The Republican., 1919-04-10
SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION
To the Editor of The Republican.
III. The Farm Front.

To the Editor of The Republican.
III. The Farm Front.
A popular song has expressed in a
light and froGcking mood phase Of
the problem of reconstruction that
is altogether serious. "How You
Coin to Keep 'em Down on the
Farm" The governments of the en-
tire world were prompt to see the
Importance of the farm during the
war. Nothing so much contributed
to the Allied success as the ample
supply of foodstuffs we were able to
send to the armies at thefront. Men
and boys were enlisted for work in the
harvest fields; farmers were urged
to plant more than usual and to avoid
waste in reaping, threshing, storing
and shipping grain. Men won't and
can't fight on empty stomachs. The
whole country was urged by papers,
posters, speeches and all other kinds
VI PuDhSlIy anu 1OOu reg SuIdIlOllS W
''save food for the boys at the front"
But the problem of feeding our
allies and ourselves has not ended
with the war. Indeed, it has grown.
We have now to feed not only ruined
Europe, but the near East, the CEN
trail European nations, and even Ger
many and Austria. The people of
this country cannot be expected to
make, for Allies, and enemies as well,
the sacrifices they made for their own
sons, husbands and sweethearts and
brothers. The only hope that Eu-
rope can have of obtaining food, the
only condition on which our uation
will consent to feed them, is that
there be plenty for all at home first;
the surplus may go across the Allan
tic.
Unless there are men to work the
farms there will be no surplus pro-
ducts-there may not be full rations
for ourselves. If the men who left
the farms for the camps and firing
line come back to their homes and
takeup again the cultivation of the
farms, the problem is solved. But
city life and the attractive city wages
may have won them. There is oppor-
tunity, too, in the cities, and many
boy that never dreamed of ambition
has risen to prominent posts in bust
ness and professional life.
The farm of the past was not an
attractive place, but conditions have
changed. Not long ago the farmer
was isolated; today he is in easy and
direct reach of the outside world, of
ten a part of it. Good roads, automo-
biles, better mails and telephones,
more efficient farm machinery, nation
al and state agricultural organiza-
tions, fairs and many other things
have contributed to make it possible
for farming to be both profitable and
pleasant. City life, on the contrary,
is not as smooth as it seems. Many a
boy that could have made a success
of agriculture and been happy at his
old home, is driving a delivery wagon
or ringing up street car fares in the
city. Wages are higher, it is true,
but so is the cost of living, and there
are hundred ways of getting rid of
money in the city to one in the coun-
try. There you have few friends,
if any, no home, very little that you
can call your own; on the farm you
have all this and more.
Why then, do young men leave the
farms for the great centres of pop
ulation? Much of the fault is with |
the farmer. 1t would be too long to
explain here. The question viii be |
dealt with in another article of this
series and published in the next num-
ber or two of The Republican.
GRACIOUS. |