The Logan Republican. [volume] (Logan, Utah) 1902-1924, 1913-01-02
PUT PEOPLE ON
THE LAND

That plan of lending money to farmers may have
the effect of helping to put people on the land
But there is another excellent reason why this
ton is under obligation to help in developing the
idle acres of the country, wherever these may be.
Any nation adopting and practicng the policy of
protection to its mill industries is logically bound
to go far is possible in aiding willing and
capable and deserving to clear the land, to till
1t, and to produce foodstuns for the market.
Before England became a free trade country
it's agricultural interests were vastly greater com
paratively, than they now. Golden convinced
the people that he sincere, and that there was
wisdom in the policy he advanced when he demand.
ed the repeal Of the corn laws. He stated many
times that he did not agree with the doctrine that
free trade would have the effect of taking a single
,aborer from the farm and adding him to the popu
lation Of the Industrial centers. They believed
him. But both they and he found too late they
had made a mistake. For the instant and direct
result Of their policy to vastly increase the
population OF the mill towns and to draw manhood
and womanhood from the rural districts.
And that fact more than any other marked the
United Kingdom nation of pensioners.
Nothing is more logical than that the policy
which makes for big cities, which promotes the
industrial center, is to the detriment of the farm.
II necessarily takes and women away from
burdens of the farm not lightened and the
premise of the mill is made brighter. Without
doubt the nation is richer and stronger for the de-
yeopment OF American industries. But the gain
is not without an attendant loss. The city swarms
with humanity, but the rural population remains
at standsi. The values of city property in
creases. The cost of living there advances. The
standards of expenditure everywhere are lifted
ard because of the very causes that lead to this
result the ability Of the farm to keep pace with
the quckened step is lessened.
it is not that the profits of farming lessen.
ed the need of expenditure in the city increases
for the returns from producing foodsuffs have
been good in this country as they are now.
But the influence which draws the farmer TO the
town, which subtracts him from the sum of the
producers and adds him to the sum of the consum-
ers, lessons the relative ability of the feed
the town. The demand to be fed grows, but the
ability t. respond to that cry remains at a stand
still
There is an economic condition to be consider
ed. Free citizenship is not fostered in mill town,
nor In a mining town 1t does not Undue the wage
slave in the city. 1t does flourish in the country
City children grow to manhood and to womanhood
with small concern for national history, and small
interest in national affairs. The countrymen is a
citizen of the nation. His children are born free,
and they remain free-with a definite understand
ing of what that freedom means. The city man will
volunteer in of war, and will obey orders be-
cause obedience to boss is part of his heritage.
The country man will shoulder his musket with
something not packed in his knapsack-and that
Is sentiment. He is the moral fiber Of the
my. If he doesn't command he inspires the soul
OF command in that natural captain who had not
found himself. The spirit of nationality is in the
country man because his horizon is wider than it
ha In inv He Ia hiatt rIti1 hanar
he knows something about God-whose manifesto
tons in the city apologize. They need Illus
tration and evidence.
That nation whose policy Is economic and com
ercal protection owes 1t to itself to consider the
future OF the nation Protection will make it rich,
but lopsided. Protection to Industries Is but half
the obligation. Protection to the material and
spiritual treasury from which citizenship and
hereafter must be drawn is quite mperatively
required. Protection in a century make millions
for many But protection to mill and mine for a
century strips the chest from which the nation
must he fed.
Southern planters gave illustration Of the
principle in those days when they depleted the vi
tally OF their soil with repeated crops of cotton
They every year taking from the land, and in
no year giving anything back. When they learned
the science Of farming they rotated crops-and
got better cotton, more OF it, and had something
in other products beside Also, their resources
were greater. On demand they were in a state OF
preparedness; whereas, in the former method they
were at the end OF their possible accomplishment
There millions OF OF good land, idle
in the western part OF the United States There
ale tens Of thousands OF men who would make
good farmers and who want the opportunity to till
the soil. The nation ~nich has adopted protection
has millions OF money that must and will be In
vested. In way could that investment be made