Evening star., 1937-01-17
BY MARK SULLIVAN.
D1 MAnA SOlLlt AN.
HHE legislation about to be for
mulated - and undoubtedly

ME leSlSldLlOu ABOUT TO De Ior--
mulated - and undoubtedly
adopted-for helping farm
u tenants to become farm own
ers, will be followed with eagerness,
and perhaps envy. by many besides
tenants. 1t is not apparent yet
whether the legislation will extend its
opportunities not only to tenants but
to other non-owneers probably it will
not. But many city man and small
town one will wish for way to be-
.come farm owner.
I am careful at this point to say
farm owner" rather than farmer"
for not every city man has the quail
ties to be a farmer. Those are self
deceived who think that farming is
simple occupation-who think that
all you need is piece of land, that
you can just go out in the Spring and
plant crop and wait for it to grow.
There was time. in parts of Amer
lea, where farming was almost that
simple-when the land was still vir-
gin and other conditions were quite
different. Today, farming every
where is one of the most complex of
occupations. It would be safe to say
that good farmer-considering the
wide variety of different operations
that must be carried on by one man
needs to have broader and more
flexible intelligence than is called
for by almost any other occupation.
MY father was good farmer in his
day; I still own the farm, but it could
not be farmed successfully today by
the simple methods that were ade-
quate and universal in my fathers
time
Nevertheless, many a city man in
'0ulgeS in his dream-in many cases
a dream that includes regret for what
might have been. For many of these
city and small-town men, now dis
appointed with their urban careers,
began life as farm boys Of many
repinings the depression gave rise to,
one OF the most frequent is regret
for having left the farm.
Regret for Leaving Farm.
In some cases it is regret for hav-
Ing sold the farm. The saddest por-
tion of the people on relief consists
Of those ex-farmers, mainly from the
Middle West, who, when 40 or SO
years of age, yielded to the tempta-
tion of the high prices that land
went to during the 1920s They saw
their farms valued at 25 to so thou
sand dollars; they thought of that
as small fortune; they sold the
land. and, thinking of themselves as
retired capitalists in a small way,
moved to Southern California. The
unhappy disaster that came upon
them with the depression-their
farms gone and they too old to begin
over or learn another occupation
accounts for the phenomenon of the
Townsend plan" That mirage of
5000 month for everybody over IS
had its beginning in that part of
the country, the neighborhood of Los
Angeles, where retired Midwest farm
ers who have lost their capital are
most numerous
In every society ESQ far as my recol-
lection of history runs at this casual
moment) the most usual basis of aris-
tocracy has been land ownership. In
many societies it has been ownership
of land in large quantities-old ways
of thinking did not suppose that land
ownership in small quantities could
compose select and powerful class.
But it can. And it is possible that in
the changes now taking place in
America the aggregate of farm own
ers may become the class that is at
once the most secure in the economic
sense. the most powerful in the po-
litical sense. Whether that comes
about or not, there are the elements
OF individual aristocracy tin the best
sense) in any family that holds on to
its farm from generation to genera
ton. 1t implies stability, strong COM
mon sense, resistance to the ephem-
eral strong vitality sustained from
generation to generation; the strength
of fiber which can survive through
depressions; indifference to the temp
tation to sell during periods when
the price of land is high. know of
no class more deserving of esteem or
more useful to be set up as a model
for the average man.
Old Farm Families.
In something whote while ago
about old farms I suggested that the
National Grange should seek out
farms which have been in the same
families for a hundred years or more.
I suggested that the Grange should
make an honor roll of such farms, and
that is should set up on each a bronze
tablet of the sort that local histori-
cal societies use to commemorate
events in community history. Such
markers, set up by the roadside, per-
haps at the foot of the lane, would
at once be interesting to the passer-
by, stimulate a sound ideal and pre-
mote worthy pride on the part Of
families that have held on to their
farms for a century or more
An official of the Grange tells me he
Is laying this suggestion before the
Executive Committee, and that he
hopes they will adopt it. I hope 50,
too. The Grange would be an ap-
propriate institution to honor tenaci-
fy Of farm ownership Funded inst