The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-10-01
WHAT AILs THE FARMER.


WHAT AILS THE FARMER?
However much Senator Leland Stan
ford may tiirt with the Farmers ALI
ance it is evident that President Davi,
s. Jordan, of the Leland Stanford Jun.
ior university, does not expect to be
candidate for public office. In a strik.
ing paper in the Forum for October OF
agricultural depression and waste o
time, DR.. Jordan tells the farmers il
plain language that while part of theiI
suffering is due to unjust laws and IN
equal taxation there are other causes
for their lack of prosperity for which
they themselves are to blame. There is,
he thinks, Il great economic truth in the
expression Of an old woman he once
knew in Tennessee, that poor folks has
poor ways" In other words, plain lazi-
ness is n of the prime causes of what
we call agricultural depression" Our
farmers have fallen into idle habits and
lack the persistent industry of their
fathers and grandfathers. DR.. Jordan
himself was reared on a farm and he
thus recalls his early experience: 81 go
back to the old farm in New York on
which / was born-the farm my father
won from the forest, and on which he
lived in freedom and independence,
knowing no master, dreadlng no tyrant.
With poorer tools than are now used,
poorer buildings, inferior facilities for
transportation, lower prices, and uncer-
tain markets, still he knew nothing Of
agricultural depression When crops
were small and prices low, he simply
worked the harder. l find on that farm
to-day tenants who barely make a liv-
ing. Igo over the farm. l see I'M
pruned fruit-trees, wasted forest-trees,
farm implements rustlng in the rain and
sun, falling gates, broken wagons-evi-
dences Of wasted time and unthrifty
labor. I wonder whether the oppres-
sion of the farmer is the fault of the
times, or the fault of the man."
In contrast with farm life in the early
days he gives this picture: "Not long
ago / crossed the rich state of Indiana
on a railway train. 1t was on a bright
day in April when the sun shone on the
damp earth and one could almost hear
the growing of the grass. There are
days and days like this, which every
farmer boy can remember-days which
brought to him the perfection Of being,
but which also brought their duties of
blowing, and planting, and sowing. The
hope OF the spring was in the work, the
days were too short for the duties which
crowded, and the right to rest could come
only when the grain was in the ground.
just then the train stopped for a mo-
ment at the station of Cloverdale. A
commercial traveller, dealing in grocer
les and tobacco, got off; a crate of live
chickens was put on and the cars start
ed again. The stopping of a train was
no rare sight in that village, for it hap
pens two or three times every day. The
people had no welcome for the COM
mercial traveller, n tears were shed
over the departure of the chickens; yet
on the station steps | counted forty men
and boys who were there when the train
came in-farm boys, who ought to have
been at work in tho fields; village BOYS,
who might have been doing something
somewhere, every interest of economics
and aesthetics alike calling them away
from the village, and off to the farms.
Two men attended to all the business of
the station. The solitary passenger
went his W way. The rest were there
because they had not the moral strength
to 70 anywhere else. They stood there
On the station steps, embodied ghosts.
dead to all life and hope, with only force
enough to stand around and gap At
my destination / left the train. and 90
ing to the hotel | passed on a street
corner the noisy vender of a rheumatism
cure, and sixty men and boys who had
no need for cures of any kind, for thew
we're already dead, were standing around
with mouths open and brains shut en-
gagged in killing time. | was sorry to see
chat most OF these were farmers. And
all this time their neglected farms Law
ssthed in the sunlight, the earth ready
20 rejoice only at the touch of a hoe"
10 this waste Of time and energy DR..
Jordan traces much of the depression of
which the farmer complains. He knows
: hundred farmers, he declares, who lose
egularly one-sixth Of their time, which
neans one-sixth Of their income, lust
bout tho margin Of difference between
omfort and poverty, in needless visits
o the county seat and in making those
isits neediessly long. The conclusion
I the whole matter is, that civilization
las advanced to q point where time
aust be closely economical and un-
!nskilled labor must go. 81 have no
o!eration," says DR.. Jordan, "for une-
ual taxes, unjust determinations. or
ny form OF injustice to any man. If
no farmer is the victim of any of these
is his privilege and his duty to set
latters right even though some OF his