The Delta independent., 1913-07-18
THE NEED OF MORE MEN.

Every year, so sure as the harvest
time comes around, a great wall goes
up from the rural communities about
the scarcity of ranch help and the con-
tortion seems to be a little more in
sidious this season than we have ever
known it before. AS we travel through
the country we can not help but no.
tice that this year of all years the
farmers are terribly handicapped with
their work. 1t is a time when from
the very necessity of the situation they
should garner every kernel of grain
ard yet they are cut down because
they cannot secure anything like a
sufficiency of help to take care of the
crops These are evil days in this re-
gard at least and the farmers are sure
ly having troubles of their own.
The wonder is often expressed as to
what in the world has become of all
the men for they are certainly very
scarce whether they want to work or
not and the paucity of it all forces it
self as a great national economic ques-
ton to which there is no answer. The
situation does rot appear to improve
with time, but on the contrary it is
certainly growing worse. In some parts
of the west the farmers have simply
given up all expectation of securing a
sufficiency of able-bodied help and are
looking to the women and the school
kids to aid in the fields. OF course, ii
is only the lighter work that women
can do, but their aid is becoming an
important factor in our modern farm
economy.
meantime the cities are
with idle men and few of them
ramp along the highways and byway
the land. begging or stealing what
they eat and sleeping at night out OF
doors. There are thousands of good
looking middle aged men in Denver |
out of employment, but as they have
never done a lick of real work in their |
lives they are as helpless as babes |
and might as well remain here, half
starved as they are, for all the good |
they might be to the ranching people. .
10lS EOuulllOu Vi dAAella NbhAA tARlNfhA
to indicate that there is something rad
icalIy wrong in our social and indus
trial system. The complaint of farm
ers is also that the average hand does
not afford efficient assistance, that he
is unskillful as we'll as unreliable. Now
of course the farmer is not altogether
to blame for these conditions, but may
be indirectly contributory in a small
degree at least.
Does the farmer of tod-y treat his
hired help in way that will tend to
make better men and laborers? The
trouble is that the modern farmer Is
becoming tinctured a little too strong
ly with commercialism that places the
dollar above the man and the result
is that he is generally getting very
few dollars and some mighty poor
men. Sometime, perhaps, both the
commercialist and the agriculturist
will wake up to the fact that they
have been pursuing very bad policy;
that they have been slowly killing Off
the goose that lays the golden egg.
They have been allowing our nonsens-
ical school system to go on year after
year educating the boys away from the
rural districts until it has broken the
back of our agricultural industries.
The pioneer boys were reared In the
saddle and rather looked down upon
farming until after getting ranches OF
their own They now find themselves
clubbing along in a leaky boat with no
one to help them in their ranching op-
erations and thus we see that the en-
tire trend of cur industrial progress
has been bent around the wrong curve.
The rising generation will have to be
born over again before things are right
and this means the upheaval OF our
entire social and economic structure
which is more easily conceived than
carried out. We will need some men
besides machinery to get along in the
future.-Field and Farm.