The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-04-06
RURAL DELIVERY, RURAL TELE.
PHONES AND BETTER POLITICS.

Reference was made yesterday to the
success of Hon. Joseph w. Folk in the
rural counties of Missouri. in the face oil
the bitter opposition of the rings that dom
mate the politics of the great cities. a
special from Kansas City says that Folk
owes his success largely to the rural tele
phone and rural free delivery, and ther
| tells the story:
THE Missouri politicians seem to be
thoroughly at a loss to comprehend the
situation. The farmers do not wait fol
the daily papers to tell them the news oil
the result of the primaries in the various
counties. They call up Kansas CITY OF
ST. Louis, as the case may be, over long
distance telephone, and by dark each night
the results OF the primaries in any county
are known in every county in the State
Telephones are supplied to farmers in
Missouri at the rate of one dollar a month
In some counties where the farmers them
selves have organized telephone com
panies the cost is even less. AS a result
the machines which for so many years
dominated the State, has been unable to
call snap primaries anywhere through
county committees it controlled or to make
the least Roadway in the usual sharp
practices of the politicians Whenever
the orators for the machine begin cam
paign in any county the farmers lmme-
diately get busy at their telephones. They
call township meetings and adopt their
own resolutions, and in a few days nave
the county as thoroughly organized as IN
former years the politicians had 1t or
gained for a general election.
There is a lesson in this for North Car
DINA farmers. They need not only free
rural deliveries, which are coming, but they
need also net work of telephones to put
them in quick touch and communication
with their neighbors In very few coun-
ties in the State have the telephones come
into general use in the farm homes In
the southern portion Of Wake county
many people can be reached by telephone,
hut in the other sections of the county
communication by telephoning is un-
known. The farmers in this State need
the telephones to help them in their
business and politics as much as they do
in Missouri. Opportunity for talking to
one another over the telephone would
give the farmers greater power in politics
and lessen the influence of the little city
politician who rides about over the coun-
try seeking to control their votes by
giving them sided view of the mat
ter.
The hope of good politics, of putting
good men in office, and preventing boss
and graft rule rests mainly with the
farmers vote. This was foreseen by JEFF
ferson more than a century ago. In a
letter to James Madison. written from
Paris in 1887, Jefferson said, writing in
| favor of amending the Constitution when
ever they shall find it works wrong:
This reliance cannot deceive us. as
| long as we remain virtuous. and think
we shall be so. as long as agriculture is
our principal object, which will be the
case, while there remain vacant lands IN
any part of America When we get piled
upon one another IN large cities. as IN
Europe we shall become corrupt as IN
Europe, and go to eating one another as
they do there