COUNTRY LIFE AND COOPERATION
Pinchot, Gifford
COUNTRY LIFE AND COOPERATION Question of Better Life on the Farm Discussed Before the Twelfth Conference for Education in the South, at Atlanta, Georgia By GIFFORD PINCHOT THE PROGRESS made by...
...There has grown up in consequence a strong movement from the country to the city and an equally important tendency both among city and country dwellers to minimize the advantages of life in the country and to look down upon the occupation of the farmer...
...The latter the farmers of the United States already want, and want unanimously, but they do not yet seem to have decided that they will have it...
...Meantime, other big combinations have been perfected so rapidly that the Department of Justice will have to work night and day if it ever hopes to overtake all of them...
...On the contrary, it is a question which affects every division of the nation, the city less vitally than the country itself...
...It is by setting such facts as these plainly before the farmers of the United States that the State and National governments can best help the farmers themselves to take the next step to further their own betterment...
...COUNTRY LIFE AND COOPERATION Question of Better Life on the Farm Discussed Before the Twelfth Conference for Education in the South, at Atlanta, Georgia By GIFFORD PINCHOT THE PROGRESS made by the United States in the past quarter century is more varied and more striking than that of any other country in any similar period of the world's history...
...That Wells-Fargo melon was a long time ripening, but a beauty when finally brought on the table.—The Wall Street Journal...
...Practically all the interests with which the farmer deals are organized against him...
...The prosperity of the open country is not a farm question alone...
...indicates the "law of supply and demand" was not the only reason for the phenomenal advance in meat prices.—Wall Street Journal...
...Taft might well say that he has Aldrich and Cannon on his hands.—Indianapolis News...
...When the things that make life worth living are found in greater abundance in the country than in the towns, as some day we shall all see that they are or should be found, then country life will take its rightful place...
...Most important of all, for it includes all the others, if the farmer decides that he will himself put an end to his own isolation and work in cooperation with his fellows for all the great objects of united interest common to the farmers of each farming neighborhood, then the beginning of great things will have arrived...
...It is now time to lay more emphasis on how best to apply this knowledge and above all on the fundamental farm problem, which is this: How can the farmer and his family realize the best home life and the best social life on the farm...
...Pertinent Comment IT has taken four years and more to smash the Standard Oil Company...
...The result is to weaken country life, and it is or should be of the most serious concern to the whole nation...
...The people must have sugar, even if it is refined by Satan and shipped to the ultimate consumer direct from the demnition bowwows.—Springfield Republican...
...The standpat champions are facing the dread possibility of a reopening of the tariff discussion in Congress...
...Farmers Themselves Must Decide THE question of better life in the country is one with which both the state and the national government are intimately concerned, but in which they can do little more than point the way...
...more comfort, greater satisfaction and less desire to leave the farm...
...Opportunity and reward are not equal for all the citizens within any city, or as between any two cities...
...It is another case for applying the wise old adage "United we stand, divided we fall...
...If the farmer decides that he will have better sanitation on the farm then the fearful tax of stricken, wasted lives will cease, especially in the South, and farm life will be freed from one of its most serious detractions...
...When they do, they will get it...
...But the beVie-fits of that progress have not been distributed evenly...
...Without organization the farmer is helpless...
...If country life is to become more dignified, better thought of, with larger rewards in comfort, income and social advantages, it must be the farmer who will bring it about...
...The great problem of the country is not a problem of crops but of human lives...
...The United States Department of Agriculture and the State agricultural colleges and experiment stations have established a broad foundation of available knowledge on how to farm...
...and they are especially different as between the city and the open country...
...Since the call to battle is sounded from within the ranks of true believers in Aldrich and Cannon, it only makes the situation worse.—New York Evening Post...
...Cleveland, Mr...
...If the farmer decides that he will have better means of communication in the country, then more telephones and better roads will come, and with them more rural free delivery routes, and the parcels post...
...And the way to reach it is along the road of cooperation...
...In spite of the great good accomplished by the Farmers' Union and the Grange, our farmers as a whole are largely unorganized for their own benefit...
...It is a curious fact that just as the Standard has been crushed, there should come the announcement that an even bigger combination, the telephone and telegraph merger, has been formed, and that a copper merger of tremendous proportions is forming.—Washington Times...
...No nation can continue to prosper unless its civilization is built on the abiding foundation of a strong and satisfied life in the open country...
...The rewards of city life have hitherto been considered to be greater than the rewards of country life, not because they are so in final reality, but principally because they have been better understood and because of the better organization of life in cities...
...The farmers themselves must decide...
...It means better business, for if anything is clear in modern business life it is that the man who stands alone is at a disadvantage...
...If the farmer decides that he will have country schools which train his children for life in the country, then such schools will arise, and the farm children will grow up with a keener zest in country life, a deeper knowledge of it and a better opportunity to succeed on the farm...
...There has been inequality of opportunity, which is witthout question one of the worst evils from which this nation suffers, and there has also been inequitable distribution of rewards for work of equal merit and value...
...Others can help, for this is a national problem, but the solution itself lies essentially with the man who lives in the country...
...Cooperation is the Remedy ORGANIZATION among farmers means better farming, for many heads are better than one...
...The cooperative spirit is the master spirit of this age, and the farmer has been the last to feel its influence and respond...
...ln spite of the talk about the sugar frauds, the business of the trust continues good...
...Paraphrasing the late Mr...
...And most of all, it means better living on the farm, better social and educational advantages for the farmer, his wife and their children...
...That $7,000,000 surplus of Armour & Co...
Vol. 1 • December 1909 • No. 49
