The Nome daily nugget., 1935-12-03


 cropper and his Ill lot are famil- far figure, there are many cases of 10 or 12 persons living In shacks of one or two rooms.
 Relief Standards Are Poor.
 In 1880 any apartment in Chicago which rented for less than $50 a month was likely to be far be- low standard, with such thing as bath tub regarded as a luxury, and with rooms having no outside window a commonplace. Yet at tkat time nearly one-fourth of all hous- ing in Chicago rented for less than $50 a month and nearly one-tenth for less than $20.
 Not all relief families live by such standards, of course, but those who don't are the exception re- habilitated farm families, for eX- ample. But it may be said that at best all relief living Is subsistence living or less, and that malnutri- tion is common and starvation some- times existent.
 A large portion of the farm fami- lies of course fall into the class which have a yearly income of less than 5000. Since the farmer Is able to raise much of what he and his family eat, this income would be proportionately greater than the same income for city family.
 Yet that would be speaking of the average in the class. It must be remembered that individuals in each one of these class groups vary with amazing difference. In the southern Appalachians, even in the golden year 1929, there were 52 counties where the annual income per farm person was less than $100 and even this is an average! These people, too, must be consid- cred when we speak of what America needs"-yet they, with their primitive methods and manners, be- long to the Eighteenth century more than to the Twentieth. More than 1O,OOO,OOO of the 49,- 100000 gainfully employed persons in 1930 were employed in agricul- ture. Most of these fall below the $2,0OO line. In fact in only few farm counties was income equal to | that in industrial areas. Thirty Million on Farms. Some light may be thrown on the living status of the farmer today when it is cited that even in Iowa 62 per cent of all the farmers are tenants. The tenant-farmer situa- tion in the South, with its desper- ate plight of the share-crOpper, who lives at the very lowest ebb of sub- sistence standards, has been widely publicized of late.
 When the political orator says "we, the people," he includes, | whether he knows 1t or not, 30,0OO,- GOO persons who are dependent upon farming for a living. How do these people live? The facts may surprise you.
 ! If the figures compounded by Morris l.. Cooke, head of the Rural Electrification administration, are correct, 25,OOO,000 of these people have derived little benefit from the | inventions and the advances of sci ence which are said to have so much bettered our living standards in re- cent years.
 l Here is what he claims to have found out: That 93 per cent of all persons who make their living from the soil have neither bath tub nor shower. That 76 per cent are still lighting their homes with either gasoline or kerosene or less eff cient means; that 10 per cent of this figure either use candles or go without artificial light. That g per cent have to carry water from wells or other sources of supply. That 33 per cent use fireplaces In heating their homes.
 These estimates seem to have been substantiated by another gov ernment bureau, the PWA, whose research men say that between 7s and 80 per cent of all farm homes
 have no modern conveniences what
 ever. It is safe to say that all Of
 such homes fall below the $2,OO(
 Income.