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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1918)
THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND, SEPTEMBER 15". 1913. 1 d M 1 Mow UncIScmclrTw f 3 jd., : iVbP f ' -11 till mm ill I III! - " ' WzC'4 J 7 .'fJi Copyright. 1J18. by Frank G. Carpenter. TTTASHKGTON, D. C. By the time Wthls letter Is published Uncle Sam's irmv of farmem will have harvested more. than 800.000.000 bushels of wheat. 1.400.000.000 bushels of oats and 300.000.000 bushels of bar. ley and rye. It will have dur from the ground something like a half billion bushels of potatoes and will be trath ring a corn crop of more than 3.000.- C00,0u0 of bushels. At the same time we hall be picking cotton to the amount of more than 15.000,000 bales, and shall have yet to harvest an apple crop of 200.000.000 bushels. In addition to all this we shall be curing tobacco weigh ing: something; like 1,000,000.000 pounds, and shall bs storing away In barns and tacks hay worth more than $1,600,000.- 000. Our whole farm crop of this year, 191s, In quantity and value will be greater than any gathered by any na tlon. and It will have come from more acres than we have ever cultivated be fore. Our old lands have been in tensively tilled, and In addition some- imng HKe Z3.V00.000 acres of new ground has been put under the plow. Bunch this new territory together and It will make a state almost as big as litter unio, .Kentucky or Virginia. As to the value of the farm crops of jsis the secretary of Agriculture has estimated that It will aggregate more than 121,000.000.000, or more than 45 times as much as all the gold that has been taken out of this big. round earth since Columbus discovered America. At J- a bushel the wheat crop will sell for more tnan II. 600,000,000; and the cot ton at S4 cents a pound will bring more than the wheat. The corn which, at this writing. Is worth It cents a bushel will have a value of more than I2.000.000.000: and the hundred million tons of hay will be worth something like $1 a ton, or enough to give S0 to every family In the United States and leavs some to spare. If all the crops that we shall get from our farms and gardens this year could be re duced to dollars, and the mighty sum divided evenly among us. every man. woman and child In the United States would have more than 1200 and every family 11000. And all this would come rom the farms. This statement gives soma Idea of what the farmers have been doing In the darkest labor times of our his tory. To use a common expression of this day of Industrial wonders, "they have accomplished the Impossible." and that against odds as great If not great er than those prevailing on the battle fields of Europe. This letter is to show something of how the work has been done and the prospects of its contin uance during the war. In the first place, let us look at the conditions when the crops were put in. There was a great shortage of farm hands. For more than 20 years this class of labor has been growing less and less. The country boys have been going to the city nd there has been a steady emigration of families from the farms to the towns. This exodus has greatly Increased since the war broke out in Europe. Our munition plants which were at work for the allies paid the highest of wages, and the men who were tilling the soil found that they could get three or four times as much by leaving the farms for the factories. At the same time the farm labor sup ply was further cut down by the aliens living In the United States who were called to Germany, Italy, Greece, the Balkans and other places to take part In the war. Canada got many of our best men. and thousands of American farm boys crossed the ocean to fight with the British and French. Then came our own entrance into the struggle. and the farm boys rushed to enlist. They volunteered more rapidly than those of almost any other occupation and comparatively few of them filed claims for exemption. Some farm dis tricts had so many enlistments that the draft there was not needed, and of the 000 men registered from the farms only 12 per cent filed claims for ex emption. At the same time, our big industrial plants making war goods sent their agents over the country bid ding for farm labor, and the farmers lost more and more of their best hands. Nevertheless, in one way or another the crops were planted. The old men and boys did what they could, and ma chinery was enlisted to make up the loss. In some sections farm tractors were employed by the hundreds, and one man with a tractor was able to plow as much as four men. each using wo norses, had plowed before. Some of the seeding was done by hitching three drills to one tractor, so that one man was able to put in as much grain as three men with 12 horses had been ble to plant In the past. In certain districts the girls drove the tractors and the boys did more than their share of all kinds of work. Many of the farmers doubled their output by com bining their machinery. I heard of one farmer who drove a disc harrow pulled by four