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THE ATLANTA SEMT-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH POBSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter of
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY,
* President and Editor.
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The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tuesday
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Atlanta, Ga.
As Mexico Now Stands.
Early returns from the election held yesterday in
Mexico indicate that not enough ballots were cast to
constitute a legal choice for the Presidency.
In the capital district, where some eighty thou
sand persons are eligible to vote, fewer than ten
thousand, it is said, went to the polls. In other dis
tricts, further removed from Huerta’s dominion, the
discrepancy between citizenship and suffrage was still
greater, while in the territory that is more or less
under revolutionary control there was probably no
pretense of holding an election.
Since the Mexican constitution requires that at
least a third of the eligible voters participate in an
election in order that it may be valid, the result
of yesterday’s balloting, whatever it may be, will
doubtless be declared void.
This was only to he expected. More than half the
country, it is estimated, is in open and successful re
volt against the Huerta regime. Naturally, an elec
tion engineered by Huerta would not command re-
ipect or bestir interest in these districts. However
fairly It might have been conducted, it would have
been considered illegal and Ineffectual in advance.
Besides this, it was evident from the outset that
ao constitutional election could be held under the
sway of a specious government that owed Its existence
to a shameful violation of the constitution. Huerta
has never been the rightful President of Mexico even In
* provisional sense- He gained his present station
through treachery and* homicide and a wanton disre
gard of the simplest principles of good government.
Within the past few weeks he .ias carried his
audacious policy still further by dispersing the na
tional legislature, imprisoning more than a hundred
of Its members and declaring himself dictator. These
xcts alone would have sufficed to invalidate any or
ders he issued and sought to carry out. The Con
gress which he put to rout was the legally constitu
ted authority to pass upon the results of the elec
tion, to canvass the vote and determine its Integ
rity. The dictator clearly showed that he did not
Want a legal election-
From his own standpoint, matters have turned
out just as he desired. Hu is left in control of the
de facto government at Mexico City and is still the
main figure on his country’s troubled stage. It Is
With him that the revolutionary leaders must reckon
and that other nations must, in a measure at least,
negotiate.
Dispatches say that he is to issue a decree in
creasing the army to one hundrd and fifty thousand
men, a step which the recent Congress forbade him
to take. Evidently, he is determined to make the
most of his renewed legacy on power. But it is evi
dent, too, that Huerta’s fortunes are fast waning.
The very fact that the country refused to take seri
ous part in an election conducted under his regime
shows the distrust with which he is generally re
garded.
ao far as the United States and its policies to
ward Mexico are concernud, it is well enough that
Sunday’s election resulted in no choice for a Presi
dent to succeed Huerta. Our Government had firmly
declared that it would not recognize a Muxican
President chosen in such circumstances as would nec
essarily prevail when an unscrupulous dictator was
in the saddle. We are now spared the difficulty of
saying to a successor of Huerta what has already
been said to him himself..
Our relationships with Mexico remain unchanged.
Our attitude is still one of friendly conc.ern that the
neighboring republic shall be really free and self-
governing but of unswerving refusal to recognize
any regime that is planted in murderous -defiance of
law and civilization. Had Huerta withdrawn, merely
to b*; succeeded by one of his puppets, our problem
would have been more complex than It Is today.
Huerta carries within himself the germs of his
own sure destruction. His noisy babble about in
creasing his army’s strength t 0 a hundred and fifty
thousand men and rapidly forcing the rebellious parts
of the country into submission will soon die out
If reports are true, his treasury is bankrupt; he
has no funds for maintaining the present army on effi-
.dShi standards and little hope of holding its loyalty.
The revolutionists are, strategically, in a far stronger
position than he. They have wrested more than half
the country from his control- Their recent capture
of Monterey adds to their prestige and force, They
come much nearer representing the wishes of the
majority of the Mexican peopln than does Huerta.
Circumstances would seem to indicate that the rev
olutionists, or "Constitutionalists,” as they . style
themselves, will not require many weeks more to
send Huerta packing. Certain It is that their cause,
chaotic though it now appear, is more entitled to
recognition than is Huerta’s.
