Norwich bulletin., 1922-12-08
MUCH DEPENDS ON SUPREMACY OF AGRICULTURE.

CWritten Specially For The BuIletin-) I don't know but I shall "get myseH in bad' with some of the young folks by taking a bit about one of the old folks It is unquestionably a risky thing to do. At a certain age in both sexes the feeling is pretty strong thsEe their elders are simply old fogies an1 as open-minded, nor as capable as themselves of the on-eominS generation. The man who lived fifty years ago they regard as merely a ''haS-been" the ] man who lived a hundred years ago might Ss we'll never have existed, so 1 far as they concern themselves about him.
 Yeu and I, fellow veteran, can re- member, if we try hard enough, when we felt very much. the same way. Some l Of us have got over it; some perhaps, have not I confess, for one, that t 1 wasn't till after my hair had grizzlad that I took much interest in the fath- l CTS and forefathers. But now, when I've come to see how that wonderful, rainhow-arched Future is just a re-hash of the equally wonderful Past, I'm be- ginning to haul in a few of my horns and admit willingness to learn from those who have gone before.
 Chance recently put in my hand some o6 the preserved work of Thomas lief. ferson. Of course, had always knowI that Jefferson was quite fellow. But my acquaintance with him was of thu vaguest. Beyond the fact that h wrote the Declaration of Independence was member of the continental con gross, and twice president of the Unitei States, I couldn't have told you mucl about him. AS for supposing that any thing he could have said or written way back a century and a quarte ago, would have any special interes for us o6 1922 or any bearing on ou problems-why no, of course not.
 But when came to read him eve. changed my tune. I sat right U in my chair and took notice that h was a mighty shrewd and foreseein person. He never pretended to any gil of prophecy. But he was a sharp oE server of that human nature whic seems to have been pretty much tn same thing in his day as in ours. Give the arc of the circle which human na ture followed during his lifetime, 2 had no great difficulty in forecastin l the curve which it would continue follow. Furthermore, he had-what
 rare today-the courage and the saga ity to set down some of these forecast
 Eve been so struck with some of the
 that I want to pass them on to yo Take the following, for instance, HSThie
 Jefferson wrote more than 8 hundr1 years ago:
 Our people will remain virtuous
 long as agriculture is our principal O
 ject, which will be the case while the
 remain vacant lands in America. Wh
 we get piled on one another in lar oIc fS1 Ctrol
 ing each other as they do there."
 Eh, brother? Pretty good guess
 was T. Jefferson, was he not? Doesl
 that ''eating each otffer'' about descri
 the condition of things in a count 2 | where New York city and Chicago a
 Detroit and Philadelphia, etc.. etc.. ha e' taken the leadership once held on far1 A and plantations?
 ~- The vacant lands" are praetaea used up. Our population is being rs ~ idly piled on one another in large C ies." And the, principal occupation . practically all, big business, as begott 'S.' and nurtured in these cities, is 'eati rr each other" r,"-with special appetite M. .A the people outside whose principal H ject" is still agriculture. Today in b
 mess, in politics, and almost every o a CT way, we are a mob of Ishmaeli w 'us wherein every mans hand is agai ,ts every other man, pS And Thomas Jefferson, passing
 forecast for the future upon his k, 's observation of men and things in Ill past, drew the picture of 1922
 clearly and accurately and much m for tersely than any present day econon of could do.
 Here is another slightly longer ere tract, written while the Revolution Tn war was in progress:
 '"The spirit of the times may a1