The daily morning oasis. [volume] (Nogales, Ariz.) 1917-1920, 1920-09-18
IEDIIOIAIS.,
ALL PROPOSED REMEFIEs sQUINr AT SOCIALISM

The great problem of the time seems underproduc-
ton. Upon all sides told that cost of food is
high bescause farmers cannot get the help necessary
to cultivate all their acres; that farm labor is drawn
into the city in greater volume each year, better llv
ing conditions higher wages, wider enjoyment, all
contributing magnets to draw the youth of the land
from rustic life to urban.
That unfortunate condition is commented upon,
theorzed about argued and discussed from all angles
and by all kinds of minds and many of them propose
remedies of sort another In the last analysis
all suggest that government take hand and regulate
the supply of farm labor. That of will mean
compulsion Those who do not want to work upon
farms must be compelled to do so.
Mr. G.. Gouverneur Hoffman, a writer who has given
the subject considerable thought has conveyed in the
New York Times plan which would apply to
labor the machinery of conscription just as it was
applied in raising armies to combat aggression by
Germany. He views the situation as of such gravity
that it is really menace to the nation to be COM
batted by drastic means only.
The article is so pointed that it is incorporated in
this editorial, as follows:
s.Frorn time to time the cry of s.Back to the Land"
has been raised by few individuals farslghted
enough to recognize the serious consequences OF the
steady and increasingly larger invasion OF the cities
by those who for generations past have found their
livelihood in the open country. But, for the most
part the cry has gone unheeded, and It's nstgators
have been gently admonished dreamers or rebuked
in harsher terms rank alarmists In that happy
past before the war; when strikes merly annoy
ing incidents and the world rolled doing it's bust
ness as usual, could perhaps afford to show no
unusual regarding the state of the farm and
its production OF food.
''Those days are gone. Germany saw to that. There
is peace again. with victory The United States and
her allies saw to that But there is also world
wide spirit of social unrest. Why? We read of Red
plots and propaganda We witness outlaw strikes
We get pinched between taxes and the profteers
What is at the back of all this trouble and discomfort?
There are many contributing causes but may ven
ture to suggest there is one thing fundamentally
wrong and that is the shortage of food.
"The production of food, like that of any other
commodity, depends among other things on labor
1t follows that, if the farmer cannot hire his
sary help his farm cannot be worked to capacity Now
the serious fact to be faced at the present moment is
that the farm aborer is not to be had in the numbers
essential to the needs Of this the most important
dustry of country. He is, of his accord out
of the market. Again why? Because of the more at
ractive inducements of city occupations. On the
farm there is no such thing eigh-hour day. nor
the luxury of liberty after the business of the day is
done. 'Smartng under that sense of injustice com
ments a writer in The New York Times, IT per cent
of our agricultural workers. as shown by Government
survey, have abandoned the country since last year
and have to the cities to get their share of the
shorter hours the easier work and the peasaner way
of living.
"What was the result? Government figures for last
year said to have put the rise in onions at As per
cent IN ralSnS at % per cent and in potatoes at 1874
per cent Meat, milk and eggs took their own upward
flights, until at length the general public began
slider these soaring prices constituting a real prob
lem IN the economy of the nation. While we hear of
certain almost tentative reductions in the prices of
various less important commodities, the cost of a
square meal continues rising. The reason is plain to
be seen-the lure of better-pad work, under condi-
tons more cOngenial to the average man. ''When an
industry which has to depend for it's success upon
hired labor said farmer, has to compete with all
the other industries in the country and those indus
tries offer the he'll money than the industry
could yield them if it gave them all it's produce-not