There is this particularly hopeful aspect to the
situation as it now is: The Powers of the world show
a disposition to join with the United States in the
latter’s prudent and high-minded policies toward
Mexico. European governments seem to have been
awaiting the outcome of Sunday’s election to agree
upon some concerted course. The probability is that
they will now accept the well-considered views of the
United States and thus add their moral support to the
plans this country has adopted.
How to Increase Georgia’s \
Population and Wealth.
One of the timeliest aims of the recently organ
ized Georgia Chamber of Commerce is to bring the
State’s resources vividly to the notice of all America
and thereby attract to this commonwealth new set
ters and ne w capital. The need of such enterprise
has long been important; today it is imperative. As
a means of protection as well as progress, Georgia
must make her advantages more widely and more
definitely known.
The Tampa Tribune calls attention to the signifi
cant fact that a Canadian railway system has estab
lished in a Georgia city an industrial office devoted
entirely to the purpose of securing Southern settlers
for lands in the Canadian Northwest;; and similar
offices are soon to be opened at twenty-nine other
points. Their agents will be supplied with great
quantities of literature and with all the money they
need to influence prospective immigrants.
To the extent that these efforts are successful
from Canada’s standpoint, they will he gravely in
jurious to Georgia and the South; for, the loss of a
thrifty citizen means the loss of thousands of dollars
and of invaluable human energy. It means loss to
our merchants and manufacturers and railroads and
to the whole State’s power for self-development.
Something must be done to counteract this skill
fully laid campaign to draw Georgia men and fam
ilies from their native soil. It is but natural that
enterprising Canadians should turn to this peculiarly
Anglo-Saxon corner of the continent for means to up
build their Dominion- We may well admire their
discernment and aggressiveness but If we are in any
wise mindful of our own interests, we shall not sit
idle white they are preparing to capture our richest
treasure; rather, we shall emulate their shrewdness
and turn their methods to our own advantage.
The Georgia Chamber of Commerce offers an ideal
opportunity for effective co-operation among all good
citizens toward offsetting movements such as we
have described and also toward bringing to our own
State desirable settlers from other parts of America.
It is the Chamber’s purpose to launch a systematic
campaign of publicity through which the agricultural
and industrial resources of Georgia will he sharpfy
impressed upon the entire country’s thought. The
natural drift of population and of investment is now
unmistakably Southward. The extraordinary devices
to which our Canadian friends are resorting show that
they keenly appreciate this fact. Shall Georgia en
courage this drift and get her due share of its en
riching influence? If so, she must avail herself of
modern methods; she*mut let the prospective home-
seeker and investor know the wonderful opportuni
ties that await them within her hospitable borders.
This can be done only through organized, business
like effort such as the Georgia Chamber of Commerce
can put forth. It is by joining witm the representative
men who make up this splendid institution that the
individual ciizen can best serve himself and his State
in this very Important issue. The membersip cam
paign of the Chamber is now well under way. Every
commercial and civic body in Georgia should enroll
In this great enterprise and so, too, should every cit
izen who wants to play a progressive part in upbuild
ing his commonwealth.
Purer Water for Rural Districts.
The need of greater care in safeguarding against
pollution the water supply of rural districts is sea
sonably urged in the Journal of the American Medical
Association- Recent inquiries, says this authority,
show that thousands of farms and villages the country
over are seriously imperiled by lack of caution In
regard to wells and springs. In Minnesota, for ’ In
stance, the State Board of Health found that of the
seventy-nine water supplies examined only twenty
were sanitary. The report from Indiana is note
worthy in detail for the reason that it is typical:
In an examination of the rural water supplies
in Indiana, it has been- found that of the private
supplies examined, 177 were deep w%lls, 411
shallow wells, five ponds, forty springs and
twenty-seven cisterns. One hundred and sixteen
of the deep-well waters were of a good quality,
forty-five were bad and sixteen doubtful. But
159 of the 411 shallow-well waters could he used,
209 were unequivocably bad and forty-three were
of doubtful quality. A large percentage of the
waters used by the families in which typhoid
fever occurred was unequivocably bad.
