The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-10-05
CALL FOR help
Men More Important than Resources,
Says President Barrett
WANTS BETTER SCHOOLS

Government Should Spend from Fiji
ty to One Hundred Millions Each
Year to Check the Trend From the
Farm to the City by Providing
Good Country Schools.
At Atlanta, Ca, in sober, business
phrases nearly four score delegates,
appointed by sixteen Southern Gov
ernors, Friday foretold an amazing
growth in wealth and population for
the South within the next ten years.
Representing the agriculture AMI
business interests of every section
Of Dixie, these delegates gathered TO
assist the executive committee of the
Southern Commercial Congress work
out a non-political and disinterest-
ed plan for promoting development
of the South's millions of unoccu-
pied acres and It's vast unused water
powers, the enlargement of its bus
mess and industry, both by Its own
inhabitants and through judiciouS
advertising of it's through
out America and Europe.
AS the representative of more
than two million farmers. Charles
S. Barrett, president Of the Farmers
Union, stressed the necessity Of con-
serving men first, rather than the re-
sources Of the soil. "If you conserve
the nations raw resources and neg
lect the nations men, you will meet
disaster and ultimate defeat in your
undertaking." he said. The nation
has not been conserving the far
mer, the man who is a greater asset
than all your powers, coal lands for
ests or gold mines"
"a corterie of really patriotic
Americans Is trying to head of the
efforts Of the Morgan-Gubbenheim
interests to bottle up or hog the
coal and gold Of Alaska. They have
succeeded in rousing a nation to
their assistance. We have had the
menace Of Ballingerism ~placarded
from one end of America to the
other. We have been warned in
trumpet tones, Of the encroaching
water power interests which may, in
the long run, absorb all the water
power Of the country and in the
end become the king of all the other
trusts. We have been told of the
penalty Of giving over our forests
to greedy timber interests. We have
been shown what will happen If we
do not checkmate the money lust
of the coal, the gold and the timber
barons.
"This is all worthy, this is all
admirable. But while we battle
against these foes of the Republic,
we leave to his own devices the man
whose vital function it is TO feed and
largely to clothe this nation, the
man whose combined product yield
greater annual value than our
mines or forests or water powers,
the man whose problems will be
more than ever the nations prob
lens when the earth shall have been
stripped of it's coal and gold"
He said the Government should
spend fifty to one hundred million
dollars annually to check the trend
from the farm to. the city by i'm
proving common school and scienti-
fc agricultural educational facilities
In every country, in easy reach of the
farmers children. He would pro-
vide against 1.-The contamination of
the corrupt allen strains that SOW
seeds Of unrest and ~disreputation
that may ripen unto a ruinous har-
vest"
Mr.. Barrett stressed the necessity
of keeping a perpetual watch upon
our national and State Legislators.
"The battle for conservation is
not here in this auditorium. 1t comes
in the elections of November. II
ome after that in the halls Of
Congress. 1t comes two years hence,
in the selection Of a president and a
Congress that are committed to the
public and not the private welfare.
And then it comes year after year.
for conservation is so big a war that
1t probably will not be ended until
your children and mine stand in our
places"
Mr.. Barrett paid a warm tribute
to Clifford Pinchot to whoes "unsel-
fish public spirit, patience under
humiliation and untiring ZEAL he
attributed the present advanrelent
to the sause of conservation. " |
am confident" he said, that when
the verdict of history is written his
name will stand high among the
names Of the men who have wrought
for the salvation Of our common
country" y