Two farmers’ organizations of a fraternal and social nature have spread all over the country. The first is the Patrons of Husbandry, more commonly known as the Grange. The other is the National Farmers’ Alliance. Between them these two organizations include several million members. Their main purpose is to promote the social and economic interests of the agricultural population, but they are also, on some occasions, active in politics. Farmers’ Institutes, which are being held under the joint auspices of the national and state agricultural departments in all sections of the country have also contributed to the facilities for popular education and recreation. These institutes are attended by more than two million persons per year.
The agricultural “bloc.”
The Farmer in Politics.—While the farmers of the United States do not possess a political organization of their own they are able through the various bodies mentioned in the preceding paragraph and through other associations to exercise a very important influence upon the action of the government. Many senators and representatives come from sections of the country where the farmers constitute an important element among the voters and on matters affecting the interests of agriculture these legislators usually stand together. In recent years this group of congressmen from the agricultural areas has been commonly known as the “agricultural bloc”; they do not form an actual majority in Congress, but they have usually had enough strength to get what they want. At the session of 1921 they obtained a tariff duty on wheat, which is in effect a tax on bread, and any political organization which can put a tax on bread must be powerful indeed. The farmers’ lobby at Washington is exceedingly strong.
Attempts have been made to unite the farmers in the rural districts with the workers in the cities into a regular political party. At the presidential election of 1920 a so-termed Farmer-Labor ticket was placed in the field, but it did not muster much strength. A combination of these two elements, if it could be effective, would be all-powerful. It is very doubtful, however, if any such political combination can be really made. The interests of the two elements are too far apart. The farmers are producers of food; the city workers are consumers. One wants prices to stay high; the other wants them to come down. It will be difficult to get two such groups to come together and to stay together.
The rural exodus.
The Special Problems of Rural Communities.—One of the chief problems of every rural community is to keep its young men and women from migrating to the cities and towns. In many parts of the country the agricultural population is steadily declining by reason of the constant exodus to the towns, and wherever population decreases there is usually a fall in the value of land.[[159]] Thereupon the community ceases to move forward; the lands are neglected; methods of agriculture fail to keep pace with the times, and the whole region takes on a shabby appearance.
Now the chief reason why young men and women leave the rural districts for the cities is to be found in the outward attractiveness of city life. This attractiveness is really not so great as it appears to be; but it is the appearances that often count. Rural comforts and conveniences have been all too few in the past; the hours of labor have been long and the work often disagreeable; the dearth of social recreations has also been a factor in making rural life seem monotonous to youth. These drawbacks, however, are not essential and permanent features of rural life. The balance of advantage which towns and cities have heretofore possessed is in fact being steadily reduced by the advent of things which greatly enhance the attractiveness of life in rural communities. |The increasing attractions of rural life.| The motor car, the paved roads, the parcels post and rural mail delivery, the extension of telephone service and electric lighting into the country, the tractor and other labor-saving devices, the organization of societies and clubs among the young people of the rural areas, the improvement and centralization of rural schools—all these are having influence. The application of scientific principles to agriculture, moreover, has made it a skilled occupation, not a common industry. Routine farming by rule-of-thumb methods is not very interesting and not very profitable; but scientific farming is both. For these various reasons the exodus from the farms is not likely to be as great in the future as it has been in the past. This is a fortunate circumstance for, as President Roosevelt once declared, our whole civilization rests upon the attractiveness as well as the prosperity of rural life.
General References
H. R. Burch, American Economic Life, pp. 209-232;
H. C. Taylor, Agricultural Economics, pp. 13-30;