The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-12-04

the high officials, whether on the berch | or in executive or legislative positions l need to remember that often the most | dangerous criminals, so far as the life of l the nation is concerned. are not those l who commit the crimes known to and
 condemned by the popular conscience for l centuries, but those who commit crimes | only rendered possible by the complex | conditions of our modern industrial fife | It makes not a particle of difference ! whether these crimes are committed by a | capitalist or by a 1aborer, by a leading | banker or manufacturer or railroad man,
 or by a leading representative of a labor
 union. Swindling in stocks, corrupting l legislatures, making fortunes by the in- | flation of securities, by wreckng rail- roads, by destroying competitors through
 rebates-these forms of wrongdoing in the | capitalist, are far more infamous than | any ordinary form of embezzlement or | forgery; yet 1t is a matter of extreme dif- 1 ficulty to secure the punishment of the
 man most guilty of them, most responsi- | ble for them. The business man who 1 condones such conduct stands on a level with the labor man who deliberately sup l ports a corrupt demagogue and aRitator
 whether head of a union or head of some municipality, because he is said to have stood by the union." The members of the business community, the educators l or clergymen, who condone and encour- age the first kind of wrongdoing, are no more dangerous to the community. but | are morally even worse, than the labor men who are guilty of the second tyne of wrongdoing, because less is to be par
 doned those who have no such excuse as l IS furnished either by ignorance or by dire l need.
 Farmers and Wase-Workers.
 When the department of agriculture was founded there was much sneering
 as to its usefulness. No department of the government, however, has more | emphatically yindicated it's usefulness and none save the postoffice depart ! ment comes so continually and inti- l mately into touch with the people. The two citizens whose welfare is in the aggregate most vital to the welfare
 of the nation and therefore to the well fare of all other citizens. are the wage worker who does manual labor and the tiller of the soil, the farmer. There are, ot course, kinds of labor where the work must be purely men tal, and there are o~-.er kinds of labor 1 where, under existing conditions, very 1 little demand indeed is made upon the
 mind, though I am glad to say that the proportion of men engaged in this kind of work is diminishing. But in any community with the solid, healty qual- : ities which make up 6 really great na- 1 tion the bulk of the people should do work which calls for the exercise of | both body and mind. Progress cannot permanently exist in the abandonment of physical labor, but in the develop
 ment of physical labor, so that 1t shall represent more and more the work of 1 the trained mind in the trained body
 Our school system is gravely defective in so far as it puts a premium upon mere literary training and tends there fore to train the boy away from the 1 farm and the workshop. Nothing Is more needed than the best type of in- 1 dustrial school, the school for mechan- | ical industries in the city, the school for practically teaching agriculture in the country. The calling of the skilled ! tiller of the soil, the calling of the skilled mechanic, should alike be recog- nized as professions, just as emphat 1 ically as the callings of lawyer, doc tor, merchant, or clerk. The schools should recognize this fact and it should equally be recognized in popular opin ion. The young man who has the far sightedness and courage to recognize it and to get over the idea that it
 makes a difference whether what ne earns is called salary or wages, and who refuse to enter the crowded field of the so-ca1led professions, and takes to constructive industry instead, is req | sonably sure of an ample reward in earnings, in health, in opportunity to marry early, and to establish a home | with a fair amount of freedom from worry It should be one of our prime | objects to put both the farmer and
 the mechanic on a higher plane of eff
 fciency and reward, so as to increase | their effectiveness in the economic 1 world, and therefore the dignity, the remuneration, and the power of their positions in the social world.
 | No growth of cities, no growth of wealth, can make up for any loss in either the number or the character of l the farming population. Wc of the United States should realize this above | almost all other peoples. Weslbegan ] our existence as a nation of farmers, l and in every great crisis of the past a peculiar dependence has had to be | placed upon the farming population; ; | and this dependence has hitherto been | Justified. But 1t cannot be justified | in the future if agriculture Is per mitted to sink in the scale as com lpared with other employments.. We can not afford to lose that e-eminently | typical American, the farmer who owns | his own medium sized farm. To have his place taken by either a class of | small peasant proprietors, or by q class
 
 | estates would be a veritable calamity. | The growth of our cities is a good thing but only in so far as it does not mean a growth at the expense of the country farmer. We must welcome 1 the rise of physical sciences in their applica tion to agricultural practices and we must do all we can to render country conditions more easy and pleasant. There are forces which now l tend to bring about both these re- l suits. but they are, as yet, in their l infancy. The national government through the department of agricul- l ture should do all it can by Joining with the state governments and with | independent associations of farmers to | encourage the growth in the open farming country of such institutional and social movements as will meet the demand of the best type of farmers. | both for the improvement of their farms and for the betterment of the life itself The department of agr- culture has in many places, perhaps especially in certain districts of the south, accomplished an extraordinary amount by cooperating with and teaching the farmers thruogh their I associations, on hefr own soil, how to increase their income by managing their farms better than they were hitherto managed. The farmer must not lose his independence, his initia tive. his rugged self-reliance. yet he must learn to work in the heartlest CO., operation with his fellows, exactly as tha hus,ness man has learned to work