The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-03-14
HAS THE TYPE REVERTED?

HAS THE TYPE REVERTED?
Without doubt the biggest topic now
before the American people is the high
cost Of living. and the means to re-
lieve the distress and the difficulties of
that situation. That problem will have
to be solved before even the strike
problem will be permanently removed
from the general horizon.
Most thinking people believe that the
solution of the difficulty is expressed
in the slogan: Back to the farml"
There are too many consumers and not
enough producers of food. For more
than fifty years the drift has been
away from the farm. Now it will have
to be back to the land, back to the
raising of grain and meat and fruit and
vegetables, if the prices OF food are to
be lowered within the reach of the
average citizen.
OF course, there is argument on the
other side. Here is an alleged letter
from one of the New York breadliners:
The farmer put US to work chopping
hay that had been left out in the field
all winter. This we hauled to the pig
pen. When we got the hay job fin
ished we tackled corn husking
that had been left over from last fall.
The shocks were still in the open field,
and, say, maybe it wasn't cold haul
ing that stuff to the barn. Getting up
at o'clock in the morning and crawl
ing into bed at 8 O'Clock every night
fe Ii. . I 1l-1 flya ~
lead for a century. They talk about
land. That's all bunk. There's moro
fresh eggs at FOrty-second street and
Broadway than in all Earlville town
ship.
And the Los Angeles Express. COM
mentlng on the incident, says:
But to a majority of city people the
dream of life on a farm, for either
profit or pleasure, both, is a barren
ideality. Might as well put a boiler
maker to making lace. He must have
the aptitude, and the skill, and the pa
thence, as well as the courage.
Well, if that means anything. if the
letter" be genuine and the comment
be reasonable, then the type of Amer
lean manhood has deteriorated. Man
today isn't so good as were the man
of fifty years ago. The state of New
York was Won from a wilderness not
by the rich and the idle. The people
who took that country away from the
Indians were not afraid of hard work,
or cold fingers, or long working days.
They were not afraid of anything.
They walked to the place in the will
derness which promised best for them
or to that point in the wilderness
where they could go no farther. And
there they located, and there they
stayed. They fought the forest-and
some of their sons have sunk so low
that they would rather be at Forty
eighth and Broadway with wallet and
belly both empty. without a roof ex-
eept as the gift of charity, and never
the certainty of three months food and
lodging except as they drew a work
house sentence from the judge who
hates Migrants
OF course, if the type has reverted to
the empty ages, when mankind had no
ambitions, no ideals. no home but a
cave and no food but fish and carrion,
then you can't solve the question by
sending men back to the farm. First
of all, the farmer has to be a man. And,
added to that, he has to have courage
and nerve and industry and fortitude
and staying qualities if he is going to
win. He won't be fighting against the
odds that the pioneers faced, at that
But he has to have something of the
quality of the pioneer-or God save
the nation.
We are going to believe that no man
wrote that letter after an honest trial
of comparisons between the breadline
and the farm. We are going to believe
that out of every ten destitute and
homeless there are three who would
support themselves if they had a
chance with the land; and that out of
every ten who have work but find
themselves unable to make Roadway
there are seven who would be good
farmers If they had the chance-good
citizens, too, and prove the quality of
the blood that is in them.