Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 325 



urging them to do something that would benefit them directly by 

 making their roads better and thereby enabling them to haul 

 larger loads to market and at the same time save wear and tear 

 on their horses and wagons. I have no doubt the other newspaper 

 men here have had similar experiences. I am not seeking to mag- 

 nify the troubles of the country editor, but I tell you in all serious- 

 ness that after having a few such experiences the temptation is 

 almost irresistible to surrender some of the things for which I 

 have stood and to determine on a policy of following the line of 

 least resistance ; of telling the people what they want to know and 

 saying only the things which will not offend them rather than 

 telling them what they ought to know and insisting that they 

 realize their opportunities and meet their responsibilities. 



What has been done in the way of promoting the good roads 

 movement is being done now for better rural schools. Practically 

 every newspaper in Missouri is an advocate of rural high schools, 

 and though present conditions are not superlatively encouraging, 

 I have no doubt that the work of the educators who are behind the 

 movement, and the co-operation of the farmers and the country 

 newspapers, will ultimately fructify in an educational system in 

 Missouri which will be commensurate with the State's resources 

 and Dossibilities. The tax question, likewise, is related to this 

 problem we have been discussing. Undoubtedly the Missouri sys- 

 tem of taxation is the worst ever devised by rational men. It is 

 unfair and unjust, and it imposes on the persons least able to bear 

 it the greatest burden of supporting the government. Personally, 

 I see no hope for remedying our tax evils in any other way than 

 through a State constitutional convention, and I am glad to say 

 that by far the larger part of the country newspapers of Missouri 

 favor such a convention; and also that the probabilities are it will 

 be held within the next few years. 



I might continue indefinitely and show to still greater advan- 

 tage the work that has been and is being done by the country 

 newspapers of Missouri to make country life more attractive, and 

 also show you how you can benefit yourselves and the communi- 

 ties in which you live by helping the country newspapers in gath- 

 ering and publishing country news. But it is n,ot necessary. You 

 who are progressive enough to come to the seat of the State's Col- 

 lege of Agriculture to spend a week listening to lectures by experts 

 in their own line of work will perceive the underlying, animating 

 thought in this address — that is, that country newspaper work 



