The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1908-08-14
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT
FOR FARM REFORMS
Would ImDrove Conditions Of Country
Life.
COMMISSION IS APPOINTED.
Prof. Z. r. Bailey, Of New York,
Heads Body of Men Who viii Give
Chief Executive Advice to Be EN-
bodied in q Message to Congress
Next December.

social, sanitary and economic con-
ditions on American farms President
Roosevelt has requested four experts
on country life to make an investi-
cation into the whole matter and to
report to him with recommendations
for improvements. The report and
recommendations with any addition
al recommendations which the Presi-
dent himself may desire to make, will
be incorporated in a message which
the President will send to Congress
probably early next year.
The men President Roosevelt has
asked to act as an investigating COM
mittee are:
Prof. l., H. Bailey, of the New
York College of Agriculture.
Henry Wallace, of Wallace's Farm
er, Des Moines. Ia.
President Kenyon L. Butterfield,
of the United States Forest Reserve.
Walter H. Page, editor of the
Worlds Work, New York.
Clifford Pinchot. United States
Forest Service.
In letter to Professor Bailey ask
ing him to accept the Craftsmanship
of the commission the President out
lines his desires in the direction of
improvements on the farms. The let
ter follows:
My Dear Professor Bailey:
No nation has ever achieved per-
manent greatness unless this great
ness was based on the wellbeing of
the great farmer class, the men who
Hive NJ 81 s 20 fc Nh fF
welfare, material and moral, that the
welfare Of the rest of the nation ul-s
timately rests. In the United States,
sdisregarding certain sections and TAX
ing the nation as a whole, believe
it to be true that the farmers in gem
eral are better off today than they
ever were before. We Americans are
making great progress in the devel-
opment of our agricultural resources.
But it is equally true that the SO
cial and economic Institutions of the
open country are not keeping pace
with the development of the nation
as whole.
Conditions In South.
The farmer is, as rule, better
off than his forebears; but his in
crease in welibeing has not kept pace
with that of the country as a whole.
While the condition of the farmer
in some OF, our best farming regions
leaves little to be desired, we are far
from having reached as high level
as that In all parts of the country.
In portions Of the South, for example,
where the Department OF Agriculture,
through the Farmers Cooperative
Demonstrating work of DR.. Knapp,
is directly instructing more than 3d.
600 farmers In better methods of
farming. there is nevertheless much
Unnecessary suffering and needless
loss of efficiency on the farm. A
physician, who is also careful stu
dent,of farm life in the South, writing
to me recently about the enormous
percentage Of preventable deaths of
children due to the unsanitary con.
ditions OF certain Southern farms,
said:
Choose Cotton Mill.
Personally, from the health point
of view, / would prefer to see my
daughter, nine years old, at work in
cotton mill than have her live as
tenant on the average Southern ten
ant one-horse farm.
AAlS apparently CALACAC SIdbClACAt
is based upon actual life among both
classes of people.
doubt If any other nation can
bear comparison with our own in the
amount of attention given by the
to agricultural matters. But prae-
tically the whole of this effort has
hitherto been directed toward in
aroo sing 10 prodpafinu ne aropc
Our attention has been concentrated
almost exclusively on getting better
farming. In the beginning this was
unquestionably the right thing to
do. The farmer must first of all
grow good crops in order to support
himself and his family.
But when this has been secured
the effort for better farming should
cease to stand alone and should be
accompanied by the effort for better
business and better living on the
farm. 1t is at least as important that
the farmer should get the largest pos
sible return in money. comfort and
social advantages from the crops he.
grows, as that he should get the
largest possible return in crops from
the land he farms. Agriculture is
not the whole OF country life. The
great rural interests are human in
terests, and good crops are of little
value to the farmer unless they open
the door to good kind of life on
the farm.
This problem of country life is in
the truest sense a national problem.
In an address delivered at the semi
centennial of the founding of agri-
cultural colleges In the United States
year ago last May said:
Farmers Welfare.
There is but one person whose
welfare is as vital to the welfare of
the whole country as Is that of the
wage-worker whosdoes manual labor,
Stupid Burglars.
Hendricks. w. Va. Especially -
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