South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1914-06-17
STATESMEN
REAL AND NEAR
BY FRED c. KELLY.

/
WASHINGTON, June 17.-William
j. Spillman is the father cOnfessor of
the r. f. DIS.
He has a bigger acquaintance on
rural free delivery routes than any
man in the United States. And those
who know him look on him as sort
of helping hand society, so that he is
both well and popularity known. He
dispenses more advice each week
than all the mothers clubs and La
dies Home Journal department edi
tors combined.
Spillman is the chief of the office Of
farm management in the bureau of
plant industry at the department of
agriculture 1t all sounds inconSpicu
Gus enough. But SpillInan gets more
mail than the president of the United
States. His province is to answer
questions. He knows more than any
man in the country about How to
Make a Farm Pay. And so he doesn't
run a farm, but tells others how.
There may be others who know just
as much as Spillman about how 10
run a farm in a given locality, but
Spillman knows just what TO do in
any part of the whole United States.
Take a map of the whole country,
smut NOuI EYES anu Jcb pm nv
any place on the map at random. II
you happen to stick it into farm land,
Spillman could go there, take charge
of the place, and make it pay
profit.
From every state of the union
thousands of questions pour in on
Spillman's desk, and he has 10 have
some 800 assistants to help him get
out the answers.
\ man reads some where that if he
gets few acres and cultivates the
ground 'intensively'' and raises
squads, and mushrooms in the cellar,
ne will become extremely rich in
about two years. He follows the d.
rections on the package. so to speak,
and at the end of two years he hasn't
even enough money to buy linn
CUISINE car to take his produce TO
market in The thing TO do then is
to write to Spillman and ask what is
wrong with his system. If he gives
reasonably complete date, Spillman
can get him right.
No matter what the question is,
whether it's about crop rotation, ar
tesian wells. how to muffie hydraul-
ic ram. how to rearrange ones fields
to save the maximum number of foot
steps. or marketing guinea pigs, Spill
man has an answer ready. About the
ONLY proposition he hasn't been able
TO unravel right Of the reel came In
the other day. a man in the middle
west drew this picture:
My son has returned from the
PHILIPPINES after an absence of two
years. and while there he got mar
ried and also bought small-slzed
monkey. His wife seems like an esti-
mabie young woman, and the monkey
is a right. cute little thing. 1t knows
a humber of amusing tricks, too, but
we have very little use for monkey.
Where can l exchange the monkey
for a nice young pig?'
1t is a dull day at Spillmans Of
fee when he doesn't have a dozen or
a score of callers who have come in
person to grasp his hand and thank
him for advice that turned the trick
A couple of years ago, Spillman re-
ceived a letter from a man out in In
diana who was about TO dispose OF
his S6-acre farm and move to town TO
take charge of a dray lire because
he was anxious TO make more money.
He told all about his farming opera
tons over a period of a great many
years and said he didn't seem able to
place himself on quite the same basis
as the prosperous gentleman farmers
in the picture books. Spillman quick
" perceived that practically every
thing the man had been doing was
wrong. He planted the wrong things
i'm the right place, sold his crops at
the wrong time of year, laid his fields
out in the wrong way. and consistent
ly avoided doing anything right Spill
man mapped out a course of proce-
dure. even down TO a good many of
the minor details. and sent it to him,
at the same time advising him to
stick to the farm. That was two
years ago.
The other day that man dropped
into washington on visit. he called
ND Spiilman from the highest priced
hotel in town and asked him to have
lunch with him there. Spillman found
him in comfortable rooms. accom-
panied by his wife and daughter. All
three were neatly almost fashion
ably clothed. and had prosperous
o-the-menu- born-air.
You don't look like a man depend
eut on drayins for a living. remark
ed Spillman.
NO. and thanks 10 your advice I'm
not" replied the man. I've still got
the farm and I've made more money
in the last two years than I made in
all the rest of my life. We're doing
hltit SlSHl-SteihS loN- anu Suu /
one OF the sights we all wanted TO
see most. Because if il hadn't been
for YOU we wouldn't be here
Richard Y. Oulahan. chief of the
Washington bureau Of the New York
Times. and dean OF the correspond
ents NJ the capital is not only one
OF the ablest newspaper men in the
country. but looks the part. He wears
an air OF distinction that makes him
noticed in a crowd-and this. not
withstanding his great modesty. He
is 50 modest that this little paragraph
: ----l ---.-.- n. l----.