i68 



rhe Journal ot Hereditv 



time clisturhance of Nalues has acceler- 

 ated industrial expansion and a 

 luxuriant growth of commercial parasi- 

 tism draws support from the public 

 in high cost of li\ing. Kitty millions 

 a month was the estimated le\\' of the 

 food speculators on the American 

 public in the war period. When sugar 

 prices began to decline in September, 

 1920, a quarter-billion "loss" was 

 announced in the speculati\e "value" 

 that was being collected from the 

 public. Half a billion is the estimate 

 of purely speculative "securities" 

 marketed annualK' in the United 

 States. The taxes on war profits and 

 excess profits also show something of 

 the extent of the urban abuses that 

 have been allowed to develop), and 

 point to the need of an improved 

 commercial system, not subject to 

 these parasitic excrescences. 



DANGERS OF INDUSTRIALISM 



The war should have taught us the 

 weakness and danger of urbanism, 

 l)Ut the effect has been to drag us 

 closer to the pit that the Pluropean 

 nations fell into. That we have more 

 land than the industrial nations of 

 Europe, will not sa\-e us if we abandon 

 farming for urban pursuits, "(joing 

 back to the farm," is an urban delusion. 

 Many ma},- cherish the hope, but few 

 can attain it. People who are once 

 thoroughly urbanized and habiluaied 

 to a routine existence are disqualified 

 for rural life. They do not go back to 

 the laborious, complex, and exacting 

 responsil)ility of farm work unless they 

 are forced by illness, famine or other 

 catastrophe, as in Central luirope 

 where urban industries are being 

 abandoned. 



Instead of our national interest 

 being aroused to maintain agriculture, 

 urban industrial dcAelopment is being 

 pushed forward to occupy the foreign 

 markets in advance of the reconstruc- 

 tion of Europe, with the excess-profits 

 tax working as an endowment or 

 enforced subsidy of enterprises that 

 have thriven most during the war 

 period. In spite of the danger being 

 recognized, no efT(( ti\c measures have 



been devised to keep the remainder of 

 our farm population from moving to 

 the city — to live on Argentine beef. 

 New Zealand mutton, German 

 potatoes, and Danish butter. In a few 

 years our supplies of food and essential 

 raw materials may become as pre- 

 carious as those of industrial European 

 countries, and subject to the same 

 danger from wars of industrial compe- 

 tition. The loss to our European race 

 of 35,0()(),()0() people in the recent 

 struggle for industrial supremac\' gives 

 no pause to our Gadarene madness. 

 The nations are bedeviled with the idea 

 of exploiting each other, instead of 

 cooperating in the development of a 

 connnon ci\'ilization. 



WHY "liUSINESS farmers" GO TO THE 

 CITY 



Financial experts who see the limits 

 of our present course are urging as "a 

 matter of vital necessity that the 

 efforts of the farmer be supported and 

 stimulated ... to w^irrant his stay- 

 ing in the business of fanning." 

 Formerly it was assumed that the 

 farmer who made a living should be 

 content, but a new idea of larger 

 returns to the farmer is being expressed, 

 even in urban editorials. "Still, there 

 must be farmers; and farmers must 

 have help; and help enough must be 

 found to make farming profitable." 

 That profits come from the "help" 

 reflects the urban idea that wealth 

 must be got by exploiting somebody, 

 but there is no way to keep the help 

 on the farms, or the farmers either, as 

 long as the urban wages are higher, the 

 work lighter, the hours shorter, and 

 the "attractions" brightly painted. 



In trying to protect himself against 

 urban exactions, the farmer has become 

 jnore of a business man. Some writers 

 ha\e hoped that broader business 

 experience would furnish the key to 

 the agricultural problem, but a fre- 

 (|uent outcome for the in(li\idual 

 farmer is to nunc to the cits' .md 

 become a middle man himself. Appl\- 

 ing urban standards of profit, the 

 farmer decides thai he is losing money 

 by staying on the f.irm. Agriciillural 



