HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION
Editorial Page of Home and Farm Magazine Section
Timely, Pertinent Comment Upon Men and Affairs, Following the Trend of World News;
Suggestions of Interest to Readers; Hints Along Lines of Progressive Farm Thought.
4
TO ADVERTISERS.
Advertisers In this locality who wish to
fully cover all sections of Oregon and Wash
ington and a portion of Idaho will apply to
local publishers for rates.
General advertisers may address C. L. Bur
ton, Advertising Manager of Oregon-Washing-ton-Idaho
Farmer, Oregonian Building, Port
land, Oregon, for rates and information.
TO READERS.
Renders are requested to send letters and
articles for publication to The Editor, Or
egon Washington - Idaho Farmer, Oregonian
Building, Portland, Oregon.
Discussions on questions and problems
that bear directly on the agricultural, live
stock and poultry interests of the Northwest,
and on the uplift and comfort of the farm
home always are welcomed. No letters treat
ing of religion, politics or (lie European war
are solicited, for the Orcgon-Washington-Idaho
Farmer proclaims neutrality on these matters.
Comparatively brief contributions are pre
ferred to Ion;: ones. Send us also photo
graphs of your livestock and farm scenes that
von think would lie of eeneral interest. We
wish to make this magazine of value to you
Help us to do it.
doubly profit. Living in a land of, as yet,
little touched potentialities, you may realize
what others may not for years in the tang
ible wealth of this world. But don't count
too much upon mere money. Honest, now,
isn't it better to be living in this great
Northwestern country and to be making
only a fairly comfortable living than to be
stuffed in some devitalizing city of the East
with listless luxury laying at your com
mand? Brace up. Take the bit in your teeth.
Look the world square in the face, and with
a calm confidence in the future greet your
neighbor with "A Happy New Year!"
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
THERE are many people to whom the
greeting "Happy New Year!" may
seem rather a mockery, for to many
the old year has not brought forth the ful
fillment of wishes for a "Happy New Year"
pronounced January 1, 1914. But who
knows what future is stored for him in the
365 days of the new year? The year 1915
may go down in history as one of the most
prosperous the United States has ever
known. It may in the future recall a year
of business revival, the like of which was
never seen before. It may mean a wealth
of trade with South America and Europe
which will enrich the coffers of this Nation
beyond the most lurid imagination. It may
mean a prosperity that will be general and
widespread in America.
Of course this view of the future is pos
sibly with glasses of too pronounced a rose
tint, but is not optimism better than pessim
ism? And then there are signs, plenty of
them, that augur well for the United State
in the year to come. There is little appar
ent reason now why it should not be a re
markably prosperous year, though the sad
part of it is it would probably be a prosper
ity reaped at the expense of our brethren
in Europe.
Be assured that it will be a far happier
new year for you in America particularly
for you in the wonderful Pacific Northwest
than for hundreds of thousands, nay, mil
lions, of rich and poor alike in Europe.
"Where riches stave off actual want and hun
ger in France, in Engand and in Germany,
still there is the more poignant distress
that of bereavement. In few families is not
a son, a husband, a father or a cousin dead,
killed in battle.
We have many causes here in America to
congratulate ourselves at the beginning of
the year of our Lord, 1915. Everywhere
business conditions are far better than they
were a year ago, and a confidence in the
future of many projects is to bo found in
plenty. Money is being put into wider cir
culation and the benefit is widespread. The
feeling of stringency that has gripped the
money market of the country is loosening
and dollars and cents are parted with more
freely than they were even a few months
ago.
Men and women of the Northwest have
you not ample cause to look for blessings in
the year to come? What the Nation will
profit from a business revival, you will
Why is a trust?
SITPOSE the farmers of the Northwest
should join in a large organization for
the purpose of securing good prices for
the results of their tabor. Would this com
bine be prosecuted as a trust and possibly
dissolved because of "restraint of trade"?
Would such an organization be illegal in
the eyes of the law, or a lawful institution?
The courts apparently differ on the subject,
if recent decisions are any criterion.
Three United States District Court Judges
decided last October that the North Atlan
tic steamship trust was not committing an
unlawful act by combining and maintaining
a pool to fix rates of fare for steerage and
third-elass passengers. The court main
tained that the fares were not excessive and
the combination prevented throat-cutting,
which might be worse.
The International Harvester Company
was tried before a district court last August
and ordered dissolved because it was a big
concern. It came out in the testimony that
the harvester company had not violated any
law, as it had not raised prices or threatened
extinction of independent concerns. It had
only done what the steamship company had
done, combined to prevent throat-cutting
among numberless small concerns. Yet one
trust was patted on the head, called a good
fellow and sent on its way, while the other
was kicked out with the command to "un
scramble" itself.
