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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 1914)
J Home and Farm Magazine Section Editorial Page Timely, Pertinent Comment Upon Men and Affairs, Following the Trend of World Newt; Suggestions of Interest to Beadexij Hinti Along Lines of Progressive Farm Thought HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION TO ADVERTISERS. Advertiser in this locality who wish to fully cover all sections of Oregon and Washington and a portion of Idaho will apply to local publishers for rates. J General advertisers may address 0. lu Burton, AdvertiNing Manager of Farm Magazine Co., Publishers Oregon-Wash- Ington-ldaho Farmer, 411 Panama Build- ing. Portland, Oregon, for rates and 1- formation. TO READERS. Readers are requested to send letters and articles for publication to The Edl- tor, Oregon-Washington-Idaho Farmer, 411 Panama Building, Portland, Oregon. Discussions on questions and prob- lems that bear directly on the agricol- tural, live stock and poultry interests of too .Northwest, and on the uplift and comfort of the farm home always are welcomed. No letters treating of rell- gion, politics or the European war are solicited, for the Farm Magazine 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. MADE IN U. S. A. A M ERICA'S opportunity to gain a fore most place among the mercantile nations of the world, if not the fore most place, has now arrived. To make this assured the eo-nperation of everyone living within the borders of this nation is needed as well as those with whom the United States will trade. Not only should "Made in U. S. A." be stamped upon every article of merchandisC'that is shipped from America, but every citizen of this great nation should insist that this insignia be upon every article he buys for personal use. What is the famed Parisian model in many cases but a poorer example of material and workmanship than can be turned out in the United States? Is a thing stamped "Made in Germany" any better than the same thing made in America t Even though this may mean that the price is somewhat stiffer on American-made goods they should be given the preference, decidedly. When one considers that for every dollar spent in the United Slates -he receives a part of it back in taxes, or some other indirect benefit, one will not consider it so much of a bargain to pay slightly lower prices for something made abroad. The more money spent in the United States the more prosper ous you will be, no matter what your occu pation. Do your share toward spending your money in this nation. What is considered in a largo way as af fecting the interests of a nation may be con fined to a single section, district or state. The benefits are practically the same. What goes into taxes in your own locality is of benefit more directly to you than the money given taxpayers outside your immediate dis trict. Let "Made in Pacific Northwest" be as much of a slogan to you as "Made in U. S. rA." is to the nation. By virtue of the same Identical argument you gain more personally by spending your money in the Northwest than if you spent it in any other section of this nation. Yet it follows that money spent anywhere in the United States is of more benefit to you than sums spent in foreign nations for foreign goods. The United States is big enough to make enough of everything for her own consumption. The Pacifie North west can produce all of life's necessities and many of her luxuries. Buy in the Pacifie Northwest, United States of America. DIVERSITY OF CROPS. THOSE sections of the country that per sist in the raising of a single crop wQl be overtaken by disaster sooner or later, says the Iowa Farmer. "The situation in which the cotton plant era now find themselves is only an illustra tion of the danger attendant upon any farm enterprise and business based on raising a single crop," said Professor Spillman, chief of the office of farm management "It may run along very well for a while, even for many years, but some disaster will undoubt edly overtake it. Our study and investigation have amply demonstrated that it is never safe to build agriculture on any one thing. "The wheat growers of the Pacific North west had no better resourve than wheat In 1893 the crop was ruined by untimely rains. In 1894 they experienced the panic, and the price of what fell so low as 18 cents per busheL The next year it rose to 25 cents a bushel and in 1896 was boosted up to 85 cents. During that period nearly every bank and every commercial house in that region went broke. So many mortgages were called on farms that the price of farm land, which had been $40 to $50 per acre, fell as low as $10 and $12. The Pacific Northwest for years past has not been depending on wheat alone. The farmers learned a costly lesson. "The same thing is true of the rice pro ducers in regions where no other crops were raised in large quantities. Farmers who grow nothing but rice have met with two or three eras of prices away below the cost of production, and financial ruin has fol lowed. ' "Every region that has but one great agricultural enterprise has suffered more or less the same way. ' ' The evident thing that the south must do is to produce enough of all the things her wonderfully rich soil can produce to meet her home requirements. That is what the office of farm