencies
is the rural library that is interested in its community. The libraries
are increasing, and they are developing a greater sense of responsi-
bility to the community, not only stimulating the reading habit and
directing it, but becoming social centers for the neighborhood. A
library, if provided with suitable rooms, can afford a convenient
meeting place for many kinds of activities and thereby serve as a
coordinating influence. Study clubs and traveling libraries may
become parts of it. This may mean that the library will need itselJ
to be redirected so that it will become an active rather than a passive
agency ; it must be much more than a collection of books.

Another new agency is the county work of the Young Men's
Christian Association, which, by placing in each county a field secre-
tary, is seeking to promote the solidarity and effectiveness of rural
social life, and to extend the larger influence of the country church.
The commission has met the representatives of this county work at
the hearings, and is impressed with the purpose of the movement to
act as a coordinating agency in rural life.

The organizations in cities and towns that are now beginning to
agitate the development of better play, recreation, and entertain-
ment offer a suggestion for country districts. It is important th^t
recreation be made a feature of country life, but we consider it to bja
important that this recreation, games and entertainment, be devel-
oped as far as possible from native sources rather than to be trans-
planted as a kind of theatricals from exotic sources.

Other organizations that are helping the country social life, or that
might be made to help it, are women's clubs, musical clubs, reading
dubs, athletic and playground associations, historical and literary

62 KEPOBT OF THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION.

societies, local business men's organizations and chambers of com-
merce, all genuinely cooperative business societies, civic and village
improvement societies, local political organizations, granges and
other fraternal organizations, and all groups that associate with the
church and school.

There is every indication, therefore, that the social life of the open
country is in process of improvement, although the progress at the
present moment has not been great. The leaders need to be encour- '
aged by an awakened public sentiment, and all the forces should be
so related to each other as to increase their total effectiveness while
not interfering with the autonomy of any of them.

The proper correctives of the underlying structural deficiencies of
the open country are knowledge, education, cooperative organiza-
tions, and personal leadership. These we may now discuss in more
detail.

7. NEED OF AGRICULTURAL OB COUNTRY LIFE SURVEYS.

The time has now come when we should know in detail what our
agricultural resources are. We have long been engaged in making
geological surveys, largely with a view to locating our mineral
wealth. The country has been explored and mapped. The main
native resources have been located in a general way. We must now
know what are the capabilities of every agricultural locality, for
agriculture is the basis of our prosperity and farming is always a
local business. We can not make the best and most permanent prog-
ress in the developing of a good country life until we have com-
pleted a very careful inventory of the entire country.

This inventory or census should take into account the detailed
topography and soil conditions of the localities, the local climate, the
whole character of streams and forests, the agricultural products,
the cropping systems now in practice, the conditions of highways,
markets, facilities in the way of transportation and communication,
the institutions and organizations, the adaptability of the neighbor-
hood to the establishment of handicrafts and local industries, the
general economic and social status of the people and the character of
the people themselves, natural attractions and disadvantages, his-
torical data, and a collation of community experience. This would
result in the collection of local fact, on which we could proceed to
build a scientifically and economically sound country life.

Beginnings have been made in several States in the collection of
these geographical facts, mostly in connection with the land-grant
colleges. The United States Department of Agriculture is begin-
ning by means of Soil surveys, study of farm management, and
other investigations, and its demonstration work in the Southern
States is in part of this character. These agencies are beginning the

BEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION, 53

study of conditions in the localities themselves. It is a kind of
extension work. All these agencies are doing good work; but we
have not yet, as a people, come to an appreciation of the fact that wq
must take account of stock in detail as well as in the large. We are
working mostly around the edges of the problem and feeling of it.
The larger part of the responsibility of this work must lie with the
different States, for they should develop their internal resources.
The whole work should be coordinated, however, by federal agencies
acting with the States, and some of the larger relations will need to
be studied directly by the Federal Government itself. We must
come to a thoroughly nationalized movement to understand what
property we have and what uses may best be made of it. This in
time will call for large appropriations by State and nation.