horses, and at the same time led four other horses harneised to a drag harrow behind him. This was in preparing the land for the corn crop. Similar work was done in all branches of cultivation, and in one way or an other 20-odd million acres of new land was brought into use. Similar methods were used for cult! Harvesting, which is still going- on. This is a different proposition. The harvesting of our wheat crop has al ways strained the supply of farm labor. The chief bread basket of the country lies in a tier of states beginning with Oklahoma and running northward through Kansas, Nebraska and the Da le otas, branching off to include Minne sota and a part of Iowa. This har vest Is governed by climatic conditions. It starts In the South and rolls north ward in regular waves so that the army of harvesters- can start with the first ripening wheat at the far south and keep on cutting toward the north as the golden grain is ready for reaping. The harvest starts about June 10. It moves north week by week, until at the first of September they are gather ing the grain in Minnesota and the Da kotas on the edge of Canada about 1000 miles away from where the crop began to ripen. From the latter point the wheat waves roll on into Canada, going further north as the climate grows colder. In the past there was a nomadic reaping population which took care of this harvest. It was composed of mi gratory laborers, who came from vari ous sources, and moved northward with the wheat. It was brought together by the high wages and steady work and the knowledge that this work would continue during the harvest through out the tier of states. In 1917 the coun try had the advantage of the most of this army of men, but when the wheat was ready to cut this year the men had disappeared. They had been swal lowed up by the enlistments and drafts for the war, and also by the war in dustrial plants, whose wages and work were better than the best the farmers could offer. ... " rv 5.t "s -i ! 1" je TAr 7 v" . 1 . c. irises: r-W ... The situation was serious. The Food Administration here at Washington de manded the wheat, and there was a chance that the war might be lost by the lack of this food supply. The great Government deDartments had renorted as to the crop and also as to the lack of labor, and it was known that a new ndustrial army must be created or the wheat would rot In the fields. The mat ter was given over to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Labor, and the two have so combined their work that they have created a new army to take the place of the old. n this the Department of Agriculture led at the start. It already had its organized agents in every state and county, and it had a body of state farm help supply specialists who were send ing in regular reports as to crop con ditions. It was through this machln- ry that the labor supply was created. The first work was the sending out of a four-minute speech to every county VWVa.WWT-'' uxi.' . a.- 1. ., , ... ,..-.r msei t-w . . try . . T .if ,vt the business and professional men of I would put the sheaves into the shocks, vating the crops, and then came the agent. This man was ordered to call his region together to hear a war mes sage from the Administration. They met in the towns, and the message was read. It went somewhat as follows: Men, we are at war! The Govern ment demands food and it demands that every one of. us do his part in saving the wheat crop, which is now reauy for cutting. This is so impor tant that every other enterprise and business should be stopped, until the wheat has been saved. According to the estimates sent me from Washing ton 6000 harvest hands are needed for this district alone, and this town is called upon to furnish 800. We have got to furnish them even though it be necessary to stop every bank, store, factory and church while the work is going on." This message went Into every wheat district and every large town. The response was immediate. Preachers, lawyers, bankers, merchants and me chanics dropped their usual employ ment and went out to the farms. The state of Kansas got 80,000 such men and 10,000 of that number came from Kansas City across the Missouri line. In Topeka there were 43 labor unions and 41 of them took all of their men to the wheat fields to aid in harvesting the grain. It was wonderful the good work that these soft-fleshed, velvet-handed men of the city did. Some of them, en gaged in the professions, realized that they could not stand the hot sun dur ing the long hours from sunrise to unset, but they arranged to do what they could. They came out to work in the morning, and in some cases in the afternoons and worked until dark. Three or four professional men would tell a farmer that if he would cut his wheat they would be there in the even ing to shock it. One harvester,' for in stance, ran his reapers and binders all day and at 4 in the afternoon an auto mobile or so, each containing four lawyers or bankers, would arrive. They and by rushing the work would ac complish twice as much as the ordin ary force. Instances