The Supreme Court of the United States
-has now to decide, on an appeal, if the or-,
der was constitutional. Trust law is ap
parently more complicated than a trust.
580 people to the square mile in prosperity
and comfort or did before a wicked war
blasted it and Holland 416.
In the second place, and even adopting
the absurd assumption that deliberate cur
tailment of population is necessary which
is wholly an assumption and not supported
by any respectable scientific fact or even
theory war is too blind a way to do it.
To say that Providence intended that hu
manity should curb its natural increase by
war is to insult Providence by denying it
ordinary intelligence.
And if society must kill to prevent over
population, why kill its fittest, as war does?
"War is not a survival of the fit, but of the
unfit the fit are taken and the culls are
left to breed inferior future generations.
If society must kill to protect itself, why
not kill intelligently? Why not periodically
slaughter the unfit? Let civilization, in
stead of leading barbarism out of darkness,
slay it in its benightedncss and take its land.
China is rich and large. The Chinese are not
progressive. If society must kill, let it kill
intelligently; let it depopulate China and
occupy it with its civilized overflow.
Nonsense? Of course, but not half so
nonsensical as the outpourings of Edgar
Stanton Mat-lay in his defense of militarism
which is barbarism surviving past its time.
The limits of the soil's capacity to sup
port life are not yet even known, not to
speak of being reached. So far as a world
congestion of humanity is concerned, there
seems to be a law, illustrated by the large
birth rate that goes with pioneering hard
ships and the low birth rate that accom
panies comfort and luxury, to prevent that
imaginary peril.
And even if it be admitted that arbitrary
curtailment of population is necessary, no
crueller, cruder, madder way of doing it
than by the barbaric method of war could
be imagined.
APPALLING DEFENSE OF WAR.
,UITE the most atrocious defense of
war incidentally it is also a bitter at
tack on peace as an enemy of man
kindis furnished by Edgar Stanton Ma
clay, author "The History of the Navy,"
in the North American Review, says an
Eastern journal.
Falling back on exploded and forgotten
Malthus, his point is that if we let humanity
increase in peace, we shall starve:
We must not close our eyes to the fact that
there are fewer than thirty million square miles
of land suitable for the support of mankind on
the globe. Centuries of experience show that this
land will not support more than a hundred per
sons per square mile; so that the world's popula
tion would seem to be limited to three billions.
Already the earth's population exceeds half this
limit. If all nations are to cease preparations for
war and concentrate their energies In the pursuit
of peace and happiness, the world'a population
will he more than three billions In less than a
single generation. Obviously, if the world's pop
ulation Is not kept down by war, it will be re
stricted by other means, etc.
Nothing more atrocious than this can be
imagined.
In the first place, "centuries of experi
ence" are worthless in view of the. fact that
the world has not yet begun to learn the
possibilities of the soil in supporting life.
The arbitrary limit of a hundred people to
the square mile is absurd. Belgium supports
PEACE IN CHINA.
WE QUOTE the following, which ii
quite worth giving a moment's no
tice, from the amiable poet philoso
pher, "Walt Mason:
The war goes on, the soldiers labor 12 hours
a day at slaying foes; and men are wielding
sword and saber who should be plying spades
and hoes. There Is no sign of early quitting, since
neither side can overwhelm; and grand old China
doPB her knitting, and peace abides within her
realm. The rage grows hot, Instead of colder,
among most nations not at war; each has a chip
upon Its shoulder, and wonders what It's waiting
for. They fear the struggle will be over before
they have a chance to whoop; but China bales
her hay and clover, and puts up cans of bird's
nest soup. In her calm hlood there is no fever, she
hones not for the field's alarms; she does not
wish to swing a clcawr, or snickersnee, or other
arms. She lists not to the martial clackers, she
entertains no frenzied hat's, but wisely builds
her cannon-crackers, and ships them proudly to
the States. From Sacramento to Sallna we jeer
the lowly Mongol's name, and glibly talk of
"Heathen China," and laugh to scorn her quiet
game. But now the world is kattlo crazy, old
China 'tis that puts up Ice; Inscrutable her meth.
ods mazy, she calmly stews her rats and rice.
Egypt had a standing army as long as 3800
years ago, but what sort of protest could it
have made against the armed millions of
today?
San Francisco knows what it is to need
and receive help. That's why in one hour
she picked up $100,000 for the needy Bel
gians. .
If you are dissatisfied with the world at
least make your part of it better by being
the kind of man or woman you ought to be.
It has been demonstrated several times
that it is no easy task to trap a million
Frenchmen, Germans or Eussians. -