The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The East

by Walter A. Wyckoff

"You see, in the old days the ways of farming were primitive and simple, and the ways of living were primitive and simple, too, and they matched each other. Now both have changed. Farming is different, and living in the country is different. The style of living in the country is copied from the towns, where there's been the greatest increase of producing power; and I argue that the increase of producing power on the farms hasn't by any means kept up to what it is in the cities.

"Now, this difference ain't unnatural. Everybody knows that the big fortunes of the last hundred years have mostly been made in manufacture in the cities, and in the increase of land values in the cities, and in the development of railroads and mines. And where the big fortunes have been made, there's been the best chances for brains and energy and enterprise. And where brains and energy and enterprise are at work, there all kinds of labor will go, for it's these that make employment for labor.

"Now, it ain't saying anything against farmers to say that the best brains that have been born on the farms for the last hundred years haven't stayed on the farms. The farming business hasn't had the benefit of them, but they've gone to the professions, and the business in the cities, where the most money was to be made.

"So that through all this time of 'increasing power of production' there's been a constant drain from the country of its best brains and blood, and it ain't strange that the farming business has lagged behind the others which these have gone into.

"I believe there's going to be a change. I believe the change is begun. Competition is so keen now in about all kinds of business, that the chances of making a fortune and making it quick are very few. There's about so much interest to be got for your capital, and if the security is good, the interest is very low, and there's about so much to be got for your brains, unless you've got particular rare brains; and as the competition grows keener, brains begin to see that there's about as much to be made out of farming as out of other kinds of business. Invention has done a lot already, and when the same economy and thrift and thorough business principles are used in farming as are used in other kinds of production, the farming business will soon catch up with the others. And where the brains and enterprise and energy go, labor will soon follow; and for a time anyway, there won't be as many unemployed in the cities, nor as many farmers in the country looking for men to work. But why are there unemployed in the cities, while there is already a demand for men in the country? Why, because many of the unemployed ain't fit for us to take into our homes as hired men, and many don't know that there's such a chance for them, and many if they do know, would sooner starve in the cities than work and live on a farm. I've got an idea that when the farming business is developed, there'll be a big change in country life. Where there's plenty of brains and push and enterprise, there's likely to be excitement.

"But it's got to come naturally; you can't pump interest into country living by legislation. I had to laugh the other day when I was reading a speech that Mr. John Morley made in Manchester, I think it was. Anyway, he was arguing for parish councils, and he said that this 'gregarious instinct' that makes country people flock into towns that are already overcrowded, is something that we ought to counteract by making country life more interesting, and he thought that parish councils would help to do that. Lord Salisbury got into him pretty well a short time after, when he said in a speech that he never had thought it was the duty of the government to provide amusement for the people, but if he was making a suggestion in that line, he would like to recommend the circus.

"There's another reason besides the keen competition in other kinds of business that makes me think that farming is going to be brought up to the others, and that is, that so many of the colleges are teaching scientific farming. You ain't going to see any very great result from this in a year, nor in ten years, for there's a pretty big field to work on. But when smart young fellows that are raised in the country, and other smart young fellows that see a good chance to make something at farming—when they all get a thorough training in scientific farming, and when they all get down to work, just as they would in some other highly developed form of production, you will see results. There won't be much in shiftless farming when the scientific kind pretty generally sets the pace.

"I've read a good deal, of late years, about 'organized charities' in the cities, and it certainly does seem as if charity was a good deal more sensible than it used to be. It's hard to see how there can be any kind of serious destitution in the cities that ain't got some society to relieve it. And the rich in the cities do certainly spend a powerful lot of time and work and money in keeping up these charities and amusements for the poor; but I don't see any signs that the poor love the rich any more, nor that there's any less danger but that some day they'll rise up in war against society.

"It seems to me that a good deal of all this time, and labor, and money, and a good deal more besides, might be better spent in providing that no child among the poor grows up without proper education, technical education in useful trades; especially, I think, in scientific farming.