of this nature were common throughout the wheat belt, and the men who worked were of every class and condition. I heard of one banker, who had a salary of $10,000 a year. He does not boast of that, but he has been going around showing the blisters on his hands from his work in the harvest field and the little wage check he got there at the rate of $4 a day. Many of these men were paid by the hour. The work of the harvest fields is now largely done by the hour, the farmers paying 45 or 50 cents for each hour worked. In thi3 way the ten-hour-a-day controversy does not arise, and the men are paid for the time they work. After. the wheat harvest began the Department of Labor had a director general stationed in the West who took charge of the labor supply. This man. had daily reports as to the har vest conditions of every district, and he sent bodies of men on" telegraphic notice to the localities and to the ex act farms where they were needed. The agents throughout the country would telegraph him che .time -their wheat would be ready to cut and the extra men needed. The director of the labor department would at once ship the men, and the business was so or ganized that almost every farm had all it could use. In fact, the harvest ing of the crop was a fine example of modern efficiency organization; and it was carried on with but little friction, notwithstanding the enormous territory covered and that the laborers had to be moved from place to place. By the time this letter Is published a large part of this labor will be gathering the corn crop. Some of the corn will be cut by machinery, but a vast deal of it will be husked from the stalk as it Btands in the field. The men' who do this are experts at the work. They have wagons especially prepared for the purpose, one wall of the bed of the wagon- being built as a guard board high up so as to catch the ears when thrown in. Each husker takes two rows at a time, his wagon going along with him. A good man. can husk 80 bushels per da? , and instances of 100 bushels are not uucommon. There is a record of one man busking 145 bushels a day and putting the corn in the crib. These huskers work so that there is no waste effort. It takes just three motions to get every ear of corn into the wagon. First the man grabs the ear, second he pulls down the- husk, and third breaks the ear off and throws it into the wagon. The ears fly from the stalks at the rate of one a second, and you can hear the thud, thud, thud of them striking the guard board, as regularly as the second hand of a clock goes round the dial. The corn of this year will be more than 3,000,000,000 of bushels, and a vast deal of it will be cropped in this way. needs for manpower, you can do a great deal to cause them to change their course. Tou can make a com plaint to the Sheriff or chief of police or any officer, charging them with vagrancy. If the vagrancy laws are not being strictly and unrelentingly enforced in your community yours is one of the very few places in the Unit ed States where those laws are not be ing enforced. You can help to see that they are enforced. You can see that loafers in your section get a lob or go to jalL Every loafer put to work re leases a man who may help on the farm. "Farmers netfd hands. Soldiere must have food. Farmers cannot produce feed unless they have help. The loafer is aiding the-enemy whether he means to do so or not. The man so dead of spirit as, not to realize his patriotlo obligation must be forced to see it. Give the loafers of your town a straight-from-the-shoulder understand ing of their alternatives. This is no time for word mincing or baby talk. "Make him go to work or go to Jail." The Government has done a great deal to increase the farm labor by bringing boye and women into the service. I am told that the farmer ettes are making good, and that they are saving the day in many communi ties. They have done an enormous work in the gathering of the fruit crop, and their systematic organization scattered through the farm district has been of great value. The boys of the country have been organized by the Labor Department nto what is known as the boys work ing reserve. Secretary Houston says that we have something like 2,000,000 boys between the ages of 15 and 19, who are not engaged in productive work: and whose services might be utilized for a large part of the year. So far something like a quarter of a million boys have been mobilized into this working reserve and they have been doing farm work here and there all over the country. Many of them are city boyS who have gone out to the farms, and some of the best of the workers have been the sons of rich men who had never done farm work before. Take a typical case from Chi cago. Seventy boys were taKen rrom one of the private schools there and put out on 70 farms to work during the Summer vacation. Each accepted his job as a patriotic proposition, and was naid wages according to the work I he was able to do. Of the 70, 68 made 11. 4.nn wtHA-.t.a n A crilAii1tiiH a A - , i A f . L. . 