Such conditions attest the urgent need of better
sanitary rules and inspection for rural districts-
Cities have been forced to meet and solve their prob
lems of this nature but where population is scattered
and the effects of a polluted water supply are not so
regularly reported or observed, there is no direct, in
ward pressure for reform. The need of supervision,
however, is scarcely less Important than in cities. A
doctor of public health in each county or an ade
quate corps of inspectors under the direction of the
State Board of Health, could accomplish a vast deal
of practical good, largely through educational
methods.
The Courier-Journal aptly remarks, in commenting
on these conditions, that while shallow wells are more
susceptible to pollution than deep wells, "even deep
wells may be affected in time, if they are not prop
erly safeguarded against surface waters” and that
“even a shallow well may be protected, if good judg
ment Is used in locating it and in providing against
seepage from the surface.”
Nothing a Woman Can’t Do.
From Toledo, comes the odd story that young
women of that city are studying carpentry In the
Manual Training school; and, Interestingly enough,
cney are as apt as their boy mates In learning the
craft. After a few lessons, they handle mallets and
saws as dexterously as they would a rolling pin or
skillet. The more advanced students show particular
skill in matters of design and, with due experience,
will doubtless turn out some really distinctive work-
There are certaip phases of carpentry and joinery
which should appeal peculiarly to women—interior
work, for instance, where the decorative sense finds
play. Had women been as free in an earlier age
as they are today, there might have sprung from
their ranks a master of furniture-making comparable
to Adam or Hepplewhite or Chippendale.
Is there any craft or calling of the present time,
in which women have not proved their mettle? In
all the professions and most of the trades, they have
earned success- Not only as teachers and clerks, law
yers, doctors and scientists, but also as business
managers, commerical travelers, farmers, explorers
and aviators, they have shown ability. All this, to
be sure, is eclipsed „by woman’s supreme genius of
motherhood and home-making; yet it is well for mas
culine pride to observe that white there are some
things a man cannot even attempt there is nothing a
woman cannot do.
.I t
DUST
BY DR. FRANK CRANF-.
(Copyright, 1913, by Frank Cram
Cities 1 have their peculiar plagues.
They are not so picturesque as the Ten Plagues of
Egypt, which were bloody water, frogs, lice, flies, mur
rain, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and death of the
first-born, but they ar e well-nigh as deadly.
Among them may be mentioned the public sale of
alcohol with alcoholism, the social evil with syphilis,
overcrowded housing with tuberculosis, insufficient
and insanitary transportation, reckless driving of au
tomobiles with numerous accidents, quarrels between
employers and employed, and political parties with at
tendant corruption of all civic activities.
But 'perhaps the greatest plague of all is DUST.
From early morning the city streets give forth par
ticles of matter which form a dense atmosphere of
poison. A constant cloud hovers over the main thor
oughfares.
This qloud is composed of minute grains of the
droppings of horses, of parts of the skin of men and
animals, of eggs of infusoria, of microbes some inoc-
uous and some pathogenic, of flecks of stone, dirt,
cloth, paper, ashes, vegetable matter, and the like.
All this mix of uncleanness is raised and set in mo
tion by the perpetual agitation of the feet of horses
and men, and by the wheels of trucks, carriages, street
cars, and motors.
When one walks in the street, rides in a car, or sits
by the open window these noxious air-borne particles
rain incessantly upon his eyes and into his nose and
mouth.
Many of the poisonous germs, to be sure, are ren
dered harmless by the action of the sun and air. But
there is another danger: the particles irritate the eyes
and the throat.
They produce or prepare the way for diseases of
the eye, mouth, throat and lungs.
If you will take a clean towel or handkerchief,
when you come home from downtown, and wipe out
your nose with it, you will be able to form some idea
of what the inside of your lung looks like.
Dust is the mother of consumption.
What are we going to do about it?
We must keep our city streets as clean as our
house halls.
To this end horses and all domestic animals must
eventually be banished. Offal should no more be tol
erated upon the street than on a house floor. The
horse is already going, gasoline taking its place.
Cobble stones and paving full of crevices to harbor
dirt must go. The street of the future will be smooth.
The wheel of the future will be tired with rubbed or
its equivalent.
Streets will b e constantly taken care of by sweep
ers and sprinklers to insure cleanliness, and kept al
ways in repair.