In estimating our natural resources we must not forget the value
of scenery. This is a distinct asset, and it will be more recognized
as time goes on. It will be impossible to develop a satisfactory coun-
try life without conserving all the beauty of landscape and develop-
ing the people to the point of appreciating it. In parts of the East
a regular system of parking the open country of the entire State is
already begun, constructing the roads, preserving the natural fea-
tures, and developing the latent beauty in such a way that the whole
country becomes part of one continuing landscape treatment. This
in no way interferes with the agricultural utilization of the land, but
rather increases it. The scenery is, in fact, capitalized, so that it
adds to the property values and contributes to local patriotism and to
the thrift of the commonwealth.

8. NEED OF A REDIRECTED EDUCATION.

The subject of paramount importance in our correspondence and
in the hearings is education. In every part of the United States
there seems to be one mind, on the part of those capable of judging,
on the necessity of redirecting the rural schools. There is no such
unanimity on any other subject. It is remarkable with what simi-
larity of phrase the subject has been discussed in all parts of the
country before the commission. Everywhere there is a demand that
education have relation to living, that the schools should express the
daily life, and that in the rural districts they should educate by
means of agriculture and country life subjects. It is recognized
that all difficulties resolve themselves in the end into a question of
education.

The schools are held to be largely responsible for ineffective farm-
ing, lack of ideals, and the drift to town. This is not because the
rural schools, as a whole, are declining, but because they are in a state
of arrested development and have not yet put themselves in con-

54 REPOBT OF THE COUNTKY LIFE COMMISSION.

sonance with all the recently changed conditions of life. The very
forces that have built up the city and town school have caused the
neglect of the country school. It is probable that the farming popu-
lation will willingly support better schools as soon as it becomes
convinced that the schools will really be changed in such a way as to
teach persons how to live.

The country communities are in need of social centers — places
where persons may naturally meet, and where a real neighborhood
interest exists. There is difference of opinion as to where this
center should be, some persons thinking it should be in the town
or village, others the library, others the church or scho.ol or grange
hall. It is probable that more than one social center should develop
in large and prosperous communities. Inasmuch as the school is
supported by public funds, and is therefore an institution connected
with the government of the community, it should form a natural
organic center. If the school develops such a center, it must concern
itself directly with the interests of the people. It is difficult to make
people understand what this really means, for school-teaching is
burdened with tradition. The school must express the best coopera-
tion of all social and economic forces that make for the welfare
of the community. Merely to add new studies will not meet the
need, although it may break the ground for new ideas. The school
must be fundamentally redirected, until it becomes a new kind of
institution. This will require that the teacher himself be a part of
the community and not a migratory factor.

The feeling that agriculture must color the work of rural public
schools is beginning to express itself in the interest in nature study,
in the introduction of classes in agriculture in high schools and
elsewhere, and in the establishment of separate or special schools
to teach farm and home subjects. These agencies will help to bring
about the complete reconstruction of which we have been speaking.
It is specially important that we make the most of the existing
public-school system, for it is this very system that should serve the
real needs of the people. The real needs of the people are not alone
the arts by which they make a living, but the whole range of their
customary activities. As the home is the center of our civilization,
so the home subjects should be the center of every school.

The most necessary thing now to be done for public-school educa-
tion in terms of country life is to arouse all the people to the necessity
of such education, to coordinate the forces that are beginning to
operate, and to project the work beyond the schools for youth into
continuation schools for adults. The schools musf represent and
express the community in which they stand, although, of course
they should not be confined to the community. They should teach
health and sanitation, even if it is necessary to modify the customary

EEPOET OF THE COUNTEY LIFE COMMISSION. 55

teaching of physiology. The teaching should be visual, direct, and
applicable. Of course the whole tendency of the schools will be
ethical if they teach the vital subjects truthfully; but particular
care should be taken that they stand for the morals of the pupils
and of the communities.

We find a general demand for federal encouragement in educa-
tional propaganda, to be in some way cooperative with the States.
The people realize that the incubus of ignorance and inertia is so
heavy and so widespread as to constitute a national danger, and that
it should be removed as rapidly as possible. It will be increasingly
necessary for the national and state governments to cooperate to
bring about the results that are needed in agricultural and other
industrial education.

The consideration of the educational problem raises the greatest
single question that has come before the commission, and which the
commission has to place before the American people. Education
has now come to have vastly more significance than the mere estab-
lishing and maintaining of schools. The education motive has
been taken into all kinds of work with the people, directly in their
homes and on their farms, and it reaches mature persons as well as
youths. Beyond and behind all educational work there must be
an aroused intelligent public sentiment; to make this sentiment is
the most important work immediately before us. The whole country
is alive with educational activity. While this activity may all be
good, it nevertheless needs to be directed and correlated, and all
the agencies should be more or less federated.

