322 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



culture, it would be only fair to reciprocate by sparing some experts 

 to send among railroads to each economy; to the mine operators to 

 advise them to operate full time and double their output; to the 

 steel trust and manufacturers to teach them how to create prosperity 

 by peddling their product over the countrylike farm produce or place 

 it in the hands of commission houses. It would be good policy and 

 economy if State and National administrations, would engage time 

 keepers and restrict pay to the time of actual duty and not pay the 

 time to high priced oflScials; $10 to |25 per day while they are away 

 fishing, hunting, attending political meetings and electioneering. It 

 would pay many times the cost of maintaining time clerks and faci- 

 litate public business. 



It is hardly fair to mention present conditions without reference to 

 the past. It is not so very long since farmers were regarded as low 

 class citizens and treated as serfs and slaves. The rulers of nations 

 and governments who claimed to rule by Divine right made vassals of 

 their subjects and the tiller of the soil a menial of low degree. Since 

 the settlement of this country, those who escaped from monarchial 

 rule and persecution devised a more liberal form of government, sup- 

 posed to be founded on the principle of equal opportunity for all and 

 special privilege to none. It is only within recent years that we 

 heard of agents of Divine providence backed by Morgan influences 

 and tainted money as guardians and protectors of the working class 

 of these United States. The same influence and agencies it seems 

 now propose to take the farmers under their protective wings and 

 dictate under what laws and regulations they may conduct their 

 affairs or themselves. Looking back to the time of the spinning 

 wheel, the knitting needle, the hand loom, the cradle and scythe and 

 hand rake and the flail, to homespun and Kentucky jeans seems a 

 far cry. The old log school house in the corner of the forest where 

 wild beasts yet roamed is of this generation. The square room with 

 a ten-plate wood stove in the center, and the seats ranged along the 

 sides facing the wall, where boys and girls from seven to twenty 

 years of age assembled studying and reciting in the one class, the 

 studying of German lessons, of inspiration and morality from the 

 Testament and the Book of Psalms. Handicapped for want of 

 teachers to teach English, it was only remedied when so called 

 Yankee teachers could be secured for a small salary and the privilege 

 of ''boarding around" from family to family under all sorts of con- 

 veniences and inconveniences. No three dollar a day hostleries to 

 reach after midnight where menu cards, pretty servants and silver- 

 ware are such an attraction to public servants on the payroll of a 

 State. The time of rye bread, mush and milk, fat pork, N. O. 

 molasses, cowhide boots for men and women, frequently barefoot 

 from early spring to late fall, causing stone bruises and missing toe 

 nails to mourn over are almost forgotten by this generation. 



Those were the good old times when wheat sold at fifty cents a 

 bushel, potatoes at no price, hay $5 to |8 per ton, eggs a dozen for a 

 fi' penny bit, or ten cents a score, labor 50c. a day. The high cost of 

 living was not a troublesome question, neither were woman suffrage, 

 local option, prohibition and trust and trust busters agitating the 

 people. Whisky of the good old kind (rye and apple) sold at five 

 cents a quart and was considered a necessity, especially in the harvest 

 field, along with big fat cherry and raspberry pies, onions, radishes, 



