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NEED OF MORE FARMERS, SAYS
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.
In an eloquent and timely address
before a large audience at Lapsing,
Mich., one day this week the Presi
dent has the following to say on the
subject “The man who works with
his hands”:
“There is but one person whose
welfare is as vital to the welfare of
the whole country as is that of the
wage-worker who does manual labor,
and that is the tiller of the soil —the
farmer. If there is one lesson taught
by history it is that the permanent
greatness of any state must ultimate
ly depend more upon the character of
its country population than upon
anything else.
“In every great crisis of the past
a peculiar dependence has had to b?
placed upon the farming population;
and this dependence has hitherto been
justified. But it cannot be justified
in the future if agriculture is per
mitted to sink in the scale as com
pared with other employments. We
cannot afford to lose that preeminent
ly typical American, the farmer who
owns his own farm.
“Yet it would be idle to deny that
in the last half century there has
been in the eastern half of our coun
try a falling off in the relative con
dition of the tillers of the soil, al
though signs are multiplying that the
nation has waked up to the danger
and is preparing to grapple effec
tively with it.
“Ambitious native-born young men
and women who now tend away from
the farm must be brought back to it,
and therefore they must have sociil
as well as economic oppoitunities,
Everything should be done to encour
age the growth in the open farming
country of such institutional and so
cial movements as will meet the de
mand of the best type of farmers.
There should be libraries, assembly
halls, social organizations of all kinds.
The school building and the teacher
in the school building should, through
out the country districts, be of the
very highest type, able to fit the boys
and girls not merely to live in, but
thoroughly to enjoy and to make the
most of, the country. The country
church must be revived. All kinds
of agencies, from rural free delivery
to the bicycle and the telephone,
should be utilized to the utmost; good
roads should be.favored; everything
should be done to make it easier for
the farmer to lead the most active
and effective intellectual, political
and economic life.
“The people of our farming re
gions must be able to combine among
themselves, as the most efficient
means of protecting their industry
from the highly organized interests
which now surround them on every
side. A vast field is open for work
by co-operative association of farm
ers in dealing with the relation of
the farm to transportation and to
the distribution and manufacture of
raw materials. It is only through
such combination that American farm
ers can develop to the full their eco
nomic and social power. Combina
tion of this kind has, in Denmark,
for instance, resulted in bringing the
people back to the land, and has en
abled the Danish peasant to com
pete in extraordinary fashion, not
only at home, but in foreign coun
tries, with all rivals.
“It is true that agriculture in the
United States has reached a very
high level of prosperity; but we can
not afford to disregard the signs
which teach us that there are influ
ences operating against the estab
lishment or retention of our country
life upon a really sound basis. The
overextensive and wasteful cultiva
tion of pioneer days must stop and
give place to a more economical sys
tem. Not only the physical, but the
ethical needs of the people of the
country districts must be considered.
In our country life there must be so
cial and intellectual advantages as
well as a fair standard of physical
comfort. There must be in the coun
try, as in the town, a multiplication
of movements for intelectual ad
vancement and social betterment. We
must try to raise the average of farm
life, and we must also try to develop
it so that it shall offer exceptional
chances for the exceptional man.
“The best crop is the crop of chil
dren ; the best products of the farm
are the men and women raised there
on ; and the most instructive and prac
tical treatises on farming, necessary
though they may be, are no more
necessary than the books which teach
us our duty to our neighbor, and,
above all, to the neighbor who is of
our own household.
“I have as hearty a contempt for
the- woman who shirks her duty of
bearing and rearing the children, of
doing her full housewife's work, as
I have for the man who is an idler,
who shirks his duty of earning a liv
ing for himself and for his house
hold, or who is selfish or brutal to
ward his wife and children. I be
lieve in the happiness that comes
from the performance of duty, not
from the avoidance of duty. But I
believe also in trying, each of us, to
bear one another’s burdens; and this
especially in our own homes. Nj
outside training, no co-operation, no
government aid or direction can take
the place of a strong and upright
character; of goodness of heart com
bined with clearness of head and
that strength and toughness of fibre
necissary to wring success from a
rough work-a-day world.” —Glenn-
ville Banner.
THE LATEST GOVERNMENT
CROP REPORT.
Nothing but the past few days of
sunshine has happened since the lat
est Government crop report to im
prove the conditions therein portray
ed. This report of the cotton crop
at the threshold of June’s innings
on the calendar had to do with the
acreage and the condition. Notwith
standing the condition of the plant
was reported to be only 70.5 per cent
as compared with 84.6 per cent in
1906, and 77.6 per cent in 1905, and
a ten-year average of 83.6, the price
of cotton on the Stock Exchange fell
$1.25 per bale. This was due partly
to the weakening of the market which
had set in prior to the publication of
the report and the figures given out
as to the strength in acreage of this
year’s crop, the area reported being
almost precisely the same as last
year.—Progressive Farmer.
Powder Springs, Ga., June 15, 1907.
We, the members of Sweetwater
Local, No. 184, nf the Farmers’ Un
ion, have passed the followed resolu
tions :
Resolved, First, that we do earn
estly protest against foreign immi-
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
gration of any kind; secondly, that
we furnish a copy of these resolu
tions to our governor-elect, Hon.
Hoke Smith, the Semi-Weekly Jour
nal, the Union News, the Marietta
Courier, and Watson’s Weekly Jef
fersonian, and ask them to please
publish same, and oblige,
G. W. METYRE,
R. C. MANN,
W. M. GARRETT,
Committee.