The arousing of the people must be accomplished in terms of
their daily lives or of their welfare. For the country people this
means that it must be largely in terms of agriculture. Some of the
colleges of agriculture are now doing this kind of work effectively
although on a pitiably small scale as compared with the needs. This
is extension work, by which is meant all kinds of educational effort
directly with the people, both old and young, at their homes and on
their farms; it comprises all educational work, that is conducted
away from the institution and for those who can not go to schools
and colleges. The best extension work now proceeding in this
country — if measured by the effort to reach the people in their homes
and on their own ground — is that coming from some of the colleges
of agriculture and the United States Department of Agriculture.
Within the last five or ten years the colleges of agriculture have
been able to attack the problem of rural life in a new way. This
extension work includes such efforts as local agricultural surveys,
demonstrations on farms, nature study, and other work in schools,
boys' and girls' clubs of many kinds, crop organizations, redirection

56 REPORT OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

of rural societies, reading ^lubs, library extension, lectures, traveling
schools, farmers' institutes, inspections of herds, barns, crops,
orchards, and farms, publications of many kinds, and similar educa-
tional effort directly in the field.

To accomplish these ends, we suggest the establishment of a
nation-wide extension work. The first, or original, work of the
agricultural branches of the land-grant colleges was academic in the
old sense ; later there was added the great field of experiment and
research; there now should be added the third coordinate branch,
comprising extension work, without which no college of agriculture
can adequately serve its State. It is to the extension department of
these colleges, if properly conducted, that we must now look for
the most effective rousing of the people on the land.

In order that all public educational work in the United States may
be adequately studied and guided, we also recommend that the
United States Bureau of Education be enlarged and supported in
such a way that it will really represent the educational activities
of the nation, becoming a clearing house, and a collecting, distribut-
ing, and investigating organization. It is now wholly inadequate to
accomplish these ends. In a country in which education is said to
be the national religion, this condition of our one expressly federal
educational agency is pathetic. The good use already made of the
small appropriations provided for the bureau shows clearly that it
can render a most important service if sufficient funds are made avail-
able for its use.

9. NECESSITY OF WORKING TOGETHER.

It is of the greatest consequence that the people of the open country
should learn to work together, not only for the purpose of forward-
ing their economic interests and of competing with other men who
are organized, but also to develop themselves and to establish an
effective community spirit. This effort should be a genuinely cooper-
ative or common effort in which all the associated persons have a voice
in the management • of the organization and share proportionately
in its benefits. Many of the so-called " cooperative " organizations are
really not such, for they are likely to be controlled in the interest
of a few persons rather than for all and with no thought of the good
of the community at large. Some of the societies that are cooperative
in name are really strong centralized corporations or stock com-
panies that have no greater interest in the welfare of the patrons than
other corporations have.

At present the cooperative spirit works itself out chiefly in busi-
ness organizations devoted to selling and buying. So far as possible
these business organizations should have more or less social uses • but

REPORT OP THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 57

even if the organizations can not be so used, the growth of the coop-
erative spirit should of itself have great social value, and it should
give the hint for other cooperating groups. There is great need of
associations in which persons cooperate directly for social results.
The primary cooperation is social and should arise in the home, her
tween all members of the family.

The associations that have an educational purpose are very numer-
ous, such as the common agricultural societies and clubs devoted to
stock raising, fruit growing, grain growing, poultry keeping, flori-
culture, bee culture, and the like, mostly following the lines of occu-
pation. These are scarcely truly cooperative, since they usually do
not effect a real organization to accomplish a definite end, and they
may meet only once or twice a year ; they hold conventions, but usu-
ally do not maintain a continuous activity. These societies are of the
greatest benefit, however, and they have distinct social value. No
doubt a great many of them could be so reorganized or developed as
to operate continuously throughout the year and become truly coop-
erative in effort, thereby greatly increasing their influence and im-
portance.

A few great farmers' organizations have included in their declara-
tions of purposes the whole field of social, educational, and economic
work. Of such, of national scope, are Patrons of Husbandry and
the Farmers' Union. These and similar large societies are effective in
proportion as they maintain local branches that work toward specific
ends in their communities.

