PERMANENT AGRICULTURE AND DEMOCRACY 



541 



expression of the feeling that every 

 person, whatever his birth or his occu- 

 pation, shall develop the ability and 

 have the opportunity to take part. Its 

 motive is individualism on the one 

 hand and voluntary public service on 

 the other. The person is to be placed 

 in the most advantageous environment. 

 Overhead domination not delegated by 

 the people is to be obviated or elimi- 

 nated. 



Democracy rests on living conditions 

 and on civic opportunities. It is 

 rooted in the daily life, in what a man 

 is able to acquire in goods, in his intel- 

 lectual progress, in what he is compe- 

 tent and at liberty to think, in his 

 freedom of movement, in his expression 

 of himself. 



Democratic society expresses itself in 

 many ways: in government and other 

 national action, in education, in reli- 

 gion, in some particular social order. 

 To say that democracy is a form of 

 government is like saying that religion 

 is a form of worship). Democracy is a 

 state of society. A democratic society 

 can exist only on the basis of active and 

 enthusiastic public service. Essentially 

 this service is voluntary, yet it may be 

 required of the few who do not volun- 

 teer. This service is far broader and 

 deeper than military service alone. 



We live in days of vast organization, 

 yet organization is not the basis of de- 

 mocracy, at least not as organization is 

 now prevailingly understood, which is 

 the power to control and to make de- 

 mands. Here lies what I must consider 

 the failure of the present organized 

 labor movement in a democracy: its 

 motive, as displayed to the public, is to 

 make demands or to control situations 

 rather than to serve. 



I have said that democracy rests on 

 the conditions of daily living. Our 

 situations arc primarily those of the 

 planet on which we subsist. The care 

 of the planet conditions our existence. 

 Many persons and classes of persons are 

 directly delegated to the care of the 



planet, but there is practically only one 

 range of the people that lives da}' by 

 day in actual contact of subsistence 

 with the earth. This range is the 

 farmer. I shall not gain po})ular hear- 

 ing when I say that the farmer is the 

 fundamental fact in democracy, yet 

 before this Society of Agriculturists 

 1 must speak the truth. He is the fun- 

 damental fact not merely because ho 

 produces supplies, but because to him 

 is delegated the keepership of the earth, 

 and to him are we to look for the inter- 

 pretation of the earth in our civic rela- 

 tions. This is a deeper and much more 

 fundamental relationship than the con- 

 tribution of any extent of organization, 

 liowever perfect in its constitution, 

 which is concerned primarily with class 

 interests. 



Just now we hear much about the 

 farmer's attitude toward the great af- 

 fairs confronting us. There is consid- 

 erable criticism. All the criticisms I 

 have heard are projected from the 

 point of view either of class organiza- 

 tion or industrial organization. . . . 

 Let me give you a formula : 



The farmer is part of his environ- 

 ment, matching himself into his hacl'- 

 ground, perhaps unconsciously, much 

 as a bird is matched, or a tree, or a 

 quadruped. His plan of operation, his 

 farm-management, is an expressioti of 

 liis situation in nature: he has ivorked 

 it out because it fits. He cannot shift 

 it radically to meet the advice of any 

 other person. As he himself develops 

 in ability, he will modify his plan of 

 operation so far as he canr,but the planr 

 alivays must fit his place in the en- 

 vironment; no great change is possible 

 unless his natural conditions change: 

 he does not malce his conditions. The 

 farmer exemplifies, in the human 

 range, ivhat the naturalist knows as 

 "adaptation." His situation does not 

 admit of compromise, and therefore it 

 may not be understood by teachers, 

 publicists, officials, and others. 



The consequences of this formula, if 



