Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 129 



is it right nor just that men who invest their surplus in the soil 

 shall be denied that fair return upon the investment that is de- 

 manded by and conceded to other investors — those who buy rail- 

 road, telephone, telegraph or other stocks and bonds. I insist that 

 the man who toils behind the plow, brakes on a railroad train, en- 

 dures the fierce heat of the furnace, works out the inventions that 

 ought to add to the sum total of the world's happiness, or does any 

 necessary world's work, is entitled to fair wages, and the scheme 

 of creation is such that fair wages are provided for all who work. 

 Wages that would dispel want and misery; wages that would pro- 

 vide good books and magazines for all; wages that would assure 

 men that needed time for rest and recreation so that the world 

 would be bright and inviting to them; wages that would enable 

 them to educate their children and thus qualify them to work out 

 the good world's plan; wages that would distribute comforts and 

 luxury so that all might participate in the world's happiness. Men 

 do not materially differ in their natural instincts. We all demand 

 relaxation, recreation — we all are entitled to these as a part of our 

 wage. It was not intended that one man should spend a hundred 

 thousand dollars upon a supper or a ball and that a hundred thou- 

 sand men should toil on year after year and be denied a partner- 

 ship in the world's stock of enjoyment. 



Now, I know full well that there is no occupation in the world 

 that measures out in kind the freedom, the independence and the 

 contentment that is found on the farm. I concede that the wages 

 of the men who directly till the soil are higher in their product of 

 peace of mind and general contentment than those received by 

 some other of the hired men of the soil. But this is n.ot all that 

 concerns us. We may know that even though we fare better than 

 some of our fellows, yet we know also that others are surfeited 

 with the means that were provided for all of God's children, that 

 are withheld from the many that were intended to lift burdens 

 that weigh, oh, so heavy, on the shoulders of millions of men as a 

 result of the greed and cruelty of unscrupulous tyrants. 



There can be no full measure of happiness or satisfaction to 

 any man unless his faculties are fully developed and he becomes 

 conscious of ability to take the part in the world's work that it 

 demands of him. He must have the time, means and opportunity 

 to develop these faculties. No man can truthfully say that he is 

 content unless he has the proper vision, of his obligations to the 

 world while he is in it and after he has ceased his activities in this 



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