HOME AST) FARM MAGAZINE SECTION"
Home and Farm Magazine Section Editorial Page
Timely, Pertinent Comment Upon Men and Affairs, Following the Trend of World Nero; Suggestion of Interest to Reader;
Hinta Along Lines of Progressive Farm Thought
TO ADVERTISERS.
Advertisers In this locality who wish
to fully cover all sections of Oregon and
Washington and portion of Idaho will
Apply to local publishers for rates.
General advertisers may address C. L.
Burton, Advertising Manager of Farm
Magazine Co., Publishers Oregon-Wash'
wgton-Idoho Farmer, 411 Panama Build
ing, Portland, Oregon, for rates and information.
TO READERS.
Readers are requested to send letters
and articles for publication to The Edi
tor, Oregon-Washington-Idaho' Farmer,
411 Panama Building, Portland, Oregon.
Discussions on questions and prob
lems that bear directly on the agricul
tural, live stock and poultry interests of
the Northwest, and on the uplift and
comfort of the farm home always are
welcomed. Ko letters treating of reli
gion, politics or the European war are
solicited, for the Farm Magaiine pro
claims neutrality on these three matters.
Comparatively brief contributions are
preferred to long ones. Send us also
photographs of your live stock and farm
scenes that you think would be of gen
eral interest. We wish to make this
magazine of value to you. Help us to
do it. .
GIVE THANKS.
IT IS TRULY TOO BAD that, in spite of
large crops, the market is restricted and
that you are finding it difficult to make
both ends meet. Of course, the prospects
"within the next few months look good, and
next year should be a hummer, but right
now money is a "wee bit tight." It is true
that you are probably doing without quite
a few of the necessities that about five years
ago you thought were luxuries. Yes, jobs
are scarce and there is not much money to
be had anywhere, but instead of whining
about this it is up to you to feel enormous
ly grateful that things are no worse.
"When you feel a bit' down in the mouth
and the world and life seems tinged with
blue, take a little time off and think. You
know the financial depression, psychological
or otherwise, is a fact now, but it is but tem
porary, and you also know, what is of far
greater importance, that you live in America.
Do you realise what it means to live in
America today! In a vague manner you
have doubtless felt thankful that you were
not called to war for a trifling cause last
'August and that you are not in danger of
facing death on the battle line. Have you
thought all it means to youf Have you re
membered that while a hard winter may
pinch you a trifle, it means absolute poverty
and starvation for millions in Europe? Have
you stopped to think that you are able to
eat three meals a day, while it is a lucky
person in war-torn Belgium that can eat
pnee a day? Have you thought that whilo
you have warm clothes to wear during the
winter's chill, that hundreds of thousands
on the old continent will face the snows
thinly clad and that hundreds, if not thou
sands, of those who are not at war will prob
ably die of exposure?
The condition of affairs in Europe can
not be fully realized in America. It is hard
for us to imagine even dimly what it means
' to give up home and a living and flee for
life. We cannot picture but vaguely the
plight of the women of Europe who are
thrown largely on their own resources to
jsare for themselves and their families while
the men are fencing with death. If the win
ter now here is a severe one the privations
and sufferings in Europe will be beyond the
imagination of any in placid America.
And it is not only the countries through
.which the armies are pouring that will
suffer. England will be hard put to supply
her large population with the necessities of
life. Germany and Prance are, of course,
in the same position. Business in all the
warring countries is at an absolute stand
still. Canada, with plenty to feed her own
population, faces financial depression which
will not lift until the war is owr. Australia,
New Zealand and other territorial govern
ments subservient to England are suffering
in the same manner. They are drained of
jnany fighting men and their resources will
suffer from lack of men to develop them.
With the unsettled valuation of currency in
the lands at war it is natural that financial
enterprises must halt until the war nears
an end. No business thinks of planning
for future growth in these countries; each
finds it difficult to hold its own.
So related by commercial ties are the
countries of the world that the earthquake
which has shaken to the foundations all
business enterprises in the rich nations at
war cannot but affect the neutral nations.
America is marking time today, but when
a' favorable opportunity presents itself will
plunge into the marts of the world with her
wealth of produce of every kind and reap
prosperity. America is not seeking to profit
by the distress of her brother nations, but
America is the potential land of vast re
sources which, if the war lasts long enough,
must feed the world.
Yes, it is true things may be rather dull
with you and the immediate outlook blue,
but are you in danger of your life, is your
property about to be confiscated by your
government's enemies, is your business irre
parably ruined, are you ill-prepared to face
the rigors of winter, and, again, is your
physical and your financial life threatened?
Well, then, give thanks.
THE CHILD IN POLITICS. -
AN ATTENDANT FEATURE of the re
cent elections, which may have been
generally overlooked, was the im
portance of the child as an appeal. Candi
dates curried favor not by kissing the chil
dren of the voters, as in former times, but
by promising to work for better schools,
better sanitary conditions, everything pos
sible to make surroundings more favorable
to the raising of children.