While there are very many excellent agricultural cooperative or-
ganizations of many kinds, the farmers nearly everywhere complain
that there is still a great dearth of association that really helps them
in buying and selling and developing their communities. Naturally
the effective cooperative groups are in the most highly developed com-
munities ; the general farmer is yet insufficiently helped by the socie-
ties. The need is not so much for a greater number of societies as
for a more complete organization within them and for a more con-
tinuous active work.

Farmers seem to be increasingly feeling the pressure of the organ-
ized interests that sell to them and buy from them. They complain
of business understandings or agreements between all dealers, from
the wholesaler and jobber to the remote country merchants, that pre-
vent farmers and their organizations from doing an independent
business.

The greatest pressure on the farmer is felt in regions of undi-
versified one-crop farming. Under such conditions he is subject to
great risk of crop failure ; his land is soon reduced in productiveness ;
he usually does not raise his home supplies, and is therefore depend-

58 REPORT OF THE COtTNTKY LIFE COMMISSION.

ent on the store for his living, and his crop, being a staple and pro-
duced in enormous quantities, is subject to world prices and to specu-
lation, so that he has no personal market. In the exclusive cotton
and wheat regions the hardships of the farmer and the monotony of
rural life are usually very marked. Similar conditions are likely to
obtain in large-area stock ranging, hay raising, tobacco growing, and
the like. In such regions great discontent is likely to prevail and
economic heresies to breed. The remedy is diversification in farming
on one hand and organization on the other.

The commission has found many organizations that seem to be
satisfactorily handling the transporting, distributing, and market-
ing of farm products. They are often incorporated stock companies,
in which the cooperators have the spur of money investment to hold
them to their mutual obligations. In nearly all cases the most suc-
cessful organizations are in regions that are strongly dominated by
similar products, as fruit, dairy, grain, or live stock.

Two principles may be applied in these business societies: In one
class the organization is in the nature of a combination, and attempts
to establish prices and perhaps to control the production ; in the other
class the organization seeks its results by studying and understanding
the natural laws of trade and taking advantage of conditions and reg-
ulating such evils as may arise, in the same spirit as a merchant
studies them, or as a good farmer understands the natural laws of
fertility.

With some crops, notably cotton and the grains, it is advantageous
to provide cooperative warehouses in which the grower may hold his
products till prices rise, and also in which scientific systems of grad-
ing of the products may be introduced. In certaii^ fruit regions
community packing houses have proved to be of the greatest benefit.
In the meantime the cotton or grain in the warehouse becomes, for
business purposes, practically as good as cash (subject to charge for
insurance) in the form of negotiable warehouse receipts. This form
of handling products is now coming to be well understood, and, com-
bined with good systems of farming, it is capable of producing most
satisfactory results.

Organized effort must come as the voluntary expression of the peo-
ple; but it is essential that every State should enact laws that will
stimulate and facilitate the organization of such cooperative associa-
tions, care being taken that the working of the laws be not cumber-
some. These laws should provide the associations with every legal
facility for the transaction of the business in which they are to en-
gage. They are as important to the State as other organizations of
capital and should be fostered with as much care, and their members
and patrons be adequately safeguarded. It is especially important
that these organizations be granted all the powers and advantages

EEPOET OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 59

given to corporations or other aggregations of capital, to the end that
they may meet these corporations on equal legal ground when it is
necessary to compete with them. Such laws should not only protect
the cooperative societies but should provide means that will allow
the societies to regulate themselves, so that they may be safeguarded
from becoming merely commercial organizations through the pur-
chase or control of the stock by dealers in the products that they
handle. It is not unlikely that federal laws may also be needed to
encourage cooperation.

Organized associative effort may take on special forms. It is prob-
able, for example, that cooperation to secure and to employ farm labor
would be helpful. It may have for its object the securing of tele-
phone service (which is already contributing much to country life,
and is capable of contributing much more), the extension of electric
lines, the improvement of highways, and other forms of betterment.
Particular temporary needs of the neighborhood may' be met by com-
bined effort, and this may be made the beginning of a broader per-
manent organization.

