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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1908)
r 3 C ,,. . . . Portland; Oregon, Sunday . morning, September 6, ts V- 1M f . r 4 - 1 co.U4u::iii for-tIiE" 7STnn- PIMJS muous i - I ' - - , ' ' 1 , 13 1 i X H the V. 1 'APPINESS on farm?- - '- ' nr ; rf A 7tf enjoyed by therjat inass of jhe. 4 merican people is to be. brought at last, to the ten mill t ions and more engaged in the agriculture mvhich the whole 'nation's prosperity rests; and ' jq all those dependent on them and on the farm for J heir daily living. - 7 has been the hopeless dream of gen ; eratipns. is the approaching reality of today i r, v ' ;..":.: : ' I . By. December' of thU 'year President 1 Roosevelt hopes to have in hand, ready for usejn his recommendation to Congress, a 1 cqmpfehensive repdrt upon ' fbe economic, sanitary and social conditions attending the life of the'A merican farmer$fy j . ,':4 special investigating ' commission, consisting of highly qualified experts se- 'lected by jhir President in August, is assem- ' blinr 'the data r available "from the various sections rot we. country: in order that the fc . t fdctj may-be in. hand for the solution of w.knt' the. President has declared is. in the -h ' truest sense ,.a national problem. , -t f "Our attention" he observed, in. nam- I ing the commission, "has been concentrated ' 'almost exclusively on getting better .farm- , 'ing' But good crops are of little value to, r the farmer unless they open the doorHa. a -good, kind life on the farm. I am anxious to make the country life more gainful, more attractive and f uller of opportunities, pleas ures and rewards for the men, women and children of the farms.'' , Tke' commission includes Henry Wal lace"? of Wallace's Fatmcr, Iowa; Kenyon L. Butterfield, president of the Massachu- j setts Agricultural College; Gifford Pfnchot, of the United States Forest Service, and Walter 7. Page, editor of the World's Work. ' , r While in no sense a preliminary report of their findings, this article tells of some remarkable betterments already achieved in the i merican farmer's living conditions betterments nov en joyed by hundreds of Viousands, and destined, within a few yiars, ... . . - to be the heritage of many millions. ? X ltttl land. nd !l!nr-urIy. . Iprt tru((ic, n weutn posaibijr, v men r , -Y ;s. l - ' . I v . : LL..r - A. . IhJ T . ' i J III 7 in very existence upon making tne farmer content to farm. Under his discontent the nation must inevitably starve. Again, as the' President observed, the achievement of reasonable prosperity is far from being a means of contentment sufficient for the fanner. Food, shelter and clothing are not enough. More than any other people in the world, Americans must have mental activity, or they feel tbey are perishing. The opportunities for a competence will fig- ure largely in me. commission a report in ue- . . . -i t L iU, ,;t;. .,;n(lKtP necessary for maintenance and d!stnbution of Iowa farmers organized a corporation that buys all their supplies, disposes of all their farm products, does a profitable business of $620,000 in a year, ajid defeats every trade, railroad and financial interest that has attempted to practice , upon the members the familial tricks of chi- canery and extortion. . , The farmers have in their own hands the earning of, competencies rnd the assuring; of '-'.them agains$ any attempts at economic robbery. But they -are helpless against the weariness of their sons vover the farm's dulness; oftfii hope less in face of the ' conditions which keep' thou sands of able-bodied tnen walking the cities' streets, while the farms groan under crops that cannot be harvested, for Jove o money." ' t Themost impressive example of what has proved a complete solution of the problem under one set; of conditions must be ; .that of, the -Utopia which has sprung into existence under the reservoirs nw reclaiming the,arid West into a paradise of plenty. On the irrigated lands of the West thero has cdme into being a form of community lifo that offers more to the individual," singly or col lectively, than anything, &j yet proposed by the sociologists. It harks back to the days of our ancestors, when th? family grew so large as to , , form a village and lived in harmonious sociabil ity; but it adds to that life every convenience ' developed through the passing of the centuries. CITY AND COUNTRY IN ONE It combines the advantages of the city and the country into one. congenial whole; but, in so ; doing, avoids the undesirable features of each. ' The origin of the community idea, as at present existing, was in -such, sections of the. West' 'as Badlands' and Biverside in "California,1 the. Salt Biver valley in Arizona, and the Ya- kima valley,' in Washington. '"" t There was, at first, little value in the land. It was" practically useless unless irrigated.; The ; owners of property at Badlands, now worth, $1000 an. acre, thirty years ago protested when r, it was assessed at 75 cents. . -. ' Because of their individual inability to pro vide irrigation facilities they pooled their inter-, ests and were able, working together, to provide for a water supply that would serve them-alky The community of interest brought them together in a battle against the common enemy, the desert. They built storage reservoirs, dam- med' and diverted streams, constructed, systems of ditches, did whatever the exigencies of the given case demanded. After their co-operation for the construc tion of a water system, similar action became1 and numerous n was jir. i age, 01 ine v oria uik. wuw m a ft, .,ki;c ,lt . r,t Kv TT A. Wood, the life-giving fluid. Thes f th "Farmers' TJrust" in Iowa, where 500 (CONTINUED ON INSIDE PAGR) the water. Organizations were perfected for the administration of the system that provideJ i irganizationa, being I n IIE alternative has beca debated now for , " ' A" .-, ." . ",. toot years by many, very many farai- lho baikeU of Jilberta peaches MK llU authoritatively indorse the dictum oL lies, who have realised keenly, often tells about as having been picked at Bridgeville,. a. Bolton Hall, and declare that greats cruelly, tne nara uoes m which tneir VeL. by Cornelius P. Jwcin from SOs trees opportunities await toe- tanner trays were set in the flaring cities of their illu- growing on a couple of acres, and sold for specialties. An expert like J. U- sion. Ho re and more sumeroutly the heart-sick f the ciUes hare gone farxaward, allured by the unquenchable ambitions which 'first drew them to the towns, in the hope of finding riches in the soil their forefathers sbndoned. Many of them bare prrred tbe truth of promises such a a Bol ton 1111 holds out in. his stimulating books, .Three Acres and Liberty and "A Little Land od a Uvirr," wbo titl hag jurt been quoted la l?t s;rci5cant surtlicity. - 71cy Lira come within satisfying rt 11140. They, hare .roved that an acre of Beichert,. in Berks county, in thst : ground can be taught to rfford a family a Dv state, may demonstrate how 105 ing.. They hare found that nature is not the 'acres can support 105 snimala cattle niggard, so many believe her to be. " horses. But always the lack of But the old lurt of the city has drawn many. 'community, life, such as the cities ef them back, and tboae who suy are to few and ths towns supply, has left the' to compenai for the ratt horde of fsrm boyt farm at disadvantage, who annD-Hy forake the farm, in diegnst of iu It is. as the. President has now narrow pleasures and its lian interests of the, . recognized, one f the moftital na-. Blind. ... ti.tol tkmbUtrrm' frA K KX Ameri- . . An expert CritchfrM, serreiary, of ctn: pecpl- as - s-wbo!e. F6r as a - sca of - rcLEfylrsaia's DfjiKnett ef Afncnltore, rosy " whele, the ration depends fcr its ' Si ..-fir.: - S 1, . - .A, 1 .v i ! r
