S94 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



every race live in this country. Nearly all of them are represented at 

 these tables, and all of them are working together in this great western 

 world. 



What are you conscious of the minute yeu look at Europe? Divid- 

 ing lines — all the emphasis put on boundaries. The whole quarrel lu 

 Europe, or a large part of it, is over boundaries, and that has been the 

 history of Europe from the beginning. It seems to me that the message 

 of America to Europe is to abandon those divisions, because that is the 

 only possible foundation for an enduring civilization in the world. Every 

 rivalry that is represented in Europe is represented in any gathering 

 of American citizens; there are conflicts of interest; and yet, as Americans, 

 we can come together in the large things that are of importance to us all. 

 We contend for our interests in the things upon which we differ, but we 

 do not allow them to stand in the way of great accomplishments, and 

 that is what an organization like this stands for. You differ among your- 

 selves as to what your own private interests are, and yet you can come 

 here on the large things that affect you all, and the result is that you 

 make yourselves felt. I am not able to recount all that you have done, 

 but you know that you have done an enormous amount of good. The 

 more of such organizations we have, and the more we emphasize this 

 agreement upon things that interest us all, the more we are solving the 

 great world problems, the more we are going to make foundation for an 

 enduring civilization in the world. And so we have a little training 

 school in this association, and other training schools in the commercial 

 clubs of the state, and in all the organizations that bring us together for 

 the larger purposes in which we are interested. 



Now there are certain things at home that we must do for ourselves; 

 there are still lines of division in America that must be eliminated. I 

 think there is too much of a line of division between town and country, 

 between what may be called the farming population and the town pop.u- 

 lation. If you stop to think of it, the only resource of a state like Iowa 

 is the rural homes. Our towns brag on their industries and their fac- 

 tories, but what is Iowa if the rural home is not a success? We have no 

 great mines or forests or commercial interests or shipping. You take 

 away the rural home from Iowa and there is nothing left of a city like 

 Des Moines. And yet you will find that that is not very much appreciated 

 in the cities and trading centers. I am very well satisfied that the boys 

 who are going to inherit these fine farms that you have earned, and who 

 are going to have plenty of money to live where they choose, will not 

 continue to live on the farms unless they are as attractive to them as 

 any other place. They are going to California or Florida, or wherever 

 they want to, unless the rural life of Iowa is attractive; and that is a 

 much more serious problern than we sometimes think it is. Fifty-one 

 per cent of the men on Iowa farms are now renters, and most' of them 

 are on short-time leases. There isn't a man here but knows what that 

 means to the soil of Iowa. 



There are two or three conditions that must be met. One is that you 

 must have just as good schools for the hoys and girls in the country as 

 we have in town. Men will not stay in the country unless their children 



