Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1924-10-01

To be as exact as possible, there are
100000 farmers in the country, formed
into 1000 cooperative societies, which
permeate all the economic relations Of
life. These cooperative societies are
the prOprietors of all the machinery
for buying all that the farmer needs
and distributing all that he produces
and does not consume himself.
No Graft and No Corners.
There is no graft no middleman can
corner" any article of necessity there
are no multi-milliOnaires, with excess
profits gained from home industries.
In fact, the Dane who would declare
that capital is the enemy of labor
would be looked on as an economic
idiot, just as it would seem equally
idiOtic to assume that labor existed for
the piling up of capital.
In Denmark, money is not an end;
it is an instrument, medium of cir
culation. And the object for which
all parties in politics are struggling
the conservative in Denmark would be
looked on as a radical here's that it
should be equally distributed, not for
luxurieS, but for necesSarieS.
Until the middle of the Nineteenth
century the Danes were brought to the
verge of ruin by stupid system of ag-
riculture, only comparable to that in
vogue in some of our cotton-raising
states, where the same old crop de-
stroys the nutrition of the soil and the
boll-weevil eats it's fruits. Scientific
agriculture was unknown to them. The
growing Of grain was a fixed dictum,
and rotation of crops a heresy.
Then came Bishop Grundtvig with
new ideas of education and Kristen
Kold, who started the first peoples
high school, From HOLDS first school
grew the great system of Danish high
schools, which it is said were the mod
els on which our Chautauquas were
founded; and also the system of uni
versity extension in English-speaking
countries. But neither the Chautau-
quas nor the university extension
courses have been as far-reaching in
their effects as the Danish high
schools.
1t is understood, Of course, that
these schools are not, like our high
schools, introductions to college or
the finishing off of the education Of
those who do not intend to go to col
lege. No requirement is necessary
for the student except the desire to
learn. There are no degrees given in
these schools, no examinations, and
no fixed standards of scholarship.
Aristocracy to Decline.
There is an aristocracy in Den
mark, an aristocracy of a very high
class, as a rule, but it has lost its
privileges. It's titles have even less
value socially than they have in
France, which is a republic, and, I'M
der the usage which makes all the
sons and daughters of a count or a
baron counts and countesSes or barons
and harnesses, titles soon lose their
distinction, and new titles of nobility
are no longer given.
The aristocracy, which for a long
time controlled the upper house, fought
hard against the subdivision of the
land, and its members were not SYM
pathetic with the Danish system of
credit banks, by which any man of
good character, with a very small sum
of ready money, might be able to own
farm.
The habit of farming land on shares
does not obtain in Denmark. Every
man works his own farm. In the
summer months, however, over 10000
Galicians, and other immigrants come
into Denmark to dig the beet root and
to do other jobs which the Danish
farmer prefers not to do. The large
estate owners are obliged every year
to provide facilities for these alien
laborers, who go home in the autumn
quite content.
Denmark is not an industrial coun-
try in the sense that it is a country
of manufacture. The scientific treat
ment of one of the worst soils for
agricultural purposes in Europe,
joined with the equally scientific sys-
TEN of cooperation, enabled it to
monopolize the export of butter, bacon
and eggs into England and Germany.
Before the war the Danes supplied
the breakfast table of the British,
and the export of milk and cream, and
, even of beef and hogs, into Germany
| taxed their capacity.