Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1917-08-30
The Farmers SPRING Hope

Was it Carlyle or Ben Johnson who
once wrote that 1.-The world is made
up of so many millions of human be-
ings-mostly fools? and SURELY most
of these mostly fools" must be the
men who month after month and year
after year toll out in the country I'M
der summers heat and winters cold
against every hardship and discour-
agenlent in order to produce cheap
food for those in the cities, who must
mostly belong to the other class men
toned by the great writer.
Your remarks, also portions Of Dr.
Twitchell's letter quoted in Thursdays
edition of the paper were true and to
the point. Why SHOULD one class Of
people slave and struggle and 60 with
out for the benefit Of another class? A
boy of il or Is can today go to the
city and at merely routine work re-
quiring little intelligence, and by
working hours a day get from to 4
dollars cash for his services. An able
bodied man with family and with
several thousand dollars invested in
his farm and equipment, can. by dint
Of intelligence, hard work and IA hours
A day get less than two dollars per
day if he is lucky, and lodges light
ming, bugs. blight. commission men,
and various other sharks and pests
that are forever logging his foot
steps.
IT is just the HOPE that the farmer
has every spring that feeds the people.
mostly at the expense Of his and his
family's sweat and muscle--but were
his feelings the same in the month Of
May when he starts out hopefully for
another season. as they are in the
month of October. when he sees the
results of his toll, think the ribs of
some of the slim mouthed teachers
of farming would be Tapping together
from hunger sometimes. 1t Is quite a
different proposition. the growing Of a
dozen cucumhers in back garden, to
getting bread and butter and shoe
leather the year round from the land
for family in the country, and few
men are qualified to teach farming I'M
til they can show they have done It,
But the man in the country is begin
ing to be thinker as we'll AS grind
er and his boys and girls have eyes to
see and brains to reason with and
their reasoning Is convincing them
that the same industry, ability and in
telligence required to wiring living
from the soil will earn for them three
times the amount in any city they
care to go to, and the wise father Is
not dissuading them from it, but en-
couraging them to sell their abilities
in that market where they can get a
living in addition to the wherewithal
and the leisure for some of the finer
things of life.
Only this week small son of mine
who has garden from which he gets
the proceeds, was asking me what I
thought a row of beets, that he had
taken particular care of, would add to
his money box when sold. and when I
told him possibly dollar, the little
fellow began to reason, and remem-
bering the work he had put into them,
wedding them on hands and knees
when the thermometer stood over 80 in |
the shade, I do not think he seemed !
much encouraged by the result of his |
labor. |
Now this boy has a genuine love or. !
and is happy on the farm and In the |
country, and has intelligence and the |
makings Of a worker, but his love for the |
farm must be crushed before he becomes |
a man by the miserable returns paid for |
intelligence and toll on the land. He,
with millions OF other boys all over the
country. will seek the cities, and where
the boys go. the girls follow. Then all
the skim-rr1ilk talk Of the politician-farm-
er and other drones will not bring him
or his sisters back TO where they would
have been glad to stay had conditions
been made even passably fair by those
at the head Of the country. and response
Bile for this draft from the farms, with its
consequent hardship to both city AID
country. This movement TO the city Is
developing rapidly even in peace times.
and the intellect of an imbecile can al
most foretell what must happen now the
nation is at war. If Its heads continue to
treat the farmer and his family in the
atrociously mean way they have since
last winter, TO say nothing Of the injus-
tice to the tens of thousands OF city folks,
who also swallowed the bait thrown to
them last spring and spent all kinds If
money planting, for which they will not,
for the most part. get back the cost.
CHAS ELvIN.
East Reedneld. Aug. 18th 1917