The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1936-06-29
NEWSPAPERS OPINIONS
A MONEY ECONOMY VS.. AN AGRA1Ri "a
ECONOMY

| To-, sovera1 Years a group of Southern schoIars
.on+or;ro in Vanderbilt University, have attracted
o+;onaI attention by their advocacy OF an u''coi-
orc;alized farm life as the happlest OF all moues
=. ax;etence Donald Davidson, one OF the mos'
t,o,,s Of these Southern Agrarians' IN the cur
rent Progressive Farmer summarizes their PhiioSo-
nh,, IN tho motto: Farm not to make money but
70 aniov the good life" The following extracts
from his article will interest many readers;
"Historians now generally agree that the CNli
war was fight between two dnerent laeaS VI Wv
;;zo+ion or between two economies. The economy
If the North when all exceptions are allowed loi'
was mostly money economy, based upon manu-
facture. trade and banking. The economy ol Tue
South was on the whole an agrarlan economy; that
: Sontherners based their life upon the land ana
,or tho use of what the land actually produced
- ,rnch as mon what they could buy. Before the
,r tho South led in general in fairly happy lie
without great deal of money. one might say
with some injustice but not too much-that 'he
basic belief of the North was that everything couiu
no bought-education, art, security, the good me-
as we'll as clothes and food; while the South De-
loved that some things could be bought, out not
everything. Before the war, Southerners did not
estimate man by asking how much ne was worth
y, forms of money They talked about how much
land he owned how much stock he owned, how
uucb cotton or corn his fields produced Even then
his personal integrity and perhaps his family stand
irU counted very heavily. IF they did not respect
hin, a. person, they would not invite him to din
ner or encourage him to marry their daughters
The Southern idea was an idea of life not OF
money. ..'.' e.. '.'' . g..
~ obi has
possessed the agraran South, became the ruling
idea in national affairs, That was a mistake!
a "The old-fashioned farmer such as we used to
have and still do have in the South OF course need
ed some money, got some money, used some money
But the farm more to HIM than means OF
getting money On the farm he built fairly COM
plete and satisfying way of life; ne was father and
family man, neighbor hunter, fisher, merry-maker'
craftsman, worshipper of God, and homemaker, as
we'll as a money-rnaker. 's.', . ......-
eThe meaning of 'agrarianism' which has come
to be the name of the cause advocate, hes IN the
nation that an agrarian life is first of all good
life Even in poverty and hardships it is still true,
/ think that the people of the living fields have
kept better sense of VIVA tlife is and how 1t may
be enjoyed than the people of the cities. cannot
here enlarge the point, but feel eonndent that
the people of the fields in our own time have Kept
their senses of direction, of decency of virtue, of
independence far better than the people of the
cities -t,...'.'r ...".
rOne cannot but feel, as he looks at the disor-
dered spectacle which is modern America, that
some profound change is on the way. If the South
to share in that change if the South is to do It's
share in that change if the South is to do its part
in directing it toward some good end, then surely
the best thing that Southerners can do is to argue
the case for that farm life which has been the great
historic feature of Southern life, and to make it
good life and keep it so."-The Morganton News
Herald. ,.-s. ,. ... s... ..." o.. '...... .