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. Portland; Oregon, Sunday . morning, September 6, ts
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'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
,
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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 '
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