Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (July 19, 1908)
. f ' ' 111 !" "iiuiLnmmmKmmtmumviHiMmmmmKmmmmmmmmmmmiBmmmmMm' isnssBsssBsseBjBssss II Vr 1 , &sl "' 0 I vxi - -., v . c.ss . 7 .v Tj0rT$i.it& i ir fif i i ,m PORTLAND. OREGON, SUNDAY HORNING, JULY 19, 1903 A A k i r V. ' We Mitet Help Him Bear His Burden, De clares Secretary Wilson S the best fed, best housed, best dressed nation of t he-world deliberately plan ning to lower itself to European can ditions of existence, where, with wages in their pockets that would mean Lucullan feasts to foreign laborers, American me chanics will not be able to afiord meat on their tables any oftener than the poor of Europe's capitals f One type of worker alone stands be tween the United States and its hear dis aster. He is an army in himself, the living keystone of the arch of comfort, the Alias on whose shoulders weighs the burden of American prosperity. He is the American farmer. Men in that army of peaceful triumphs not the women, or the 378,740 boys and girls under 16 years- of age, who give such efficient aid numbered 8,771,181 at last counting of heads, more than twice the total of 4,244,538 men the census showed as being engaged in manufactures. Is he the hope of our country's future?, Let us see. 1 .w w . ft f. sv, s Mi O 'Yv 1 K5. -jJl" Ttj Wi 1 'u 1 1 IfK.V.xK 1 1 U il IN tho years gone by the farmer had his allies other men who came to his aid, hardily Bupportinfr him when the burden grew too vast. But everywhere in mine and railroad, in factory and forest the teem ing millions of his neighbors have robbed him of them. Today he stands alone, striving with ti tanic courage to endure the 6train; yet seem ingly doomed, in spite of his vast numbers, to sink under his toil, unless the help he needs be given. If he yield, if his enormous strength give way at last under his still more enormous toil, no section of the mighty society borne up by his single strength can escape the universal ruin. ' And James Wilson, secretary of agricul ture, declaring that tho farmer cannot much steps must be taken to help the farmers secure a portion of the "immigration pouring in upon our shores." Briefly, but not 60 forcibly as tho secretary stated the features of 'the greatest industrial problem a nation has ever faced, those few sen tences can serve to bring home to all our eighty millions some hint of what we must do to be saved. Their elaboration, in tho graphio terms the secretary employed in order that the na tion might realize the full significance of his warning, shows the wide ramifications of the difticulties in which all must be called upon to share. The full statement of Secretary Wilson declares: "The productiveness of tho United States along agricultural lines is not keeping pace with the growth of our population. Meats are dear because meat-bearing animals are falling behind the population in relative numbers. "Labor is scarce on the farm, and labor is dear on the farm, because the factory, the for est, the mine and the railroatl are taking away the farmer's workers through wages fised at 'Hi 1 i 1 A I JTlUi'ili'l 1 III llin'ill" M 11 r ' I .nVilMilliiliiMil.llllil'lliHi , li I i " ' 11 ' ii-.inri i T i niiliii ,, 7 3 kli! I' v " 75-v A' longer endure the strain, piscnts the most im minent of national problems: ileaU are dear because meat-bearing ani mals are falling behind the population in rela tive numbers. "Factory, forest, mii.e and railroad are taking away the farmer's workers. Our immigrants do not reach our farms, and out cf the thousands of 'men idle this spring none have sought employment at farm labor. "The rwult of all this will be the bringing about of European conditions. "If we do not desire to hare the existing condition of affairs go ta greater extremes. rates which the farmer cannot afford to pay. "The population of the United Statf is growing both by reason of the natural increase of the families domiciled in America and by accretions through in; migration from abroad. "But the immigrants do not reach to the farm. The farmers who do come to us from foreign countries do not find tbeir way to the farms of this country; and the immigration laws prevent American farmer from going to foreign countries and selecting there th pros pective immigrants whose services could aid them. "At no period cf our history has the Ameri can farmer needed help mC much as he needs it i this year. There are said to bc hundredsof thousands of idle men in the United States. All of them could se cure