The Evolution of the Country Community / A Study in Religious Sociology

by Warren H. Wilson

The investigations of the Country Life Commission brought general testimony to the high standards of personal life which prevail in the country. In such a representative state as Pennsylvania the standard of conduct between the sexes was found to be good. The testimony of physicians, among the best of rural observers, was nearly unanimous, in Pennsylvania, to the good moral conditions prevailing in the intercourse of men and women in the country. This indicates that the farmer economy had superseded the economy of the pioneer.

The moral problem of the pioneer period consisted of a struggle for honesty in business contracts, and purity in the relation of men and women. The story of every church in New England and Pennsylvania, until about 1835 at which Professor Ross dates the beginning of the farmer period, shows the bitter struggle between the standard accepted by the church and that of the individuals who failed to conform. The standard was inherited from the older communities of Europe. The conduct of individuals grew out of the pioneer economy in which they were living. Church records in New England and New York State are red with the story of broken contracts, debt and adultery. The writer has carefully studied the records of Oblong Meeting of the Society of Friends in Duchess County, New York, and from a close knowledge of the community through almost twenty years of residence in it, it is his belief that there were more cases of adultery considered by Oblong Meeting in every average year of the eighteenth century than were known to the whole community in any ten years at the close of the nineteenth century. The farmer economy in which the group life of the household prevailed over the individual life had by the nineteenth century superseded the pioneer period, in which individual action and independent personal initiative were the prevailing mode.

The coming of the exploiter into the farm community brings a new set of ethical obligations concerning property and contracts. The farmer has perfected the individual standards of the pioneer but he is not yet endowed with social standards. He knows that it is right to give full measure when he sells a commodity, but he does not yet see the evil of breaches of contract. Farmers of high standing in their communities for their personal character, who are truthful and "honest" in such contractual relations as come down from their fathers, have been known to use the school system of the town for their own private profit, or that of members of their families, and to ignore financial obligations which belong to the new period, in which money values have taken the place of barter values.

A good illustration is that of a deacon in a country church, whom I once knew. His word was proverbially truthful. As widely as he was known his reputation for piety and simple truthfulness, for honesty and purity of life were universal. I do not think that he was consciously insincere, but as a trustee in administering a fund devoted to public uses he seemed to have a clear eye for only those enterprises through which he or members of his family could indirectly secure incomes. Entrusted with a public service which involved the improvement of the school system, so far as he acted individually and without prompting by those who had been accustomed all their lives to modern methods, his action was that of loyalty to his own family and relationship. In so doing he regularly would betray the community and the public interest. Yet he seemed to do this ingenuously and without any conception of the moral standards of people used to the values of money.

I have known the same man, whose standing among farmers was that of a blameless religious man, to borrow money, and in the period of the loan so to conduct himself as to forfeit the respect of people used to handling money. To them he seemed to be a conscious and deliberate grafter. The explanation in my mind is that he suffered from the transition out of the pioneer and farmer economy into the economy of the exploiter.

The history of the sale of lands in the country, in the recent exploitation of farm-lands, contains many stories of the breach of contract of farmers, and the inability of the farmer to sell wisely and at the same time honestly. Contrasting the farmer in his knowledge of financial obligation with the broker in the Stock Exchange, the latter type stands out in strong contrast as an admirable example of financial honesty to contracts, even if they be verbal only. The farmer on the other hand has no conception of the relations on which the financial system must be built. He is not an exploiter to begin with, but a farmer.

The transition from the older economy to the new is illustrated in the dairy industry which surrounds every great city. The dairy farmer has ideas of right and wrong which are purely individualistic. He believes that he should not cheat the customer in the quantity of milk. He recognizes that it is wrong, therefore, to water the milk, but he has no conception of social morality concerning milk. He gives full measure: but he cares nothing about purity of milk. He is restless and feels himself oppressed under the demands of the inspector from the city, for ventilation of his barns and for protection of the milk from impurity. I have known few milk farmers who believed in giving pure milk and I never knew one whose conscience was at ease in watering milk. That is, they all believe in good measure and none believes in the principle of sanitation. They stand at the transition from the old economy to the new.

A story is told among agricultural teachers in New York State to the effect that an inspector following the trail of disease in a small city traced it to impure milk supplied by a certain farm. In the absence of the man he insisted on inspecting the dairy arrangements, being followed from room to room by the farmer's indignant wife. Finally he said, "Show me the strainer which you use in the milk," and she brought an old shirt, very much soiled. Looking at it in dismay the inspector said, "Could you not, at least, use a clean shirt?" At this the woman's patience gave way and she declared, "Well, you needn't expect me to use a clean shirt to strain dirty milk!"

The packing of apples for market illustrates the transition from the farmer economy in which the ethical standards are those of the household, or family group, to the world economy in which the moral standards are those of the world market. Apples are packed by all classes of farmers, regardless of varying religious profession, in an indifferent manner. The typical farmer hopes by competition with his neighbors to gain a possibly better price. Instances of such successes as come to certain family groups are endlessly discussed by farmers; and the highest ideal that one meets among farmers who sell apples throughout the Eastern States is expressed in the instance of some family who have improved their own farm and their own orchard, so as to win for the family or the farm a reputation in some particular market and thus to gain a higher price.

Contrast with this the marketing of apples by the Western fruit growers' Associations. Among them, as for instance in the Hood Valley, Oregon, apples are packed not by the farm owner with a view to competing with his neighbors, but by the committee representing the whole district. The individual farmer has no access to the market. He cannot hide his poor fruit in an envelope of his best fruit, so as to deceive the buyer. The committee has a reputation to maintain on behalf of the association, not of the individual. The apples are marketed on their merits in accordance with a certain standard. The impersonal demands of the world economy are kept in mind. The individual farmer and farm are forgotten. The result is that these far western growers, whose fruit is said in the East to be inferior in flavor to the apples of New York and New England, can sell their product in the eastern market at a higher price per box than the New York or New England farmer can secure per barrel.