A method' of cooperative credit would undoubtedly prove of great
service. In other countries credit associations loan money to their
members on easy terms and for long enough time to cover the mak-
ing of a crop, demanding security not on the property of the bor-
rower but on the moral warranty of his character and industry. The
American farmer has needed money less, perhaps, than land workers
in some other countries, but he could be greatly benefited by a different
system of credit, particularly where the lien system is still in opera-
tion. It would be the purpose of such systems, aside from providing
loans on the best terms and with the utmost freedom consistent with
safety, to keep as much as possible of the money in circulation in the
open country where the values originate. The present banking sys- '
tems tend to take the money out of the open country and to loan it in
town or to town-centered interests. We suggest that the national-
bank examiners be instructed to determine, for a series of years, what
proportion of the loanable funds of rural banks is loaned to the
farmers in their localities, in order that data may be secured on this
question. All unnecessary drain from the open country should be '
checked, in order that the country may be allowed and encouraged to
develop itself.

It is essential that all rural organizations, both social and economic,
should develop into something like a system, or at least that all the
efforts be known and studied by central authorities. There should
be, in other words, a voluntary union of associative effort, from the
localities to the counties. States, and the nation. Manifestly, gov-
ernment in the United States can not manage the work of voluntary
rural organization. Personal initiative and a cultivated cooperative

60 EEPORT OP THE COUNTBY LIFE COMMISSION.

spirit are the very core of this kind of work; yet both State and
National Government, as suggested, might exert a powerful influence
toward the complete organization of rural affairs.

Steps should be taken whereby the United States Department of
Agriculture, the State departments of agriculture, the land-grant col-
leges and experiment stations, the United States Bureau of Education,
the normal and other schools, shall cooperate in a broad programme
for aiding country life in such a way that each institution may do its
appropriate work at the same time that it aids all the others and
contributes to the general effort to develop a new rural social life.

10. THE COUNTRY CHURCH.

This commission has no desire to give advice to the institutions of
religion nor to attempt to dictate their policies. Yet any considera-
tion of the problem of rural life that leaves out of account the func-
tion and the possibilities of the church, and of related institutions,
would be grossly inadequate. This is not only because in the last
analysis the country life problem is a moral problem, or that in the
best development of .the individual the great motives and results are
religious and spiritual, but because from the pure sociological point
of view the church is fundamentally a necessary institution in
country life. In a peculiar way the church is intimately related to
the agricultural industry. The work and the life of the farm are
closely bound together, and the institutions of the country react on
that life and on one another more intimately than they do in the
city. This gives the rural church a position of peculiar difficulty
and one of unequaled opportunity. The time has arrived when the
church must take a larger leadership, both as an institution and
through its pastors, in the social reorganization of rural life.

The great spiritual needs of the country community just at present
are higher personal and community ideals. Rural people need to
have an aspiration for the highest possible development of the com-
munity. There must be an ambition on the part of the people them-
selves constantly to progress in all of those things that make the
community life wholesome, satisfying, educative, and complete.
There must be a desire to develop a permanent environment for the
country boy and girl, of which they will become passionately fond.
As a pure matter of education, the countryman must learn to love
the country and to have an intellectual appreciation of it. More
than this, the spiritual nature of the individual must be kept
thoroughly alive. His personal ideals of conduct and ambition must
be cultivated.

Of course the church has an indispensable function as a con-
servator of morals. But from the social point of view, it is to hold

EEPOBT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION. 61

aloft the torch of personal and community idealism. It must be a
leader in the attempt to idealize country life.

The country church doubtless faces special difficulties. As a rule,
it is a small field. The country people are conservative. Ordinarily
the financial support is inadequate. Often there are too many
churches in a given community. Sectarian ideas divide unduly and
imfortunately. While there are many rural churches that are effect-
ive agents in the social evolution of their communities, it is true that
as a whole the country church needs new direction and to assume new
responsibilities. Few of the churches in the open country are pro-
vided with resident pastors. They are supplied mostly from the
neighboring towns and by a representative of some single denomina-
tion. Sometimes the pulpit is supplied by pastors of different de-
nominations in turn. Without a resident minister the church work
is likely to be confined chiefly to services once a week. In many
regions there is little personal visitation except in cases of sickness,
death, marriage, christening, or other special circumstance. The
Sunday school is sometimes continued only during the months of
settled weather. There are young people's organizations to some
extent, but they are often inactive or irregular. The social activity
of the real country church is likely to be limited to the short informal
meetings before and after services and to suppers that are held for
the purpose of raising funds. Most of the gatherings are designed
for the church people themselves rather than for the community.
The range of social influence is therefore generally restricted to the
families particularly related to the special church organization, and
there is likely to be no sense of social responsibility for the entire
community.

