Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-04-06
TALKS ON ECONOMICS
President Discusses Capital
and Labor.
VISITS SIOUX FALLS
GREAT CROWD GATHERS TO HEAR
HIM.
First Addresses 1000 School Children
in the uditorium-Weather
Was Not Propitious.

SIOUX FALLS. S. D., April 6.-Pres!dent
Roosevelt began the second week of his
tour feeling much refreshed from yester-
days rest. and at 7:50 o'clock started on a
drive over the city with Secretary Loeb.
Senator Kittredge and Mayer Burnside.
Despite the early hour and the dreary
weather. the streets were lined with people,
who greeted the President with cheers and
the waving of flags, and at $40 am the
President arrived at the big auditorium,
where he addressed 4,0Co children.
Il believe in work. and l believe in play"
said the President. Il would be sorry not
to see you enjoy yourselves, but do not let
play interfere with work Do things quickly
and cheerfully. Boys. remember, the man
Her you wish to be the nicer you can afford
to be at home. l would be ashamed of a
boy who was a bully to the weak. When
you play, be fair but play hard. and then
work hard at your studies. If you get
hurt, keep on playing. Work with your
whole heart in all things
As the President left the auditorium he
was greeted with tremendous applause. He
was driven rapidly to the stand which had
been erected at a corner of 9th street and
Phillips avenue where a crowd Of 5000 reo-
pie had assembled The President was in
troduced by Senator l<ittredge, and spoke
on The Wage Worker and the Tiller of the
Soil During his speech snow began to
fan. but the President was clad in a heavy
overcoat, and was well protected. He said
he was glad to be again in the banana
peit which remark created laughter.
Text of Presidents Speech.
The President said in part: There are
many, many lesser problems which go to
make up in their entirety the huge and
complex problems of our modern industrial
life. Each of these problems is, moreover
connected with many of the others Few
indeed are simple or stand only by them
selves The most important are those con-
nscted with the relation of the farmers,
the stock growers and soil tllers to the
community at large. and those affecting
the relations between employer and en-
ployed- In country like ours 1t is funda-
mentally true that the we'll being of the
t1ller OF the soil and the wage worker is
the weIl-being of the state If they are
well off, then We need concern ourselves
but little as to how other classes stand
a dor tney VIII inevitably be well off too:
and, on the other hand, there can be no
real general prosperity unless based on the
foundation of the prosperity of the wage
worker and the tiller of the soil.
But the needs of these two classes are
often not the same. The tller of the soil
has been of all our citizens the one on the
whole the least affected in his ways of life
and methods of industry by the giant in
dustrial changes of the last half century
There has been change with him. too. of
course. He also can work to best advan-
tage II he keeps in close touch with his
Fellows; and the success of the national
Department of Agriculture has shown how
much can be done for him by rational ac-
uon OF the government. Nor is it only
through the department that the govern
ment can act. One of the greatest and
most beneficent measures passed by the
last Congress. or indeed by any Congress
in recent years, is the irrigation act which
Will do for the states of the great plains
and the Rocky mountain region at lea ct
as much as ever has been done for the
states of the humid region by river and
harbor improvements. Few measures that
nave been put upon the statute books of
the nation have done more for the people
than this law will. firmly believe. directly
and indirectly accomplish for the states in
question
Work CT Department of Agriculture.
The President outlined the work the De-
partment of Agriculture is doing for the
FARMER the stock raiser and the fruit
grower. Continuing, he said:
The Department of Agriculture has been
helping our fruit men to establish mar
kets abroad by studying methods of fruit
preservation through refrigeration and
through methods of handling and packing
On the gulf coasts of Louisiana and Texas
thanks to the Department of Agriculture
a rice suitable to the region was import-
ed from the orient and the rice crop is
now practically equal to our needs in this
country, whereas a few years ago it sup
pied but one-fourth of them. The most
important of our farm products is the
grass crop; and to show what has been
done with grasses. l need only allude to
the striking change made in the entire
west by the extended use of alfalfa
Moreover, the department has taken
the lead in the effort to prevent the defor-
estaton OF the country. Where there are
forests we seek to preserve them; and on
the once treeless plains and the pralr1es
we doing our best to foster the habit
OF tree planting among our people In
my own lifetime / have seen wonderful
changes brought about by this tree plant
Ing here in your own state and in the
states Immediately around it.
There are a number of very important
questions such as that of good roads. with
which the states alone can deal and where
all that the national government can do
is to cooperate with them. The same is
true of the education of the American
farmer. number of the states have
themselves started to help in this work
and the Department of Agriculture does
an immense amount which is in the proper
sense of the word educational, and educa-
uonal in the most practical way
1t Is therefore clearly true that Il great
advance has been made in the direction of
finding ways by which the government
can help the farmer to helm himseIfTba
only kind OF help which a self-respectinp
man will accept or, l may add which will
in the end do him any good Much has
been done in these ways, and farm life
and farm processes continually change for
the better. The farmer himself still re-
tains. because of his surroundings and tho
nature of his work, TO a pre-eminent de-
gree the qualities which we like to think
of as distinctly American in considering
our early history. The man who tills mis-
own farm, whether on the prairie or IN the
woodland, the man who grows what we
eat and the raw material which is worked
up into what we wear, still exists more
nearly under the conditions which obtained
when the "embattled farmers of '16 made
this country nation than is true of any
others of our people.
Position of the Wege-Workers
But the wage-workers in our cities like
tie capitalists in our cities, face totally
changed conditions. The development OF
machinery and the extraordinary change
in business conditions have rendered the
employment of capital and of persons In
large aggrcgatiops not merely profitable
hut often necessary for success and have
specialized the labor of the wage-worker a,
the same time that they have brought grea,
aggregations of wage workers together