The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1910-06-04

country populations cityWard, due to
our rising industrial city civilization.
All these things mean in the South
that we are rapidly abandoning our
rural regions to a tenant farm class,
and what is worse, to a negro tenant
farm class, and that our agricultural
regions once so abandoned are ire
Vocably abandoned; that we are Gre
ating in the South, and in America
for that matter, a population of lack
lands and lack-alls who must be more
transitory and migratory with an in
terest in community life less and less
abiding and loyal; that we are de-
parting more and more from our only
hope of economic safety and free
dom: namely, small land holdings by
Independent owners.
l love these plain people on the
farms. / am of their sort. But
fear for them exceedingly, for their
children and their childrens child
rem as the years go on. Our intelli-
gent farmers need to be just as much
concerned with the economic side of
farm life PC they are with the agri-
cultural side. Our educators and
statesmen will be obliged to consider
all these matters quickly and wisely
Neither America nor he South is i'm
mune from the play Of forces that
have worked the destruction Of the
farm classes of Ircl. nd and Belgium
But on the other hand, these same
forces intelligently understood and
directed may make Of the farm re-
gions of our Southland the agricuI-
tural paradis that we find in Hol-
land and Denmark. 1t is time we
were getting ready to answer the
prophetic inquiry: Choose this day
which economic system we will serve.
We cannot delay an answer to this
question very much longer. Ii so, it
will be too late. Our birthright will
be forever gone.
Now a direct answer to your ques-
ton. When in one county of my State
six men own one-third of the farm
lands Of the entire county; in an
other, one man one-third Of the total
farm acreage; in another three men
practically the entire county, and so
on all over the State, when an In
diana company of farmers buy 21,-
900 acres of farm lands in the south
western corner of the State, and an
other company 5000 acres in the
southeastern corner, and when an
other company buys 100000 acres in
the northern end; when two English
aristOcrats own 100000 acres of
farm land in Florida; when two more
aritocrats own 100000 acres in Mis-
Sissippi and q little bunch of arisio-
Gratis, 100000 acres in Tev S, it
seems to me that the people who are
gong To own our farm land in an
other gcncr9 ton or two will be people
Of sense, not necessarily people of
heart. The man of sense will own
all our Southern farm lands, or near
iy so, and we shall have vast multi
tuGe of people Icrambling for a foot
In nd inc 10,
Tics of the world; and when we shall
have all the problems that education.
religion, and craftsmanship can deal
with to the end of time. 1t ought to
ne INCREASINGLY thundcred into the ears
of the farm class: with all thy get
ting, get land And it is safe 10 say
thcy Will never do it as a great class
until they get the necessary under
standing Of the profound drift of
things today in American life.
AS long as the farm owners i'm
the South find more difficulty in get
ting good tenants than tenants find
in renting land, just SO long are we
reasonably free, here and there, from
the dcViIish dcstructivcncss of com
petitiNc tenant rents; just SO long will
the land owner be willing to sell and
move out Of his difficulties, and to
sell at reasonable price to the pco-
pie who have little money but q great
ambition t" own little farms of their
own.
But when i'm the general increase
OF population the scrambling for land
runs up land values and rents as in
other countries, then the economic
end of the world will have come for
the great masses of the people who