The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-02-24
ROOSEVELT ON NEEDS
OF THE FARMERS
Special Messaqe Semitic Congress
With Commissions Report.
WANT ROADSANDPARCELS POST
An Appropriation Of $4,000 to AS.
sist the Work is the Only
Recommendation Offered - No
Money Spent.

Washington, D. C. - President
Roosevelt sent to Congress the report
of the commission on country life he
appointed last year, accompanied with
a special message.
The object of the commission, the
President says, is not to help the
farmer 10 raise better crops, but to
call his attention to opportunities for
better business and better living on
the farm.
While not a dollar of public money
has so far been paid to any of the
commissioners for their work, the
President asks Congress to appro.
pirate $4,000 to enable the commits:
sion to digest the material it has
gathered and to collect more data.
The message says:
Judging by thirty public hearings.
to which farmers and farmers wives
from forty States and Territories
came, and from 100000 answers to
printed questions sent out by the
Department of Agriculture, the COM
mission finds that the general level
of country life is high compared with
any preceding time or with any other
land.
If it has in recent years slipped
down in some places, it has risen in
more places. It's progress has been
general, if not uniform.
Yet farming does not yield either
the profit or the satisfaction that it
ought to yield and may be made to
yield. There is discomfort in the
country, and in places discourage
ment. Farmers as a class do not
magnify their calling, and the move
ment to the towns, though, I am
happy to say, less than formerly, is
still strong.
Under our system, it is helpful to
promote discussion of ways in which
the people can help themselves. There
are three main directions in which
the farmers can help themselves,
namely, better farming, better bust
ness and better living On the farm.
The object of the commission on
country life, therefore, is not to help
the farmer raise better crops, but to
call his attention to the opportunities
for better business and better living
on the farm.
Now whatever the State may do to-
ward improving the practice Of .agri-
culture, it is not within the sphere of
any government to ~reorganize the
farmers business or reconstruct the
social life of farming communities.
1t is, however, quite within it's power
to use it's influence and the machin-
cry of publicity which it can control
for calling public attention to the
needs and the facts.
1t would be idle to assert that life
on the farm occupies as good a posi-
ton in dignity, d~esirability and bust
ness results as the farmers might cas-
lily give it If they chose. One of the
chief difficulties is the failure of
country life, as it exists at present.
to satisfy the higher social and intel
lectual aspirations of country people.
From all that has been done and
learned three great general and i'm
mediate needs of country life stand
out:
First, effective cooperation among
f.->mers, to put them on a level with
the organized interests with which
they do business.
Second, a new kind Of schools in
the country, which shall teach the
children as much outdoors as indoors,
and perhaps more, so that they will
prepare for country life. and not as
at present, mainly for life in town.
Third, better means of communi-
cation, including good roads and a
parcels post, which the country peo-
pie are everywhere, and rigASly,
unanimous in demanding.