THE FOOD CRISIS AND AMERICANISM IQ 



that of even the farm laborer. His employer must 

 protect him against accidental injury. He has no capi- 

 tal invested. What reason has the young farmer for 

 remaining on the farm, even if given to him, waiving 

 interest on his investment land, equipment and 

 stock, amounting to $10,000 to $15,000 taking 

 all the hazard of accidental injury to self, acci- 

 dent and disease to stock, crop failure, etc., 

 working twelve to fifteen hours a day, instead 

 of taking position as brakeman, with no capi- 

 tal, where he can work eight hours a day and re- 

 ceive more money? If he is capable of managing a 

 farm, he is capable of becoming a train conductor or 

 locomotive engineer, the wage of the former being 

 more than double, and that of the latter more than 

 three times, than that of the gross income of his farm. 

 The reason, if any, must be sentimental. As a result, 

 since 1900 more than a million of the most intelli- 

 gent, industrious and efficient men have left the farms 

 of our country. Their places, or part of these, have 

 been taken by hired men mostly drifters from cities 

 and renters chiefly those who have failed of suc- 

 cess in other localities or other lines of endeavor a 

 vast majority of whom have no capital, no hope or 

 ambition ever to own the land they till. 



No other facts or factors have bred so much dis- 

 content and so discouraged the farmers as the con- 

 stant yielding by our Government to the extravagant 

 demands of organized labor. While the political press 

 is approving all this and lauding the leaders of organ- 

 ized labor as patriots, it has neither compliment nor 

 commendation for the farmer apparently begrudg- 