In the rural villages there are generally several or a number of
churches of different denominations, one or more of which are likely
to be weak. The salaries range from $400 to $1,000. Among Prot-
estants there is considerable denominational competition and conse-
quent jealousy or even conflict. United effort for cooperative activity
is likely to be perfunctory rather than sympathetic and vital. The
pastor is often overloaded with station work in neighboring commu-
nities. ^

It is not the purpose of the commission to discuss the difficulties of
the rural church at this time nor to present a solution for them, but
in the interests of rural betterment it seems proper to indicate a few
considerations that seem to be fundamental.

1. In New England and in some other parts of the North the
tremendous drawback of denominational rivalry is fairly well rec-
ognized and active measures for church federation are well under
way. This does not mean organic union- It means cooperation for

62 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

the purpose of trying to reach and influence every individual in the
community. It means that " some church is to be responsible for
every square mile." When a community is overchurched, it means
giving up the superfluous church or churches. When a church is
needed, it means a friendly agreement on the particular church to be
placed there. This movement for federation is one of the most prom-
ising in the whole religious field, because it does not attempt to break
down denominational influence or standards of thought. It puts
emphasis, not on the church itself, but on the work to be done by the
church for all men — churched and unchurched. It is possible that
all parts of the country are not quite ready for federation, although
a national church federation movement is under way. But it hardly
seems necessary to urge that the spirit of cooperation among churches,
the diminution of sectarian strife, the attempt to reach the entire
community, must become the guiding principles everywhere if the
rural church is long to retain its hold.

The rural church must be more completely than now a social center.
This means not so much a place for holding social gatherings, al-
though this is legitimate and desirable, but a place whence con-
stantly emanates influences that go to build up the moral and spirit-
ual tone of the whole community. The country church of the future
is to be held responsible for the great ideals of community life as
well as of personal character.

2. There should be a large extension of the work of the Young
Men's Christian Association into the rural communities. There is
apparently no other way to grip the hearts and lives of the boys and
young men of the average country neighborhood. This association
must regard itself as an ally of the church, with a special function
and a special field.

3, We must have a complete conception of the country pastorate.
The country pastor must be a community leader. He must know
the rural problems. He must have sympathy with rural ideals and
aspirations. He must love the country. He must know country life,
the difficulties that the farmer has to face in his business, some of the
great scientific revelations made in behalf of agriculture, the great
industrial forces at work for the making or the unmaking of the
farmer, the fundamental social problems of the life of the open
country.

Consequently, the rural pastor must have special training for hia
work. Ministerial colleges and theological seminaries should unite
with agricultural colleges in this preparation of the country clergy-
man. There should be better financial support for the clergyman.
In many country districts it is pitiably small. There is little incen-
tive for a' man to stay in a country parish, and yet this residence is
just what must come about. Perhaps it will require an appeal to the

EEPORT OF THE COt^^^TBY LIFE COMMISSION. 63

heroic young men, but we must have more men going into the coun-
try pastorates, not as a means of getting a foothold, but as a perma-
nent work. The clergyman has an excellent chance for leadership
in the country. In some sections he is still the dominating person-
ality. But everywhere he may become one of the great community
leaders. He is the key to the country church problem.

11. PERSONAL IDEALS AND LOCAL LEADERSHIP.

Everything resolves itself at the end into a question of personality.
Society or government can not do much for country life unless there
is voluntary response in the personal ideals of those who live in the
country. Inquiries by the commission, for example, find that one reason
for the shift from the country to town is the lack of ideals in many
country homes and even the desire of the countryman and his wife
that the children do not remain on the farm. The obligation to keep
as many youths on the farms as are needed there rests on the home
more than on the school or on society.

