The Daily Missoulian., 1913-01-26

plness. the existence of the nation. The
larn IS truly the basis of human life:
all the vast enterprises of men have
their beginnings in the food which the
soil supplies, and progress is ham
pered or accelerated by the forces
which decrease or increase AGRICULTURAL
productiveness.
History, which many imagine to be a
record chiefly of wars and diplomatic
conflicts, writes in large letters the
truth that nations political stability.
as Well as it's economic growth, Is
founded upon it's soil and the use
made of it, The Roman empire. that
once overshadowed the world, crumb-
led into dust, not from mere unwield-
mess, not from the enervation of lux
ury, but because of defiance of eco
nomic laws.
THE demands of conquest and the.
glories of imperialism drew the rural
inhabitants to the cities and concen-
trated there the laboring population.
The streets and shops were crowded,
the farms drained of their workers, so
that the economic balance was fatally
disturbed. The empire overflowed with
skilled artisans, with idlers, with those
who mnistered to art and pleasure,
while there was want of men to TIL
the ground. Murmurings arose, and
the government sought to meet the
evil by making vast public improve
ments, the ruins of which are mag
nlficent today
But the remedy was worse than the
disease, for it fastened the flow OF
population to the cities. Finally there
was the desperate expedient of estab-
lishing serfdom to chain the peasants
to the soil But stricken agriculture
could not be revived, and its death was
the death of the empire itself.
Economic laws are inexorable, and
the boasted civilization of today, which
looks back with compassionate CON-
tempt to the fall of Rome, has not
learned to evade them. Even now, and
even in this country, favored by nature
above all others on the globe, are seen
in operation the same deadly forces.
Again we see industralism draining
the rural districts of their workers, and
the growth in wealth and luxury par
al4eled by an Increase in poverty; again
we hear murmurings against the cost
of living in hungry cities, while oppor-
tunities of illimitable 4Nealth from the
soil are neglected.
Men of vision, particularly those
who have studied the lessons of his
tory, see the peril and warn against
1t. Guglielmo Ferrero, in a mastery
study of the Roman empires disaster
upon which we have drawn in these
points this parallel:
'ln no country is this condition moro
apparent than in the United States.
what nation might more easily be !
borne along by the marvellous abund-
hnce Of it's resources? It lacks neither
territory, nor capital, nor labor.
Yet in no country Of Europe are tho
walls over costliness SO loud and SO
rommon as in the United States. Why?
Because in America the disproportion
between the progress Of the fields and
that of the cities, between that of in
dustries and that of agriculture, is still
greater than in Europe"
Ana why is there the disproportion !
just noted? Because in Montana and
in many other states there has been a |
blind running after higher education
for the few, while the boys and girls !
On the farms have been almost neglect
ed. Is it not time that there was a right
about face in this state in the matter?
Is 1t not time that we of Montana real
lZe that we are guilty of economic
crime IN our indifference to this really
most important of all our educational
problems?
S. w. 7.
Helena, Jan. "a 1913.