Some coating, tarry or otherwise, will be used to
prevent flying dust.
Cities will learn some day, when they grow up ou£
of their present party-cursed and graft-ridden adoles
cence, that a perfectly smooth and clean street is not
only a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but it is an
insurance of public health, a matter of life and death
to the people.
Birmingham News Urges
Underwood For the Senat
Things We Can’t Afford
The black walnut which our grandparents burned
as firewood is now almost too precious to be used in
framing the most valued pictures—the Cleveland mil
lionaire who wanted his skyscraper trimmed in that
wood had hard work to find enough in the whole
countray to fill his curious order.
The fertilizer values which are wasted around
barns with uncovered manure heaps through which
rains drain will one day be so highly prized that it
may be made a misdemeanor not to spread them scien
tifically upon the hungry soil.
It has been suggested that a time may come when
the owner of a field will not be permitted to let m\iddy
water run away after a storm, but will be required
to filter the drainage as carefully as manufacturers
will soon be required to filter the drainage from their
poison vats.
For we are just beginning to perceive the serious
ness of this soil waste. Throughout the Uited States
in one year it amounts to dumping into the sea as
many team loads of earth as would make a single file
of dump carts reaching seventy-six times around the
globe.
A few centuries ago it was reasonably certain that
a pestilence would come every so often and reduce
greatly the number of mouths to be fed. The “black
plague,” for instance, during the twenty-year visit to
Europe, swept away a fourth of all the population in
the area over which it swept.
Today the plagues are being tamed. Folks live
longer and there are more of them. Which means, of
course, greater strain upon the soil to grow humani
ty’s food. But if we let much of our best soil wash
away, what’s left won’t always be able to carry this
growing strain. As the food supply becomes scarcer
and the demand for it greater prices will go up until,
as in India, famine must follow and the world be
brought face to face with the possibility of starvation
—such is the inevitable alternative to conserving the
soil and improving its use.
When enough of us see this, the danger will be
met. Fortunately more are seeing it every day.—
Wichita Beacon.
An Interesting Peace Plan.
From Mr. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the
British Admiralty, comes the most definite proposal
yet made toward a suspension of the international
war game. The naval program of Great Britain
calls for the building of four new battleships next
year and that of Germany, for two new battleships.
Mr. Churchill, rpeaking for his own Government,
says to Germany in effect that if she will postpone
her navy increase for twelve months, England will
do- likewise. Both nations would thus be saved mil
lions of dollars and both would remain relatively as
strong as they now are-
It is considered improbable that the First Lord
of the Admiralty would have made such an offer had
he not had some assurance that It would
be favorably entertained. Indeed, a similar
suggestion put forth months ago was rather well re
ceived in Germany; there is reason to surmise that
something in the nature of a diplomatic understand
ing between the two countries in this regard has
been reached, or ac least is developing.
Such an agreement between England and Ger
many would have world-wide significance and in
fluence. If these great rivals, who for years have
been armoring each against the other, should sus
pend naval preparations for a twelvemonth, all Eu
rope would be easier in mind and, perhaps, other
Powers would be drawn into the compact. Great
Britain’s naval supremacy gives especial weight to
her proposal. Obviously she is not impelled by any
sense of weakness or alarm but entirely by her con
sciousness of strength and security.
The burden of the war game while heavy in all Old
World countries is particularly so in Germany, and
it is a burden imposed by suspicion and jealousy
rather than by any clearly defined danger. The
readiness of England to rest a season from the build
ing of battle ships should reassure Germany and go
far toward removing the cause of international sus
picion. Mr. Churchill’s plan, if it materialize, will
be a long step toward world peace.
A SENATORIAL vacancy has arisen in Alabama
at a critical time.
Doubt and uncertainty exist in the state,
while in the senate the Democratic party holds its own
by the slenderest of margins.
The condition in Washington calls for wise states
manship; the condition in Alabama for the wisest of
choices.
In thia emergency what is the patriot to do who
wishes to discharge his obligation to state and nation
with the highest degree of fidelity? How can the
voters of Alabama best serve themselves and their
country at this time of grave responsibility?
Surely these are questions of grave import.