It is often said that better rural institutions and more attractive
homes and yards will necessarily follow an increase in profitableness
of farming; but, as a matter of fact, high ideals may be quite inde-
pendent of income, although they can not be realized without suffi-
cient income to provide good support. Many of the most thrifty
farmers are the least concerned about the character of the home and
school and church. One often finds the most attractive and useful
farm homes in the difficult farming regions. On the other hand,
some of the most prosperous agricultural regions possess most unat-
tractive farm premises and school buildings. Many persons who
complain most loudly about their incomes are the last to improve
their home conditions when their incomes are increased; they are
more likely to purchase additional land and thereby further empha-
size the barrenness of home life. Land hunger is naturally strongest
in the most prosperous regions.

When an entire region or industry is not financially prosperous, it
is impossible, of course, to develop the best personal and community
ideals. In the cotton-growing States, for example, the greatest social
and mental development has been apparent in the years of high
prices for cotton; and the same is true in exclusive wheat regions,
hay regions, and other large areas devoted mainly to one industry.

While it is of course necessary that the farmer receive good remu-
neration for his efforts, it is nevertheless true that the money consid-
eration is frequently too exclusively emphasized in farm homes.
This consideration often obscures every other interest, allowing little
opportunity for the development of the intellectual, social, and moral
qualities. The open country abounds in men and women of the finest
ideals ; yet it is necessary to say that other ends in life than the mak-

64 REPORT OF THE COUNTRY LIFE COMMISSION.

ing of more money and the getting of more goods are much needed in
country districts ; and that this, more than anything else, will correct
the unsatisfying nature of rural life.

Teachers of agriculture have placed too much relative emphasis
on the remuneration and production sides of country life. Money
hunger is as strong in the open country as elsewhere, and as there are
fewer opportunities and demands for the expenditure of this money
for others and for society, there often develops a hoarding and a
lack of public spirit that is disastrous to the general good. So com-
pletely does the money purpose often control the motive that other
purposes in farming often remain dormant. The complacent con-
tentment in many rural neighborhoods is itself the very evidence of
social incapacity or decay.

It must not be assumed that these deficiencies are to be charged as
a fault against the farmer as a group. They are rather to be looked
on as evidence of an uncorrelated and unadjusted society.' Society is
itself largely to blame. The social structure has been unequally
developed. The townsman is likely to assume superiority and to
develop the town in disregard of the real interests of the open coun-
try or even in opposition to them. The city exjJoits the country ; the
country does not exploit the city. The press still delights in archaic
cartoons of the farmer. There is as much need of a new attitude
on the part of the townsman as on the part of the farmer.

This leads us to say that the country ideals, while derived largely
from the country itself, should not be excltisive ; and the same applies
to city and village ideals. There should be more frequent social inter-
course on equal terms between the people of the country and those of
the city or village. This community of interests is being accom-
plished to a degree at present, but there is hardly yet the knowledge
and sympathy and actual social life that there should be between
those who live on the land and those who do not. The business men's
organizations of cities could well take the lead in some of this work.
The country town in particular has similar interests with the open
country about it ; but beyond this, all people are bettered and broad-
ened by association with those of far different environment.

We have now discussed some of the forces and agencies that will
aid in bringing about a new rural society. The development of the
best country life in the United States is seen, therefore, to be largely
a question of guidance. The exercise of a wise advice, stimulus,
and direction from some central national agency, extending over a
series of years, could accomplish untold good, not only for the open
country, but for all the people and for our institutions.

In the communities themselves, the same kind of guidance is
needed, operating in good farming, in schools, churches, societies,
and all useful public work. The great need everywhere is new and

EEPORT OF THE COUNTBY LIFE OOMMISSIOIT. 65

young leadership, and the commission desires to make an appeal to
all young men and women who love the open country to consider this
field when determining their careers. We need young people of
quality, energy, capacity, aspiration, and conviction, who will live
in the open country as permanent residents on farms, or as teachers,
or in other useful fields, and who, while developing their own business
or affairs to the greatest perfection, will still have unselfish interest
in the welfare of their commimities. The farming country is by
no means devoid of leaders, and is not lost or incapable of helping
itself, but it has been relatively overlooked by persons who are seek-
ing great fields of usefulness. It will be well for us as a people if
we recognize the opportunity for usefulness in the open country and
consider that there is a call for service.

L. H. Baecjet.

Henry Wallace.

Kenton L. Butteefield.

Walter H. Page.

GiFFORD PiNCHOT.

C. S. Barrett.
W. A. Beard.

Doc. 705, 60-2 5

i^^r^^

rWt:*}>:'

''#1

f:rl