HUMAN ELEMENTS IN COTTON 269 



because I had little to say about what I planted. My ob- 

 servation is that tenant farmers do not stay in the same 

 place very long. If the tenant farmer gets to making money, 

 he's got to move. If the landlord don't get all the money, 

 he wants the tenant to go farther." 



Mr. Steward said he is a member of the Woodmen and 

 Odd Fellows' Lodges. He said he had voted three times in 

 his life, and once in Texas. Asked why he did not vote, 

 after he had said he always paid his poll tax, Mr. Steward 

 said "it didn't do any good, for things went the other way." 



His view about renting on the "third-and-fourth" plan is 

 that a person having good land can make a living. He be- 

 lieves landlords should better the rent houses. He said he 

 thought much of the sickness in his family was caused by 

 poor housing conditions. 



Chairman Walsh questioned the witness about his under- 

 standing of politics. Mr. Steward said he understood the 

 Ferguson land plank and had read something of the issues 

 advocated by the two old national parties. He said landlords 

 did not as a rule attempt to influence the votes of tenants, 

 although he had heard some landlords say they would not 

 rent to Socialists. He has studied some and his current read- 

 ing has been confined to the Appeal to Reason, the Buzz Saw 

 and the Fort Worth Record. 



He told the commissioners that he had interested himself 

 in modern farm developments to a certain extent, but had not 

 accomplished very much. 



"The Texas Industrial Congress sent me a letter of recom- 

 mendation and an emblem for being a good farmer," he said. 



Mrs. Beulah Steward gave a brief statement of her life on 

 the farm. She was married at the age of 15. Their household 

 furniture was bought on credit. She estimated that she and 

 her husband had lived in at least 20 different houses. These 

 ranged in sizes from one to seven rooms. She worked prac- 

 tically every year in the field, starting by daylight and 

 quitting at sundown during the farming season. The family 



