The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1904-11-16
ssGET AN ACRE AND LIVE. 2
George Il. Maxwell Urges Every Wage
Garner to Cultivate Home Acre.

The wage earnerS OF tue country
and those who would ameliorate the
hard conditions of the laboring man
and see him established in comfort
10 home of his own Twill find some
interest and profit in the campaign
and lecture tour wich is being made
throughout the west by George H.
Maxwell, executive chairman OF The
National Irrigation Association. Mr..
Maxwell has spoken lat the princl-
pal cities ia Montana and his pro-
gram takes him also through Wash
ington, Colorado, New Mexico, Ari-
IONA, Texas, North Dakota, beside
large eastern centers.
The lamp of hope which he held
out to the westl and to the country
at large, in a speech at Great Falls
was that the idea should be fostered
that any strong man can from one
acre of good ground get good liv-
ing for himself and his family.
! "Get an acre and live on it, ]" he
said. Get an acre and live on it. :
I wish I could burn that thought in
to the heart of every workingman in
America. In the west I would say,
"Get an irrigated acre. Mr.. Max
well declared that if every man who
now works eight hours day in
factory or shelter could work four
hours day in the factory and four
hours a day on his own acre OF irri-
gated land, he would double his in
come and he would insure himself,
his wife and his children against
: want when the days wages should
stop.
But we must have different
system OF national education from
the present one, he said, (which
trains our children away from the
land. This idea is gaining ground.
We have natural training and do
: nestle science taught in some OF our
schools. That is getting back to the
true system of education where, in
stead of the DID, folks remaining at
: home to die alone while the boys go
to the cities with the idea of becom-
ing millionaires but to end as count
er jumpers and clerks, the making
and keeping of home is taught.
Zone more thing should be coupled
to the school system. Every child
should be made gardener and hor-
ticulturist. The winter term should
be devoted half to books and half to
work on the benches, and a summer
term should be devoted to agricul-
ture. The boys would learn to build
a home and the girls to care for
them as wives and mothers.
: 1.-The way to close the saloons is
to teach the girls to cook. Many a
man has gone wrong because wo-
man can not cook. The summer
school should be at the edge of the
city where children could attend il
! from the kindergarten to the high
school. They2could be taught to
raise everything on five acres that
goes to make home. Weare grad
ually getting away from the heresy
that money is all in this life anc
that men must raise something, sci
it and buy something back again be
fore be gets what he wants. Goo
n intended us to make a living direct
> ly from the land.
"The evil of our life isl mot tina
: the rich are getting richer or thu
poor are getting"poorer, but it il
the lack of cultivation of the soil
No man can Cypress sturdy rae,
of farmers thatsownand till the land
i There are great resources Il
Montana, but if the people want t.
develop them on sound and endur
ing lines, they must be developed il
such way that the mass of the pee
pie will be rooted to the soil. He
mines are wondrous in their pre-
. ductiveness, but her greatest wealtI
lies in her rich soil.
ssYou have great water powe
"a here at Great Falls, the greatest,
d believe. of any state in the union
j and you may produce here secon
Sc Chicago, with all its squalor, it
50 slums, its immortality, its crimes, it
starvation when the days wage
stop. But you do not want thai