Called upon at this crisis in the aft'airs of ^ the na
tion, can Alabama say to the people at large We are
sending you our biggest and broadest and ablest son,’
if the choice is limited to the present field?
With due appreciation of the ability and patriotism
of those who aspire to the office, the News believes
that this question must be answered in the negative.
Alabma’s ablest son, a man whose conspicuous ability
has commanded recognition from the nation, as well as
from his own peopie, is not now a candidate, and he
must be before the citizens of Alabama can render the
highest service to themselves and to their countrymen.
This editorial might be concluded without mention
ing a name, and all Alabama would know to whom the
News refers. Oscar W. Underwood stands out so con
spicuously in the public life of Alabama and the na
tion that the thoughts of the people instinctively turn
to him when the greatness and the ability of states
men become a theme of discussion.
Mr. Underwood i_s the man Alabama should send to
the senate. He is the man Alabamians must send if
the are to measure up to the fullness of the opportu
nity presented them; ii they are to give to the na
tion their best.
Yet it is manifest that the citizens of this state
will be helpless to acquit themselves thus unless Mr.
Underwood become a candidate for the office. This
the News believes he should do, and it calls upon him,
In behalf of the people of Alabama, to take this step
as soon as his duties in connection with the tariff and
the currency measures will permit.
The entrance of Mr. Underwood in the senatorial
race would serve to simplify a situation that is full
of uncertainty. It would clear the atmosphere and
give to the political life of the state a helpful stimu
lus. Certainly it would remove all doubt as to who
will represent Alabama In the senate. Mr. .Under
wood’s election would he assured the moment he an
nounced his purpose to become a candidate.
The people of Alabama would have many com
pelling reasons for centering ubon Mr. Underwood, as
they most'assuredly will if he gives them the oppor
tunity. Chief among these is his ability as a leader
of men.
Mr. Underwood achieved his position as one of the
chief statesmen of his time through sheer ability. There
is about him not one trick of the demagogue, not one
element of the professional politician, not a single
Inclination to shirk, to evade or to parade.
A man of spotless character and lofty Ideals, Mr.
Underwood has attained his present position of con
spicuous honor without compromise or trickery. He
is a man, a strong, earnest,- courageous man, and one
who has no difficulty in discerning right from wrong.
Next to President Woodrow Wilson, Mr. Underwood
is perhaps the most honored and most generally es
teemed man in the public life of America, and certain
ly no man In Alabama could reflect greater credit
upon the state, or render It more conspicuous service.
Alabama, first on the roll call of states, has en
joyed some fame for Its wisdom and ability in the
selection of its senators. It gave to the nation Mor
gan and Pettus, and thereby won a nation's praise. At
a time when many states were sending men full of
strange, fantastic vagaries to join in the deliberations
of a great body that should represent the highest in
telligence And highest devotion of the people, Alabama
won distinction by the wisdom of its choice. And
who shall say this is not a worthwhile distinction?
The office of senator is tl*3 most exalted the people
of a commonwealth can confer, and it is not an honor
that should be lightly bestowed. He who wears it
should reflect in his learning, In his ability and in his
devotion to country, something of the character of the
people he represents.
As a senator, Mr. Underwood will be true to the
best traditions of this great state He will reflect
credit upon it, will serve it with the same splendid
ability that has made him the dominant figure in the
house Of representatives, and the News believes it
voices the wish of a great majority of patriotic Ala
bamians when it calls upon him to enter the race and
make possible a happy solution of the present situa
tion.
Alabama wants Underwood in the senate. The na
tion needs him there, and he should indicate his will
ingness to serve as soon as the exacting duties of
the present will permit.
It isn t easy to write to a friend off somewhere
near the North Pole a real description of the hot
weather. You can tell him the mercury was around
100 for so many successive days, and that you
couldn’t sleep nights, and all that sort of thing. But
the account will seem mechanical to him, and he won’t
get the vivid impression of what the heat has really
meant to you.
The only accounts of hot weather that actually
“get” a reader are those that convey an impression of
the way the person feels under the stress of protracted
heat. The references to the thermomter must be
simply incidental. A piece of drool in a friend's let
ter, hardly mentioning the heat, but trailing off into
stillness that is obviously the result of a case of
nerves, may give an extraordinarily vivid sensation or
100 degree temperature.
