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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