The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1908-12-15
COMMISSION ON COUNTRY LIFE.


tion of farm life and it's betterment
was discussed by ranchers, orchard
lists, stock-growers and poultry cultur-
lists of Washington, Idaho and Oregon
before President Roosevelt's country
life commission at it's three sessions
in Spokane, December 5. Prof Liber-
ty H. Bailey, chairman, presided at
the meetings, which followed a tour
through the Palouse country, the other
commissioners in attendance being W.
A. Beard, DR.. G.. w. Sites and E. W.
Allen, secretary. Professor Bailey de-
clared that the three hearings were
among the best and that one was
more important than any in the his
tory of the investigation, but what
pleased the commissioners most was
the intense interest displayed, the
spontaneity of the information given
and the eagerness and sincerity of the
appeals for aid. He added that the
commission will recommend the es-
tablishment of a permanent bureau of
farm life to make a more thorough
study of the questions discussed by
delegates
The commissioners were enter
tanned at a reception and luncheon by
the Spokane chamber of commerce in
it's assembly hall, where David Brown
said among other things in welcoming
Professor Bailey and his associates:
perhaps we have among our thriv-
ing business community larger pro-
portion of men who have come from
the farm; perhaps we have here an
unusually large number of city men
who own farms and orchards, or pos
sibly another cause will be found in
the fact that in Spokane, as in few
others cities, there is an imperceptible
blending of town into country and
country into city, shading ali the way
from Tie great wheat ranches of the
Palouse and the Big Bend countries
to ten, five and one acre orchard
tracts, which gradually merge into the
building lot of the city proper. Some
things of value the commission may
learn here better, perhaps, than at
any other place, as this is new city
set in new land. Town and country
are still in the making. Both are yet
plastic and therefore receptive. Being
new themselves they have none of the
constructing prejudices against new
ways and new ideas which go with
life and thought in older communities.
"The Spokane country industrially
has a history running back only four
decades, and those 40 years comprise
numerous rapid changes-from fur
gathering and placer mining to stock
ranges, to wheat growing, to intensi-
fed farming, to irrigation. Our people
have had to adjust themselves to rapid
and revolutionizing changes, and can
readily believe that they may have
yet still greater changes, and can read
lily believe that they may have yet still
greater lessons to learn. These con-
ditions make for progress, for an IRE
pressible desire to learn better ways
and to conform to them. They create
spirit that is fatal to mossback meth
ods and ingrained prejudices."
Some of the delegates came to the
hearings with an appeal from their
community for aid in irrigation, some
wanted highways built, some wanted
government endowed schools, some
protection from the trusts, the middle
man and the railroads, and some asked
federal aid and cooperation in sup
pressing liquor selling, while others
expressed the belief that the commits
sion can render no aid, that the farm
er's remedy for his needs lies wholly
within himself.
Mrs. Paul Clagstone, wife OF promi-
nent livestock grower at Clagstone,
Idaho, who was reared in luxury In
an eastern city and now lives on
ranch by choice, said that women and
girls on a farm are discontented be-
cause it is all work and no play. She
expressed the belief that something
could be accomplished to aid cond1-
tions by changing the rural school sys.
tenn and adding agriculture manual
training and domestic science. MRS.
Clagstone said there are no womens
organizations in Idaho and no effort is