Perhaps the best heat description In literature is
Kipling’s story. “At the End of the Passage.” The
most trying weather in the world is that of India
where there is a combination of high temperature with
high humidity that lasts for months at a time with
out a let up.
In the Kipling story four Englishmen are Journey
ing far every Saturday night to spend Sunday together
in a remote spot of this devil's country. There is an
opening setting of heat:
The thermometer marked for them 101 degrees
of heat. The room was darkened till it was just
possible to distinguish the pips of the cards and
the very white faces of the players. A tattered,
rotten punkah of whitewashed calico was pud
dling the hot air and whining dolefully at each
stroke. Outside there was neither sky, sun, nor
horizon—nothing but a brown purple haze of heat.
It was as though the earth were dying of apo
plexy. *
"Puddling the air*’ is a vivid phrase, but the im
pression is really made, not by this formal descrip
tion, which doesn’t particularly affect the reader, but
by the account of the actions of the men. Their utter
weariness is reflected in everything they do. They
quarrel at cards. They fuss about the cooking. Their
nerves are evidently all on edge. One of them hasn't
been able to sleep for several nights. After they go
to bed a doctor in the party watches the sleepless one
lie rigid, unable to relax. In the middle of the sweaty,
stifling night the man speaks to the doctor:
There is a tom-tom outside, Isn't there? I
thought it was my head at first. O, Spurstow, for
pity sake give me something that will make me
steep.
The doctor gives him morphine, and then steals out
and disables his firearms so that he can’t shoot him
self. T^e three friends return to the place the next
week and find their host dead, dead of nervous ex
haustion from the humid heat
The story is the real thing in heat horror.—Kansas
City Star.
RURAL CREDITS
I. THE NEEDS OF THE FARMER
Ba FREDERIC J. HASKIN. .
Just now there Is coming to fruition a movement
to assist the farmers of the United States financially.
It started with the Southern Commercial Congress, and
may end with a farmers’ bank in every community,
where farmers can borrow money from themselves at
low rates, and thus put themselves on an equal foot
ing with the industrial and commercial world.
* • •
Of late years the American people have spent so
much time listening to stories about farmers who ride
around in automobiles, who send their sons and
daughters to college, and who make pilgrimages to the
city to attend* the opera, that they have begun to regard
them as q. sort of twentieth century edition of Midas.
And they have heard so much about the $9,000,000,000
worth of products the farmers annually produce that
they have not stopped to consider how much that 1
means to each farmer.
...
As a matter of fact, there are 12,000,000 farmers in
the United States; they own $40,000,000,000 worth of
farm property, and annually produce $9,500,000,000
worth of crops. Those figures sound exactly like the
popular impression of the farmer—a man with a sixty-
horsepower car, with a son at Harvard and a daughter
at Vassar—but wait until they are analyzed. Divide
the total farm wealth among those 12,000,000 farmers
and you will find their average wealth is $3,333; ana
then divide that annual farm yield among them, and
you will find that the average farmer's gross annual
Income is $791. Out of this he must feed and clothe
his family, educate his children, find his pleasures,
pay his Interest and his taxes, and lay by for his
rainy du^.
... •
It Is true that there are millions of farmers who
measuieably come up to the popular picture of the
automobile-buying farmer—perhaps 4,000,000 of them,
but there is another 8,000,000 whose struggles are
hard, and who can barely eke out an existence. To
illustrate: Suppose there are 4,000,000 farmers in the
United States worth an average of $7,000 each—that
would make a total of $28,000,000,000, so that the oth
er 8,000,000 would be worth only $1,600. And suppose
the products of the farms of those 4,000,000 farmers
^mounted to $1,600 each—that would make $6,000,00o,-
000 and leave the other 8,000,000 farmers to divide
gross profits of $3,000,000,000 among them—a beggarly
$437.60 a year income, out of which must be paid fer
tilizer bills, and the keep and education of the family,
interest, taxes and the like. So it will be s^en, after
all. not all is automobiles and colleges and operas with
the farmer.
...
