The Country-Life Movement in the United States

by L. H. Bailey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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