The Republican journal., 1913-09-18
IT CONES HIGH, But.

The Philadelphia Public Ledger in an
editorial on the high cost of living charges
II to "a false, reckless system of econo-
mics characteristic of a prodigal genera
ton ard dangerously extended on the
American farms" And further:
Has it ever occurred to the persons
who talk of the loss of Western grazing
as the cause of unreasonable prices for
beef that long before the ranges were
used the American people had plentiful
supply of beef and mutton at low
cost? That was due to the fact that
nearly every farmstead raised its quota
of beef, mutton and pork. Now the
ordinary farmer refuses to raise cattle;
he says it doesn't pay, He will not raise
sheen: it is too much bother. He will
not even raise pigs, alleging the high
price Of middlings and other feed: in
consequence meats are scarce every
where, and the farmer himself haunts
the country store and pays an inordinate
price for Swift or Armour's pork.
The modern casy-going, trouble dodg-
ing system Of American farming in the
East has been carried to amazing lengths.
At nearly every country station great
crates will be found each day containing
bread shipped from city bakeries for
farm households which no longer take
the trouble to bake Nor does the ordl-
nary farmer maintain market garden
or carefully raise fruit. He buys ex-
pensive canned goods and his preserves
ard even his pumpkin pies. The old
household Industries and productive arts
have been iost, and naturally the cost of
living is high.
That may all he true, but is it to be
expected tat the American people will
eturn to he conditions Of half a CEN
fury or n Ie ago? In the time of Wash
ington his estate of Mount Vernon was
capable OF producing, and did produce
practically everything needed to feed and
cIothe and house his family and servants
He had among his slaves blacksmiths
carpenters, etc, bakers, weavers and
seamstresses. With the proceeds of his
crops luxuries were bought, but all that
was needfu was produced on the estate.
The writer IN boyhood lived in Maine
town which had no meat or vegetable
market. Practically every family kept
a cow, and those who did not supplied
their neighbors. They of course made
their own butter. A pig and a few hens
were kept, and garden supplied vege
tables. AS to meat, when pig or a
calf was killed it was distributed among
the neighbors. Game was plentiful; part
ridges, wild geese and ducks were to be
mad for the shooting, and in the season a
carcass or two Of deer would hang in the
woodshed. Fishermen came up river
and sold fresh fish from their boats.
HOLSTERS from Erglishmen's river were
brought to your door. Light was fur
nished by whale oil lamps; later by burn
ing fluid.
What are the conditions now? You go
to the fish market for your fish and the
meat market for your meat, or you
order by telerI one. You do not keep
cow, pig or hens. You get fresh vege
South srd TIE Pacific coast. when in
the old days the only vegetables were
from the home garden and fruit was a
rare luxury. Now grape fruit or melon
are found on many breakfast tables and
all the fruits of the tropics and sub-trop-
les are plentiful and cheap. Then for
light you have gas or electricity. In the
early days wood was abundant and cheap
and was the only fuel. Now coal is main
" used in the kitchen and to run your
furnace or steam-heating plant and the
coal barons have nearly doubled its price
in recent years. Then you must have a
telephone, and perhaps an automobile.
These are some of the things incidental
to present day life unknown to our an
cestors, but now for the most part in
dispensble. 1t is, however. as impos-
sibie to return to the simpler life as it
would be to substitute the stage coach
for the railway. The only way we can
escape the hig Oh cost Of living is to
''shuffle off this mortal coil.