It was a realization of this actual situation of the
small farmer that led the Southern Commercial con
gress to father a movement to see if there might not
be found some method of helping him to solve hie
problem, to enhance his financial well being and to
in9rease his contribution to the welfare of the nation.
• • *
That organization saw that the tendenoy of the
times is away from farm ownership and toward ten
ant farming. It saw In the census returns that one
occupying owner out of every seven has left the farm
since 1880, and recognized that there was somethin*
fundamentally wrong—else such an Increase of ten
ancy and such a decrease In ownership farming could
not have taken place. It looked to the city and saw
the number of home owners Increasing as rapidly as
the number of farm owners on the land were decreas
ing. It saw the city artisan able to buy t}ls house on
a small cash payment and the balance as rent, while
the farmer must pay a third down and the balance in
a short period of years.
* a e
Here was a clue. A look further showed that oth
er countries had solved the problem, and that there
home ownership on the farm was on the increase. It
showed that in Germany the farmers had solved the
question of meeting their own needs by long time pay-'
ments, and that co-operation In money matters had
led to co-operation In buying and In selling, and that
consequently the German farmer was enjoying an eco
nomic independence out of all proportion to the size
of his land holdings.
e e e
Step by step the lesson was learned that the Amer
ican farmer might copy the European ideas of finan
cial co-operation with great profit That was why a
national commission was appointed to go to Europe
under the auspices of the Southern Commercial con
gress, and with the Indorsement of the government,
to study rural co-operation, especially with regard to
credits.
e • e
The American farmer today has borrowed capital
of over $6,000,000,000, and, according to ex-Prealdent
Taft, faces an annual interest charge of $610,000,00o
on this. Counting commissions and renewal charges,
he Is paying over 8 per cent Interest on the money
he has borrowed, In a country where commercial Inter
est rates are low; while the German farmer pays about
4 per cent, in a country where commercial Interest
rates are high. The farmer must pay nearly twice as
much for the money he borrows as do the railroads,
the industrial corporations and the municipalities
around him; in spite , of the fact that his land is the
basis of all values and his products the foundation of
all wealth. This is attributed to the fact that he has
no financial machinery behind him for the conversion
of his holdings into negotiable credit.
* w •
That such machinery may be provided is shown by
the experience In Germany. Through all the changing
conditions of a century, the soundness and practica
bility of such machinery, based upon the peculiar cred
it needs of the farmer, has been tried out there, and
so successful has it been In operation that In times ot
stress money has been taken out of the commercial
banks of the empire and placed in the agricultural
banks for safe keeping.
e * •
It Is pointed out that a proper system of rural
credits not only will help the farmer, but that it will
reach the consumer as well. Under such a system
Germany, with an area smaller than Texas—It would
take a German empire and an Alabama together to
make a Texas—supports a population of nearly 70,-
000,000 people and produces all but one-twentieth of
their foodstuffs. If the American farmer could do as
well as the German fanner in feeding the people, Tex
as and Oklahoma alone could raise all the foodstuffs
needed in the United States.
* * *
The great necessity wljich prompted the establish
ment of co-operative credit systems in Europe was
that of cheoking the rapidly increasing cost of food
stuffs brought about by the Inevitable increase in
consumption, and the failure of the soil to meet the
demand. The same reason now obtains, if in a smaller
degree, in the United States. In Europe, as soon as a
method of financing the farmer was found, acreage
production began to rise, and in its wake came co-op
eration in buying and selling, with as great benefit
to the consumer as to the farmer.
• •
And the thing that is kept first and foremost in
the European success in co-operative farm finance Is
the fact that it is-not a government business. Rather,
it Is the result of a sort of government supervision
over the efforts of farmers to help themselves. The
lesson of European experience is that all of the numer
ous needs which the farmer has are met in. due time
as soon as his greatest need is supplied—that of ready
capital to do the things that ought to be done.
Editorials in Brief
The federal government has declined to add an
other cubit to Mrs. Pankhurst’s stature as a martyr,
and so she has been released from Ellis Island with
implied permission to go where she pleases on Ameri
can soil.—Syracuse Herald.
Tne next record for a no-stop fight may be made
by a prominent Mexican statesman.—New York Even
ing Sun.