The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-01-16
PROSPERITY ON FARMS
 IS SHOWN EVERYWHERE
Land Is Plentiful In the West and op- portunity Is Great In Developing the Products of the United
 States.

for 8 a week at 52 is afraid to compute his wealth. says that if more Americans went back to real work theer would not be so much talk about the advanced cost of living
 Mir. Reid ought to know something about real work. When he was 1S he applied for q position as a messenger boy in the Second National bank of Rich niond, Ind. It was not much of job from financial standpoint. but in a few Hcnths young Daniel proposed his fiist consilidation. He wished to have added to his labor the position of night watchman at S4 week. His consolidation was accepted and he moved his bed down to the bank.
 Later he worked his way through every position until he became the vice pres ident of the institution. The tinplate in- dustry appealed 10 .he young man and he resigned his position to devote his af- terition to the manufacture Of tinplate Two failures did not deter him and the little tn works at Elwood grew Into a mighty plant.
 In 1880 the 270 tinplate mills of tYie country consolidated and the two Moores of Chicago, William A. and J. H.. dropped into the tinplate game. Mir Reid helped them to organize the Ma tional Steel company in order that the steel supply of the tinplate mills might be assured. Other companies followed fast and when the United States Steel corporation was formed the Reid and Moore properties went into the great consolidation.
 Reid Is Big Man. l At the present time Daniel c. Reid 'D. G. his friends can hin,-is one ' of the big men in United States Steel the chairman of the board of dIrecto E of a great railway system. power in the National Biscuit company and so many other things that he finds it difficult to keep track of them all.
 The man who began on g a week and effected hts first consolidation while still in his early teens Is now a ver,- rich man in city where a millionaire excites no comment and he has the fur ther reputation of being able to lay his hands on more ready money than any man in the country excepting only J. 1 P Morgan.
 At his home on Fifth avenue, sur rounded by the outward evidences of g. great fortune, MT. Reid discussed the 1 question which is now agftating tho wage earners of this countryside ad- vanced cost of living and it's remedy. The trouble with this country said MT. Reid. offering himself a specially made Havana cigar from a stand mado of an elephants leg bound about with sil- yer and finished in ebony "is that g lot moro people in this country ought to go back to real work-they ought to go to farming.
 Farmer Is important. Now. the farmer Is the man we have to go back to every time. He is the fellow who is responsible for the real wealth of the country. It is not the railroad man. Transportation is not as expensive now as 1t was few years ago and the railroads have not been get | ting all the money.
 Take the case of the farmer. TIa | gets S.05 for wheat; he gets S for a 1 hog. If it's good hog; s20 a ton for hay; barley and corn in proportion, and l eggs-you know what eggs are worth just now.
 l Well 10 or 15 years ago the farmers ! in the middle west were all carrying mort 1 gages on their property. Today the same 1 men are riding around tho country in 1 automobiles. They have paid on the mortgages and they have money in the ! bank
 More men ought to be farmers. More 1 men ought to go back to the soil--baclx to the real work. Take these little towns | in the middle west; you will ind they have 15 or 20 churches to support. when ! four or five would do every bit as well. and in plenty of cases you will find that | those preachers would make out better as farmers.
 "The same thing Is true in most of the professions It's a sort of family pride to train hoy to be e lawyer or a preacher when he ought to be trained to work
 Opportunities In the West.
 .The great idea seems to be to leave the west and come on over here to the east when it Is in the west that the real opportunities are waiting for the aver age man of no capital to speak of There is plenty of land still In the west and every foot of good farming land should be made to bear its crop. 1 Out in my country-in Indiana--whsrs the farmers are thickly settled. have noticed that there is always a strip of land near the fences which isn't even 1 plowed. That's mistake. "It would be an object lesson to some of our farmers if they would take . trip to Europe and see the way they make every Inch of the land bear it's crop.
 ''The farmer Is prosperous. This is one class which has been bettered by the advance of recent years. The clerks used to get $50 to se0 month. Sometimes one of them would reach $100o a year. These salaries have not been raised. They ars about where they were 10 or 1b years ago.
 This country Is not bounded on one side by the East river and on another by Jersey City. The west offers the chances to young men who want to go to real work and the men who are doing that work are making the money
 
 Head of Hookworm Commission.