1 Labor are rapidly mobilizing the farm work of the country. The Department of Agriculture makes no bones of say ing that every loafer must be put to work in the fields. I have before me a bulletin recently Issued by that department. It calls for more hands on the farm, saying that the loafers are aiding the enemy and that they should be made to go to work or to Jail. This bulletin was issued by Secretary Houston in the midst of the wheat har vest. It is worthy of being kept in force all the year round. It reads as follows: "Work or fight." "The Government makes that manda tory upon every man within the draft age. "Self-respect makes It mandatory upon every man of every age. "If. perchance, there are any Idlers and loafers continuing to lead lives of asked to return next year to the farm on which he has been working this Summer. The farmers were afraid to use city boys at the start, but they have found that they are fully the equals of their own boys at home. In many of the states, camps for the training of boys for farm labor have been established in connection with the agricultural colleges. In some of these the boys live in tents. They wear uniforms and have their regular military drills in connection with the work. There Is one camp in Pennsyl vania which had at one time 1200 re serve boys in training, and there were 40 other liberty camps throughout the state in charge of experts. Most of the ' New England districts have done much as to mobilizing the boys, and the same is true of the states of the West and South. In fact, the work has been going on in every part of the Union, and it promises to be of more and more uselessness in your town, despite war value as long as the war continues. HIGH SCHOOL CLASSES AND SOCIETIES ORGANIZE FOR TERM Work of Coming Months Is Outlined in Each School and Prepa rations Made to Continue War Activities as Much as Studies Will Permit, Rousing Assembly Held at Washington. Important liirainmnti Are Made t Stndrata by Principal More Service Stan Sought. BT MILDRED WEEKS. Brimming with patriotism and regu Bar school "pep" was the first assembly of the term, held Wednesday morning. There were several surprises in the way of a long line cf graduates, mem bers of the June '18 class, who lent an ante-bellum appearance to the as sembly, and the unexpected appear ance of last year's yell leader, Harold Mann, who arrived in time to lead the school in a timber-splitting "Washing ton." After the regular singing by the school the June 'lSers arose and sang their class song. Several important announcements were made by Mr. Hudman concerning the newly organized sewing class and the camp-cooking course, and Mr. In gram, leader of the Boys' Glee Club, Girls' Chorus, orchestra and band, poke for a few minutes, urging mem bership and support of these organiza tions. Although the service flag hanging upon the stage bears 480 stars, this number does not represent entirely the Washington boys in service, as many names have not been obtained by the school. In order to obtain the names of those who are not now represented by a star, Mr. Herdman a.ked that every one who knows of other names to turn them in so that the exact num ber of Washington men serving can be recorded. The Washington service flag should contain over 600 starj. Mr. Herdman also spoke of a letter re ceived from one of the former Wash ington boys, George Miller. The Miller .twins are In the stretcer-bearing corps of the ambulance service and arc stationed not far from Rheims, it is thought. The letter spoke of 17 other former Washington boys who were ! Bear this place. Preparations for war work to utilize the time set ade the first half hour of school each day are being completed and the school will settle down the first of the week to a. daily course in sphagnum moss will be sent to the school and real service rendered by the cleaning and preparing of the moss by the students. Several other plans have been suggested, but none definitely de cided upon, although next week will see f4nal arrangements completed. Swinging again ento action, the Girls League took its first step in the term career in the meeting held Thursday morning for organization and election of officers. The competition for offi cers this term was exciting and the race for election keen and close-run. The winning candidates are: President, Mildred Weeks; secretary-treasurer, Dorothy Phillips, and editor, Marie Duback. , The meeting was presided over by Alma Schapf, past president of the league, who. In appreciation of the valuable and earnest service she has rendered the league, was presented at the close of the meeting with a bou quet of roses and a note of thanks from the girls of the school. A problem has presented itself in the registration of the senior class. Rooms 10 and 14 were assigned as the senior rooms, but as there are not enough members in the class to fill both rooms and too many to occupy one room, the class has been divided equally between the two rooms. As this leaves only a few students In each of the two rooms, the senior registration rooms present a bare