The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1910-06-08

living is twice as hard as it is in the
country Only yesterday professor
in Chicago University, whose special
study is improving the conditions Of
poverty-stricken people, declared that
poverty is solely a city problem. Com
pared with the vast number of city
destitute and half-starving the num-
Der of hOpelessly poor in the country
is insignificant.
Our problem, then, is to see if we
cannot provide in the country better
advantages for social contact as We'll
as better financial returns Out here
in Wisconsin one of the most impor-
tant factors has been the rural tele-
phone. The women chat with each
other at night, after the days work is
done. No matter how bad the roads
or how busy the horses, Mrs. Farmer
Jones can talk with her sister ten or
20 miles away just as if they were
face to face. The farmers, too own
their own poles and stringing their
own wire, cooperative company
controlling the system. Usually each
farmer has one share of stock for
each phone he uses, and the average
cost per phone on these party lines
is only about IS a year.
But what we Of the South need
most to consider is the big fact point
ed out by Dean Russell Of the Wis
consin Agricultural College, namely,
that isolation is admittedly the crux
of me rural problem and the solu-
tiCn lies in smaller farms, bringing
the people closer together. When we
get all our farmers educated each
man owning his own farm of 40 to
80 acres, intcnsively cultivated, we
shall have about the finest democracy
that the world has ever known.
OF course, our problem in the
South is harder, because for social
purposes only members Of ones own
race count If there are 40 persons
on square mile, and one-half of
them are negroes, socially considered.
it is the same as if the section had
only 20 persons per square mile This
is one reason why our Southern white
people must welcome immigration
from the North and West The Far
mers' Union has acted wisely in dis
couraging indiscrminate European
immigration, but these hustling. en-
tcrprising Western farmers will do
us good if they come TO us. They will
get us to using more two and three
morse ploWs, for example and immi-
grafton of this sort must he our main
hope in relieving the tcnseness of our
race problem. So long as the proper
ton of negroes - as large as it is
now, neither race can do as we'll as il
ought, and there is great encourage
mcnt in the fact that while our negro
population will grow only by their
actual increase, our white population
VIII grow by their natural increase
plus Il great immigration.
For tbs immigration is bound to
come SOuth-just as surely as water
seeks its level. Land is cheaper in
the SOuth-one- half to one-third the
price of land of the same fertility in
the West-and the climate is better.
y man of distinction who was in wes-
tern Canada few months ago and
then visited Texas, says land in Tex
as is worth only one third as much
as in the Canadian wheat country.
although the Canadian wheat settler
must be watchful not snnH 49,,
bound and StarVe to dr;Y IN NTntCr.
Right here in Wisconsin the snow
was seven feet deep this winter ANA
YOU couldn't see the ground from De
cembcr to the 1St OF March. ITS too
cold up there for me-" an Iowa man
who had come to Arkansas told me
the other day. IL wouldn't go back
II they gave me a farm" This cold
moreover is not Il matter of personal
comfort alone, but with forests too
scarce to supply GrcWood and coal at
50 ton to haul from the nearest
railroad station, it cuts big hole i'm
| farm profits when the farmer aud his
family alone are consider, Sat
there is the stock,too-aud every body