The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1906-09-15

Day Of Need Declares future A
Menaced By Rush From Farms to
Cfties-Asks "How Shall We Feed
the Millionsf'
James ]. Hill, president of the Great
Northern railroad, in his recent ad-
dress at the Minnesota State fair at
Hamline, Mimi, took a look ahead
which ought to be Of interest to Amer
leans, who Of all peoples are perhaps
most intent upon exploiting the pres
ent and least regardful OF the future,
says the New York Tribune. Mr.. Hill
looks at that future by the light OF sta
tistics and careful deduction, and what
he sees gives him sufficient uneasiness
to sound a timely note Of warning to
us to mend our ways IL we are to
leave not to our remote posterity, but
to the children of today, an unimpaired
inheritance and a chance in the strug-
gle for existence equal to that with
which those now on the stage began
their life work. Mr.. Hills speech in
part follows:
Notwithstanding the addition Of more
than million people year from ABROAD.
nearly all Of them men and women who
must work for living. labor outside OF
the cities was never so scarce or wages
as high as at the present time. ImmtSra-
ton fingers in the great centers and adds
10 the difficulties attending employment.
The farms stretch put their hands In
vain. Railroads in making extensions
have to get help at the highest market
price and find large percentage Of those
whom they employ mere hoboes, who de-
sert as soon az they have succeeded in
getting transportation from one port OF
the country to another. Farmers besiege
the employment agencies In vain and Of
fer the lazy tramp a sum for days work
in the field unheard of In any other coun-
try in the world. The situation grows
more embarrassing yearly. Hours Of Ia
Dor are being reduced In some OF the
states for farm as well as shop hands.
Men are scarcer az the movement Of pop
uiation to the cities grows more pro-
nounced. A considerable portion of this
years magnificent crop VIII be either re-
duced in quality or altogether lost by
reason Of the impossibility Of getting la
Dor to handle 1t properly. The country
needs more workers on the soil. Not to
turn the stranger away. but to direct him
to the farm instead Of the city; not to
watch with fear possible increase of the
birth rate, but to use every means to
keep the boys on the farm and to send
youths from the city to swell the depleted
ranks Of agricultural industry is the nee
essary task Of we'll advised political
economy and an Intelligent patriotism.
Within twenty years we must house
and employ in some fashion 100000 Of
additional population. and by the middle
of this century there will be approx
mately two and a half times as many
people in the United States as there are
today. No nation In history was ever
confronted with a sterner problem than
this certain prospect sets before us. What
are we to do with tour brother, whose
keepers we are? How are we to provide
our children with shelter and their daily
bread? Our arabic public lands have al
most disappeared
Our one resource, looking at humanity
as something more than the creature of
a day, is the productivity Of the SOIL The
reckless distribution of the public land. It's
division among all the greedy who choose
to ask for it. the appropriation of large
areas for grazing, have absorbed much Of
the national heritage. Only one-half Of
the land in private ownership Is now till
ed. That tillage does not produce one
half Of what the land might be made to
yield without losing an atom of it's fer
tility. Yet the waste of our treasure has
proceeded so far that the actual value of
the soil for productive purposes has al
ready deteriorated more than It should
have done in five centuries Of use.
On the new lands Of the west where
once the wheat yield was from twenty to
| thirty bushels an acre 1t is now from
| twelve to eighteen. Frankly and without
out of the soil, as il the earth were a
garment that must be destroyed by the
wearing. II the earth, the mother of
humanity. Is to wear OUT what is to
become Of the race?
4 Certain 1t is that the time has come for
setting our household In order and Great
| ing a serious study OF national activity
| and economy according to truer insight
and more rational mood.
| The first step Is to realize our depend
| ence upon the cultivation Of the soil. The
| next win be to concentrate popular inter-
est and invention and hopelupon that neg
| lected occupation. We are still. clinging to
| the skirts Of a civilization born Of great
| cities. We at this moment use a slang
which calls the stupid man "a farmer"
| Genius has Stunned the farm and ex-
| pended itself upon mechanical appliances
and commerce and the manifold activities
] whose favorable reactions filter back
slowly to the plot Of ground upon which
| stands soliuly the real master of himself
anu Va has OestinS. Ia we CpiupTeneuO
| our problem Alright all this will change,
| and a larger comprehension Of agricul-
| ture as our mean resource and our most
| dignified and independent occupation will
| for the future direct to their just aim, In
| the Improvement of methods and the in
| crease of yield, the wisdom and the SCI
| ence and the willing labor Of the millions
| who thus may transmit to posterity an
unimpaired inheritance.
| Agriculture, In the most intelligent
meaning OF the term, is something almost
unknown in the United States. We have
a light scratching Of the soil and the
| gathering Of all that 1t can be made to
| yield by the most rapidly exhaustive
l methods. In manufactures we have come
| to consider small economies 20 carefully
| that the difference Of a fraction Of a
| cent. the utilization Of a by product Of
something formerly consigned to the
scrap heap, makes the difference between
| a profit and bankruptcy. In farming we
are satisfied with small yield at the ex-
| pense OF the most rapid soil deterioration.
| When we have added to the national ex-
| port trade $500. 100000 a year tho country
| rings with self congratuladon, and we ask
| the plaudits Of the world. II process
for extracting metallic wealth from
bricks were to be discovered tomorrow
| such as to. assure the country an added
volume Of 81. 900 coo.ooo in wealth every
4 year, the nation would talk Of nothing
| else. Yet these things would be bat a
trtfie when compared with the possibilities
4 OF aerfct.itura tevolo--,ent In the Iyoited