employment on the farms employment aSordinc food, shelter and living i, es. "There are conwvjuences awaiting us. The reult of all this will be the bringing about of European conditions. Many of our irorking peo ple today cannot pay the price current for meat. "If we do not desire to hark. this condition of affairs go to greater extremes, tpa.honli be taken to help the farmers secure a portion of the immigration that pours in upon our shores. "Whatever may be the temporary effect -of high prices for foodstuffs upon the prosperity cf the farmer, the deprivations of one class of our population is the mufortune of alL High prices for meats and grains ara not beneficial to the farmers of the i rut try, if the farmers v7sorri cannot employ the help tha. is requisite for the growth of grains and tho production of meats. And that is tho caso now with the farmers in a great many states of the Union. "The United States has made remarkable growth as a manufacturing nation because ma terial is cheaper and better here than in any other country of the world. "Our farmers are making the most ener getic efforts to produce. They have the best machinery the world of agriculture knows. They themselves work and their families work. But the demand is greater than they can sup ply. "It would seem like needless emphasis of tho"ffrJVl6u's" To 'aver -that the industries of tha country depend upon the farmer. The wealth he makes from the farm is what brings to iU3 the gold from the Old Wurld. It is what brings that gold today, as it was the agency which brought the gold to help the peopb iu New York when the panic was in evidence.' What do those "European conditions" mean, to which the secretary refers as the in evitable results in whic1, we are to be plunged because the American farmer is being left to bear his burden, which is the national burden, . alone? Students of the living levels of nations have agreed upon acceptance of tho per capita - consumption of meat as a fair test of the rela tive richness of dietaries; for the world over, and however fondly the advocates of fish, fruit and vegetables may cling to their chosen sus tenance, the mass of any population indulges generously in meat when it can pay the price. Given meat, in plenty all other foods are usually available in a rich and varied supply; and the table of a people enjoying an ample meat diet is a3 safe to prove generous as the table stinted of meat is safe to prove poor. WHAT POOR FOOD MEANS Italy, with her pitiful forty-six and a half pounds of meat per bead annually, is today showing, by the low vitality, of her people, fatal as many . diseases are among them which are mild illnesses elsewhere,' how poorly nour ished the whole kingdom must be. Compare tho homo of the vine, with its sunny skies and its growing hunger, losing in 1004 its millions of workers to the United States, with this land of broad acres which ab sorbed them. Their allowance of forty-six and a half pounds of meat at homo was scarcely more than one-fifth the average annual consumption of the American working man. An exhaustive study of the living expenses of the American nxihunio, North and East. Scuth and West, showed that he kept a table laden with the nu'st varied foods and included rh that diet, not fur the working class alone, but for all the reorle of the whole aution, was an average - yearly supply 01 meal amoutuing 10 xzvyj pounds. Meat-living Britain could afford less than half that allowance; 105 pounds was the bees tho traditional lovers of roast beef could at tain. Germany, with her agriculture intensified t the Inst lost corner of her fields and her manu factures perfected by the most systematic .tech nical education the world contains, averagee ne more than 105' pounls, while France, with her microscopic economies from the nursery to the kitchen, eats only seventy-eight and nine tenths pounds and has so little warm red blood that she sees her citizenry Tanuhing like leaves in autumn. - These are the European conditions, cf whose preliminary years of lesui kine the United States is having now its first hungry foretaste. , - Popular butchers not merely Independent cf the trust, but pledged to compete with it for their very existence corroborate the secre tsry of sgriculture. The utterly BDipteJ leap of wholesale prices for dressed Lf ca the Chicago markets this summer starw 1 the dealers even more than the retail prices -tomsbed the general consumer. TLy nil ciily admit that the trust as not th'n r"r i- OOXTIXTXO OX IXS7ES
