The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-28
WHY SOME BOYS ARE LEAVING THE FARMS
Fathers Do Not Give Them
 a Square Deal'
HAVE NO LIBERTIES
Boy Is Never Allowed Any Spending Money and He Thinks That He Faces Only a Life of
 Drudgery
By WALTER HARPER

The theorist founding on a s10O type writer equipped with a green ribbon and a brain crammed with academic training can paint wonderful word pictures of happy life on the farm and give some mighty rhetorical reasons why the boy should remain on the farm.
 If the average boy on the farm ever sees this gush he smiles through his freckles and gives his old mule an extra kick in the ribs. He may cuss just a little bit if there Is no one in hearing distance.
 The estimate heaputs on the theorist and his we'll meaning advice is far from com plimentary. but nevertheless it is cor rect one.
 The back to the farm" and the ''stay on the farm ideas are all right, but the r'stay on the farm, boys injunction should, in most cases, be preambled with a strong sermon to the father of that boy.
 The average boy on the farm does not get a square deal and he Is peculiarly sensitive to the injustices that are in- posed upon him. Hundreds of boys who desert the farm at the very first oppor- tunity they have would remain on the farm if they were accorded common, de- Eent justice.
 This Is a strong indictment against the fathers of boys, but it Is one that can be sustained.
 Hundreds of boys in Alabama are no less slaves of toll for their parents than are the most agravating cases of children working in some of the mills of the south while their lazy parents loaf about the mill village waiting to collect the pittance allowed for the long, lfe-sapping labor that is exacted
 Some of these farm boys are allowed no more real liberty than were the negro slaves before the war. Some of them. in that inborn spirit of liberty-loving re- sentiment, learn to steal some of the free dom that is due them and often are led into ways that are dangerous and dam ming.
 The doctrine that seems to have been adopted by many narrow minded parents is that which gives the child over to the keeping and full dominion of the parent until he is of legal age They give the doctrine a literal construction that is Often disastrous in It's results
 That is, that the boy must give all his labor and that continuously to the par ent If the boy gets an education he must steal it over plneknot fires at night or after he is allowed to go free.
 Why back when I was a boy I had no school advantages and knew nothing but work" Is a familiar argument of the selfish parent. And then he will continue: of I got an apple and stick of red candy at Christmas l thought l was do- ing monstrous well. Now boys want too many things. They want to run off to town; they want to go to college and they want money to spend as they please Why, I never had a dollar to spend as pleased in my life until was man of my own.'
 Then the all-wise and self-perfect father will give his son a cotton patch which is worked through with the rest of the crop on the place.
 When it Is gathered by the boy at odd times when he is not busy on his fathers part of the crop, the guano paid for, the ginning and other expenses, the boy has . piece of a bale.
 
 cotton. You must not waste it. Buy your shoes and clothes and pay for those had to buy for you last spring, and if there is any left you can buy your ma new dress for Christmas"
 The boy is no doubt overcome with the bountiful liberality of his father and falls to worship at his feet p -> If he runs away to town next spring the Injured father becomes irate and de- nounces his ungrateful son.
 Just such cases are not at all uncom- mon. You can find the condition in al- most every section of the south. Then. MT Theorist, can you advise the boy to stay on the farm?
 Rather you should kick the unwise father and try to maui into his head the fact that he is not only robbng himself of the real service of his son, but he is robbng and destroying his son.
 Teach the father if you can, that req Oonable sharing of proprietorship between father and son will bring about a happy adjustment of relations and interest Let the boy own his own share of the colts, calves and pigs and he will soon be pro-