14 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



terially to the farmer's burden of debt. But the farm loan or farm mort- 

 gage was not necessarily an evidence of thriftlessness. It might, on the 

 contrary, be regarded as a kind of evidence of prosperity. The wise farmer 

 improved his buildings, bought new machinery, or expanded his acres 

 even if to do so meant borrowing the necessary funds. Credit for the 

 farmer was as necessary and proper as credit for any other businessman. 

 A burning problem throughout the entire Middle West was the steady 

 increase in farm tenancy. "Nothing is more important to this country," 

 said Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, "than the perpetuation of our system of 

 medium sized farms worked by their owners. We do not want to see our 

 farmers sink to the condition of the peasants in the old world, barely able 

 to live on their small holdings, nor do we want to see their places taken 

 by wealthy men owning enormous estates which they work purely by 

 tenants and hired servants." 18 And yet, it seemed evident that something 

 akin to the condition Roosevelt feared was coming about. Census statistics 

 showed a steady increase in tenancy throughout the Middle West, and 

 even more alarming, an increase which made tenancy more marked in 

 this region than anywhere else in the United States except the South. In 

 Iowa, for example, 76.2 per cent of the farms had been owned by their 

 occupants in 1880, but thirty years later, in 1910, only 62.2 per cent were 

 so owned. Furthermore, only half the farms of the state were operated 

 exclusively by their owners. 19 Four years later, on the eve of the first World 

 War, according to a reliable authority, almost 40 per cent of the farms in 

 the corn belt were being cultivated by tenants. In parts of Illinois this 

 proportion was no doubt well above 50 per cent, while in some of the 

 newer and more sparsely settled sections it dropped to less than 20 per 

 cent. But the long-cherished ideal, according to which each farmer owned 

 his own farm and was thus accountable to himself alone, seemed farther 

 from reality each succeeding year. If the tenant farmers were only organ- 

 ized, wrote one realistic observer, they could easily control elections and 

 take over the state governments. 20 



18. Wallaces' Farmer, XXXII (October u, 1907), p. 1145. On this subject in 

 general, see W. J. Spillman and E. A. Goldenweiser, "Farm Tenantry in the United 

 States," U. S. Dept. Agri., Yearboo\, 1916, pp. 321-46. 



19. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910, Vol. VI, Agriculture, p. 507. 



20. Wallaces' Farmer, XXXV (November 4, 1910), p. 1494; XXXVII (March 

 8, 1912), p. 455; (lune 28, 1912), p. 1019; XXXIX (March 27, 1914), p. 541. 