management has been urging on the south.' HOMES OF THE NATION. SOME of the discussions at the meetings of the International Purity Congress, .which was lately in session in Kansas City, are of dubious merit because they have more the color of pruriency than of purity; but one speaker there, John B. Hammond of Des Moines, raised a point that is of the highest importance. He said that "the constant diminution of home ownership among our people and the destruction of the privacy of the family life is the greatest menace to our free institu tions today." So far as. the superlative is concerned, that is lightly used by many speakers, and seldom with duo care. There are other "menaces to our free institutions,'! many of them; yet somehow our free insti tutions seem to bear up. Whether or not the decline in home-owning is the greatest of these menaces is not important. It enough that it is a menace. Mr. Hammond went on to say that about 70 per cent of the American people are ten ants, and dependent upon speculators for the roofs that shelter them. "Thirty-five per cent of the families in our cities move once annually." He detects a connection between this fact and the scandalously high divorce rate and scandalously low birth rate. It is not hard to suspect such a connection. The tenant home is often lacking in the real home spirit which lacks much when it lacks a sense of permanence. Those who dwell there doubtless do the best they can to make it a home; but it is hard. It is especially hard when no children are there, and the stork avoids the tenant home. Cafes rather than cradles are its familiars. What to do about it! Mr. Hammond would 'exempt the home from taxation; which isn't a bad idea at all. To free home steads up to a certain value from taxation would be a fine encouragement to hon owning. . Our legislators might give it thought He would also regulate tenement rents, whieh is not so appealing as an in ducement to home-owning unless he regu lates rents up to a prohibitive point. And that, of course, much as landlords might en joy it, is not practical. The trouble, though, goes deeper tfcaa that Decline in home-owing probably knl due to a decline fa the desire for home-ow ing. In part it ia due ni vary large Pff indeed to the prevailing extravagance. Owning automobiles, dressing up to the handle, and living up to the last nickel, keep many people from owning homes who ought to own them, Bui on the whole the fact that fewer people than of old can afford to own their own homes has a good deal to do with it, too ; though not nearly so much as the insane emulation of the rich which ia making this so improvident a people. The menace of tenantry ia very real A nation of tenants is a nation lacking real home -life. A nation lacking real haras Ufa ia a nation threatened with loos of good citizenship. Any practical measure that will inereaaa home-owning ia good for the nation, good for the community, good for society, good for the individual LORD ROBERTS. IN THE DEATH of Lord Roberta Greet Britain mourns the loss of the foremost soldier of the age. Sir Frederick Sleigh Roberts, "Bobs," aa he was affectionately called by the people, was possibly the most idolized figure in English public life. A soldier and the son of a soldier, hk trade was war, and in the war. service of hk country he developed the qualities that ex cel No end of eulogy might be written con cerning the intrepidity and the heroism that have been manifest in Lord Roberts' aoldiav ly career; and especially in his Indian cam paigning that began when he had barely passed to man's estate, and lasted with slight intermission until 1893. Much of the story of Lord Roberts' service in India reads like a romance. It is fine stuff that such men are mads of,, whether or not we may think and con tend that it could be put to better use than in the trade of war. It is for dnty splendid" ly done that the sober and reflective esteem of the world is bestowed on such men. They are of a high type, and under most exacting conditions and in most exacting circum stances they prove their worth. The honor that is due to their memory is given with" out grudge. Boisus Thompson, an T W. W., has con fessed to firing a theater in Tonopah, the blaze destroying sixteen dwellings in addi tion to tho place of amusement Boisus ia now in line for a presidential nomination at the hands of his party. New -York's board of education is em barrassed by protests against the rule that forbids women who become mothers to con tinue in employment as teachers. It looks at a distance hke a case where education and enlightenment had parted company, Possibly it will not be very long when dis appointed investors may be heard talking about how cheap they could have bought a few bales of cotton in 1911 It must be depressing to an industrious statesman to hear how much more money he might have made, with far less work, by, becoming a moving picture actor. Fortunately America is not expected to linger on the verge of prosperity as long aa England onee lingered on the verge of war. That beautiful sentiment, "There is glory enough to go round," never made much of an impression on Mexico. Califomians are heard to brag of theii splendid climate. We venture to suggest that any Califomian who has spent the past few months in the Northwest has revised some opinions.