THEODORE O'HARA’S IMMOR
TAL POEM.
(Continued from Page Three.)
the original, the asterisks denote the
break in point of time. Months have
passed and we have before us “An
gostura’s plain,” represented most
delicately and vividly; the utter des
olation of the scene, its solitude, its
silence; where once the din and shout
had pierced the air, where the dread
ful thunder of the cannonade had
leaped from peak to peak of these
solemn heights around, in hollow
reverberation, their echoes now re
sound only to the “raven’s scream”
or “shepherd’s pensive lay.” Could
word painting be more exquisite than
is the picture? But Mr. Rauch says
it must be expunged because it is
‘ ‘ descriptive. ’' Descriptive of what ?
Os the battlefield which ga\e burial
to our dead heroes for months, unfH
they were brought by loving hands
to their own beloved native land.
This description has no charm,
however, for Mr. Rauch —nor does he
like the allusion to “Angostura,” as
it is “local.” Why did not General
Taylor have su cient consideration
for Mr. Rauch’s poetic taste to have
fought his great battle on a plain
without a name, where Mr. Rauch’s
gymnasts could have “leapt” with
out interference or comment?
The omission of this beautiful sixth
verse, which brings to the mind’s eye
so vividly the solemn heights “that
frowned o’er that dread fray,” is
one of the most important of the
breaks in that continuity which, in
the correct version, is complete, and
which is essential to the harmony of
the whole.
O’Hara’s poem goes on:
“Sons of the dark and bloody
ground.”
The Indian name for Kentucky was
‘ ‘ Kantuckee, ’ ’ which signified
“dark and bloody ground.” This
name was given it -because the va
rious Indian tribes had, from time
immemorial, fought for its possession
year by year, each claiming it as their
own hunting ground, so enchanting
was the fair land, with its mighty
forests abounding with game of ev
ery description, its stretches of blue
grass carpeted with wild flowers, even
in February, and its innumerable
springs of clear, ccol water, “where
the beautiful creatures came to
drink.”
There is a poetry, an intangible and
delicate tenderness in the recalling
of this old legend, which was based
on the marvelous loveliness of the
country so highly prized by its first
inhabitants —equally lovely, too, and
more prized by those “sons” who
gave their lives for her honor and
glory. There is an appropriateness
and a beauty in thus connecting the
present with the shadowy past that
could not be improved on. But Mr.
Rauch puts it:
Sons of our consecrated ground.
Now, to what “ground” does
this very tame allusion apply? It is -
designed, says Mr. Rauch, to “di
vest the poem of any local or provin
cial character.” But, if not sons of
Kentucky, what land can claim the
motherhood of her heroes? If of
Kentucky, then what part of it con
tains “our consecrated ground”?
In the olden days the altars of the
churches were held to be “conse
crated ground,” and no warrior, or
outlaw, even, however bold or reck
less, would dare attack or harm his
bitterest foe, once within those sa
cred precincts. But the application
of such a term, in that sense, to
our dear old Kentucky is a stretch of
imagination which is not even poeti
cal—only ludicrous. To please Mr. .
Rauch, however, Kentucky’s heroes,
her beloved deed, must be left home
less, orphaned of their state, exiles
of her name, sons of “Nowhere”! ‘
I have endeavored to show how the
deep and damnable wrong and out
rage of the alterations and mutila
tions in Mr. Rauch’s version of this
great lyrle, and now I appeal to the
world of literature at large to join
in one universal protest against the r
continuance and acceptance.
This protest was born of a keen
sense of loss, a deep and indignant
sense of injustice, an intense desire
to restore to the world, as to the dead
author's fame, that perfect work
which has been so defaced and so
desecrated in the presentation foisted
on the public as the true one by Mr.
Rauch, and would have been pub
lished a year ago but from the hope,
from information received, of finding
a copy of the lyric, given by Colonel
O’Hara himself to an intimate friend,
for purpose of publication, abiut the
year 1859, as nearly as can be ascer
tained. By a curious irony of fate,
the files of th© paper of the date
supposed to contain the poem have
been lost, nor could it be found in
any of the files remaining.
I was well acquainted with the
events that gave rise to this inspired
poem. I have heard from the lips of
the survivors the most thrilling de
scriptions of that great battle of Bue
na Vista, where 25,000 Mexicans
were defeated by 5,000 Americans.
Santa Anna summoned General Tay
lor to surrender. “General Taylor
never surrenders,” was the proud re
ply, and he conquered instead, but
his victory was bought with the blood
of many of his best and bravest,
among them young Henry Clay, eldest
son and idol of the great commoner
who fell fighting on the mountain
side, pierced by the swords of a dozen
Mexicans, far in advance of his com
mand. When his men saw him fall
they rushed to him through over
whelming numbers, and bore his body
back out of reach of the enemy.
When in the May following he was
brought home for burial with others
who fell on that same bloody day,
the deepest feelings were aroused—
enthusiasm for our victory, grief for
the dead and sympathy with their
kindred.
When O’Hara returned later he
shared all this emotion, this storm of
grief, of love, and of pride. His
comrades and friends had fought as
patriots, had died as heroes, and
they were now immortalized as “that
hr awe and fallen few” in that immor
tal lyric, the noblest ever penned, for
the preservation of which, intact,
this protest is entered.
PAGE SEVEN