Issues made tho same appeal. In Oregon
whero more normal schools were warned
an appeal to voters was headed, ''For
the Sake of Our Children." Tn
and Washington those interested in the
cause ot rrolubition made as a strong argu
ment against liquor traffic its need for de
bauchine the child in order to trmw "ti.a
Saloon Needs Children. Have You One to
bpare? was a widely circulated statement.
Where conditions of
j r . lj l I
were to be changed in any radical way, the
effect, of the change upon the coming gen
eration was often an effective argument for
or against wo issue, llie child played an
important part in politics.
And why should not the child receive the
highest consideration of the voters? It is he
who will be mostly affected by the majority
of measures now going into operation. It is
he who will have to pay for the mistakes
of men elected today. It is he who will bene
fit by the wise legislation of sensible law
WORK OF THE SURGEONS.
IT IS HOPED, because of the great im
provement in medicine, surgery and
uyiene, mat tne present European war
will show a marked decrease in the number
of deaths from disease and wounds. There
has been steady progress on these lines for
nearly a century, and it has been most rapid
in the last few years, during which time
mankind has mastered the science of sanita
tion and the prevention or limitation of dis
eases. Full returns from the front have, there
fore, been awaited with great interest. We
have little definite information as yet on
which to base any estimate, but scattering
figures are encouraging. It will, of course,
not do to include in tho estimate the large
number of wounded who have been left to
die on the battlefield, because they have
been unable, in most cases, to receive treat
ment The fighting has been so furious and
so bitter at times that in most cases armis
tices asked for to recover the wounded have
been refused, and thousands have been al
lowed to die on the battlefield fpr lack of
removal or attention. But for those who
have come under the care of the surgeons
and the nurses the reports are most gratify
ing and the deaths fewer than ever.
Sir William Osier reDorta th
hospital at Oxford to which seven hundred
British wounded were moved whereof onlj
one died. It is probable that the more sa
vere wounds were treated in France, bat
even allowing for this fact the figures an
gratifying,, especially if we recall the heavy
British losses in the South African wary
when the deaths from wounds were half as
great as those on the field of battle, ana
the deaths from disease nearly three timet
as many.
A great improvement is recorded in the
munitions of war, in the means of taking
life by arms, bombs and explosives. It will
be gratifying to show, if it ja possible to da
so, that surgery and medicine have made as
great progress as the art of war, and thai
the surgeons,-4octors and nurses have saved
a large proportion of those struck down
during the strife.
BLIND LEADERS.
IT IS NOT STRANGE that much misinfor
mation concerning the war is spread by
word of mouth among those who art
able to give only slight attention to tho
course of events, in view of the astcmishinj
errors which are the work of newspaper
making high pretensions to accuracy ana in
telligence. In a recent issue of one soA
daily paper, there were three outstanding
and gross exhibitions of ignoranee in thi
discussion and presentation of war news.
Two were in an editorial One spoke of
"Ostend, the only real seaport of Belgium,"
thus placing a city which is noted chiefly as
a summer resort like Atlantic City and as a
landing place for steamers plying across the
English Channel ahead of Antwerp, one of
the three ports of Europe that outrank all
the rest. To compare Ostend with Antwerp
as a seaport is almost like contrasting At
lantic City with Philadelphia, or Newport
with New York.
In the same editorial the Germans ari
credited with holding "their lines across the
entire breadth of France." Take any map
of France and draw lines to the frontier,
north to Belgium and cast to Germany, from
a point one-third of the way from Paris to
the Belgian boundary and it will be seen
at a glance how ludicrously far such lines
fall short of stretching across "the entire
breadlh of France." About 4 per cent, per
haps 5 per cent, of the area of France is
inside the German lines, yet they are said to
extend "across the entire breadth of
France."
Blind leaders of the blind fall into many,
ditches. Newspapers assuming to give in.
formation ought to avoid very gross and
obvious errors of their own.
UNIQUE WORLD EXPERIMENT.
SCHOOL BOYS of the future will read a
strange chapter in their histories. It
will tell of one of the world's unique .
experiments, 19th century militarism. Even
barbaric history knows nothing like it. '
In the face of the greatest international
fraternizing inflnences the world has ever
known, the nations of Continental Europe
made a soldier of every adult man. What
might have been the immense creative Powe
of the modern State, backed by invention
and machinery, was turned to destruction,
And the text books of the future will re
cord how this piling avalanche of malevolent
energy drove irresistibly and yet how little
foreseen toward a catastrophic end. Tha
histories will picture the great 300-mik
battle-lines of whole peoples locked motion
less in a deadly embrace till
What will be the final chapter to this,
strange story!
Still, the Russian Boldiers haven't notified!
their friends and relatives yet to send thefaj
Christmas presents to Berlin.
Possibly the Germans rate their mines is
the North Sea as among their most profit,
able resources. Yet the British have played
the principal part in their development
American ambassadors are not now groirV
ing about their places of residence, provioV
ing the cellars are deep enough.
j ,
And King Cotton isnt the only Kmf
sadly in need of a ban.