Men and Things

by Henry A. Atkinson

The price of hogs and the price of corn, in normal times, keep on a level with each other. When corn is high pork is high, and when corn falls we find that pork falls with it.

Food and the Land. It is impossible within the limits of this book to give more than a glimpse of a few of the great food-producing industries of America. The packing-houses and canneries contribute their share to the feeding of the people; but when all is said and done, we get back to the fact that even in this age when factory and city make claims, all values finally rest on the land. The growth of our cities has emphasized their dependence upon the country. People in the city must be fed, and the food comes from the soil. It is now claimed that the gravest mistake made by Kerensky, a leader of the Russian revolution, was in not giving sufficient attention to the food question in Russia. After the revolution became a fact Kerensky tried to spur the army to greater activity, but the people, unused to the new ways of freedom, failed to keep up the processes that would produce food. The railroads were congested; fuel was scarce; lacking fuel—the railroads and boats still further failed in their undertaking. The result was that the food supply became less and less in Petrograd and other centers. Behind the lines hungry people grew restless. Leon Trotzky would not have succeeded in overthrowing Kerensky but for the hunger of the people. These people were willing to accept any change of government because there was at least a hope, however desperate it might be, that the new government would furnish the food which they needed so badly. One writer dealing with this subject said: “Oratory and precepts failed to feed the hungry people.”

We have heard over and over again the phrase, “An army travels on its stomach.” It is also true that the civilian population of a country lives and labors on its stomach. Food is the foundation of life. “Give us this day our daily bread” is the first demand of man upon God and upon his fellow man. The solution of all our problems depends finally on the question of bread. “Who shall be king?” The answer to this question is very likely to be, “The one who will give us bread.” The peace of the world must finally be based upon an appreciation of economic values. Justice means that conditions will be such that in each nation food for all the people will be produced in abundance.

The Country and the City. Much has been said of the freedom and independence of farm life. The producer of food is a real benefactor of the race. The farmer works in the open air and lives a simple life, and so gains an opportunity for developing the very finest traits of human character. But when we compare the changes that have been taking place in the rural districts, we find strong reasons for the exodus from the country to the city. The city offers a more interesting and profitable life which makes it difficult to maintain the center of attraction on the farm. The history of humanity began in a garden and ends in a city. The word “city” comes from the old Latin word which means the citizen, the place where the citizen lived.

The city is really the center of authority and governmental power. It offers the best and at the same time the worst; has the best in intellect, which it attracts and claims for its own, and it has the best in amusement and entertainments. We have heard people say: “The country is a good place in which to rest and work, but the city is the place to have your fun.” The city has the best and the worst of morals, and the best and the worst health conditions. Side by side with the city mansion are the tumble-down hovels and the cramped, narrow tenements that are a disgrace to our land. The robust, strong man pushes his weaker fellow to the wall. The worst forms of disease and the most acute physical suffering are found in the city. In the city there are many intellectual giants and many half-sane intellectual weaklings. The man dwelling in the country has a greater independence than these. He can at least have three meals a day, and knows how to take care of himself. Hundreds of thousands of people in our cities have just brains enough and just education enough to do one thing; if hard times throws one of these out of his job, he is left utterly helpless—a derelict on the sea of humanity. The culprit is safer in the city than in the thickest forest. Men without character and women without principle huddle together in its sordid districts. The tides of the city wash up queer specimens to the light of day, and reveal to the passer-by the saddest and most gruesome sights, and the worst types of humanity.

The best in the city is matched by the worst. Philanthropy cures, or tries to cure, what rogues have created. Just as the incentive to goodness in the city is highest, so the temptations to the opposite course of life are of the strongest. The artificial life creates new and unusual wants, and together with the excitement caused by city conditions, makes temptations hard to resist. The city is the rich man’s paradise and the poor man’s hell. The lure of the city is strong upon us all. There are a thousand voices calling us there; and this is impoverishing our rural districts and making the question of food a more serious one every year. In the country one can plod along and with the present prices be independent, but this does not satisfy. The men of to-day think in thousands where their fathers thought in terms of hundreds. Hundreds of dollars are made on the farm and millions in the city. The city calls every young man and young woman. Everybody who is at all familiar with the small towns knows that one of the hardest facts which must be faced is that just as soon as the young people finish school they leave for the city. Church work is made hard by the continual drain on the best life in the community.

The Tenant and the Absentee Landlord. Over against this question of the lure of the city there is that of the tenant farmer. The Industrial Relations Commission, making its study of the rural conditions in America, finds that there is a very grave danger that America will produce a peasant class like that of some of the European countries. The independent landowners are decreasing; in Mississippi 62 per cent. of the land is tilled by tenants, in Louisiana 58 per cent., and Kansas 36 per cent. So many of the owners of the farms have moved to the city that the actual production of food has been left to the people who are known as “birds of passage.” Most of these tenants are here to-day and gone to-morrow. The retired farmer presents the problem of the absentee landlord. The tenant farmer suffers under the handicap of his limitation, and his poverty is often his undoing. The absentee landlord of the farm enjoys the fruits of the labor of another. We must not forget, however, that the retired farmer has contributed his share toward the development of our nation. He has helped to make his community. The man who actually remains on the soil to produce the food is producing less, and takes less interest in his community, than the man who owns the land and who made a success of production in years gone by. The tenant does not cultivate the land as intensively as it can be cultivated; he does not attempt soil conservation, and takes but little interest in the community and its institutions.

Study of a Rural Community. It is interesting to make a study of the rural community and to compare present conditions with those of the past. Such a study convinces one that the success of the church is closely bound up with the economic situation of the community. An investigation was made in three townships in the central part of Wisconsin just a few miles from the state capital.[1] The land in this section is rich, the homes of the people are comfortable, the barns and sheds substantial, and everything about the farms well kept. Fences are up and all the buildings are neatly painted. The land produces anything that can be grown in a temperate climate: peas, grain, barley, potatoes, oats, hay, cattle, sheep, and hogs. Other parts of Wisconsin produce more milk and butter; but the large herds of Holstein cows and the number of creameries and cheese factories found in this part of the state convince the visitor that no small part of the farmer’s income is derived from this source.

[1] Survey made by Social Service Department of Congregational Churches, 14 Beacon Street, Boston.

The state university is the Wisconsin farmer’s best friend. Through its instruction at Madison, its extension department, experimental stations, and institutes held throughout the state, it shows this friendship; and the splendid economic conditions found in rural Wisconsin prove that this friendship is not wasted. The land in these townships is valued at $100 to $150 an acre, but upon inquiry at a dozen or more farms it was learned that no one knew of any farm land that was for sale.