The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-06-10
TIE REAL IeNoRAMus.

# ---~ #nEEsHe .HE
The Times Republican of Marshall
town, la, calls attention to a fact that
Is not often realized, but lis true, name
~ that often the most helpless ignor-
anus is not the country Jake but
his city cousin, who brides himself
on his superior knowledge of the
world and affairs. The Forum has
often found that a mar from a small
country town in North Dakota Tor
from the farm had a better grasp of
AFFAIRS in the nation, often indeed was
better read. and had travelled more,
I1an the average maj in the city. The
Times Republican says:
Newspapers published in the larger
cities often display a ludicrous ienor-
ance or conditions in farm communi-
Ties. Just now a leading journal is
urging that baseball be introduced
among the farming communities of
hansas n other western states. It
suggests that Introduction and en-
enlargement of this excellent game
would assist to relieve the isolation
ana monotony of farm life, points out
that field sports naturally belong in
the country and generally extends
~ ''E"N1} anu To the
mafooned Iowa and Kansas farmer
IN an earnest way hat is irresistibly
funny.
This utter ignorance of farm con-
dltlons and needless sympathy for the
western farmer is pitiable. The men
VINO are writing the stuff know much
less OF the western farm and farmer
than the western farmer does of met
fopoHtan white ways n business
caves. There Snnmc tn ha M rnoljzo.
tlon that n Kansas farmer out of
tour owns n drives his own automo-
bile. that Kansas ~subscribes to more
magazines of high class in proportion
to population than any other state in
the union, that Iowa farm homes built
within the past ten years are modern
dwellings with every convenience, that
the western farmer is lending money
east instead of paying 10 per cent for
eastern money, that farm land is SELL
ing all the way up to $500 an acre, ETC.,
etc., ad infinitum too numerous to
mention" as the sale bills say.
"hen Roosevelt appointed a, ountry
lie commission a lot of those fellows
In the east looked on it as a sort of
missionary movement like an expedi-
ton into the dark continent. The fact
is that that commission was a Joke
all over the middle west. Iowa in gen
eral laughed at it. An occasional
farmer lacking the humorous quality
may have sworn. But those who knew
the farms and the farmers of the state
smiled. Perhaps the commissioners
took themselves seriously. But even at
that they must have smiled when they
drove into al Iowa farmstead along
about dinner time, saw the auto that
Pa had come home from town IN
standing outside, went to the bath
room to wash up and clean them
selves for the meal and learned that
the oldest boy was a professor in a
down east college, hat the oldest girl
was in Vassar, perhaps, and that Mrs.
Farmers brother was a United States
senator. That could all happen just as
1t reads.
Certainly, come on out and teach the
Iowa farm lad that there is a game
called baseball. Drag him away from
two old cat and barn ball and anty
over and show him. Stuck out there
on the farm, without telephone serv-
ice. or a daily newspaper, hoeing corn
as he does, cutting hay with a scythe
and grain with a cradle, he hasn't any
chance, poor fellow