appearance and the class is somewhat divided. The question was taken up in the class meeting Tues day and it is hoped that arrangements can be made to register the whole class in one room. The first society of the school to or agnize for the term Is the Pheno de bating society, which met Friday aft ernoon and elected officers with the following results: President. Florence Johnson: vice-president, Nona Becker; secretary, Velma Couture; ' assistant secretary. Grace Plch; treasurer, Mar garet Alexander: editor, Anne Roberts: serjeant-at-arms. Agnes Coner, and critic. Alice Peeps. The patriotic spirit of the club mem bers Is shown In the plans for war OFFICERS OF DEBATING SOCIETY AT WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL. J" U'J V1 ' w - - ,-v f I j n sr fir v vv 4 Top, Left to Right Grace Plch. Assistant Secretary) Marsaret Alexander, Treasurers Alice Peeper, Critic. Center, Left to Right - nna Becker, loe-Prealdent; Anae tloberts, Editor. Bottom V elma Couture, Secretary. service that are being made. War work will be done on a large scale by the girls, as all regular meetings will be devoted to some sort of service, ex cept one Friday of each month, which will be reserved for a business meet ing and programme, which were for merly held each week. Having co-operated with the moss division of the Red Cross surgical dressing depart ment, arrangements have been made to have sphagnum moss sent to the school where it will be gone over, picked and cleaned by the club in some room reserved for that purpose. Although all other class activities have been given up, the January '19 class has decided not to abolish the class play this term, and at the class meeting, held Tuesday, arrangements were begun to secure a play immedi ately and start rehearsals as soon as possible. Several plays are now under consideration and one will probably be chosen soon and tryouts held. Special classes in sewing and camp cooking have been organized for stu dents who wish to take this work in addition to their regular course. The sewing classes cover two periods ana may be attended either third or fourth period or both the third and fourth periods. The camp-cooking classes are being organized for boys who wish to take this opportunity to obtain the training. The classes have proved so successful in the past that they are being organized again for the purpose of war training. . "My Liberty Bond and I" is the sub iect of the essay contest that is occu pying the minds of the high school students. Every student in school, whether a member of an English class or not, will be required to enter the contest. In an assembly for the boys, held Tuesday morning, the luncheon ques tion was discussed and the matter or disposal of refuse and order on the campus. The boys, as a whole, voiun teered to be responsible for keeping the school grounds clean and waived aside any rulings on the matter. Football practice is in full swing, the boys having turned out for the first time last Tuesday. e The girls of the basketball team held a meeting Tuesday afternoon and set next Tuesday as the date of election. About 50 girls were present. Approximately $60 was handled by the book exchange this term and sev eral hundred books exchanged. Miss Ethel Wakeman, of the English department, returned the early part of the week after spending tne summer in the East. The school has presented the appear ance of a tourists' hotel the past week, as so many of the alumni have re turned to visit. Many of the boys have been back to say goodbye before leav ing the first of October for college and military camps. Determination to keep college ath letics in the fore, despite the depletion of the athletic ranks by the war call, has resulted In the formation of girls' haseball teams at Mills college and at Stanford university, in California, ; Naval Cadet Addresses Jef ferson Students. Pledge to Flag Opens Sessions of Pupils In First General Assembly. W. 11. Borer Presides. BT SAM STROHECKER. "I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." By repeating these famous words in concert, the students of Jefferson High School officially opened their first gen eral assembly of the new term. W. H. Boyer then presided over the musical part of the assembly. Hopkin Jenkins , principal, intro duced Russell Kelley to the student body. Russell graduated In the class of February, '16, and has just com- fConcliided on Psgw 7. LEMON JUICE TAKES OFF TAN Girls! Make bleaching lotion if skin is sunburned, tanned or freckled Squeeze the juice of two lemons into a bottle containing three ounces of Orchard White, shake well, and you have a quarter pint of the beat freckle, sunburn and tan lotion and complexion beautifier at very, very small cost. Your grocer has the lemons and any drug store or toilet counter will supply three ounces of Orchard vv bite for a few cents. Massage this sweetly frag rant lotion into the face, neck, arms and hands each day and see how frec kles, sunburn, wlndburn and tan disap pear and how clear, soft and white the kin becomes. Yes! It is harmless. Adv.