RENT CONTRACT 61 



beginning to be apparent in connection with the tenant class in 

 certain sections of this country. For instance, items like the fol- 

 lowing in the daily press are becoming of greater frequency from 

 month to month: 



"Cape Girardeau, Mp., Nov. 23. Five night riders and two private 

 detectives were wounded in a pistol battle southwest of Clarkton, Mo., near 

 here, early to-day. Seven of the night riders were captured later after an all 

 day chase by bloodhounds and a posse. 



"To-night virtually every citizen of Clarkton and every land owner in 

 the vicinity is armed in expectation of another attack by the night riders. 

 The latter are a secret band of tenants and farm laborers who have been waging 

 a feud-like war for higher wages and lower food prices. 



" Detectives on Secret Mission. The struggle between tenants and 

 laborers on one side and land owners and merchants on the other has been in 

 progress here for several months and has spread throughout New Madrid 

 county, in southeast Missouri. Six detectives have been camping secretly for 

 two weeks hi a shack on a swamp which is part of the farm of T. S. Heisserer, 

 wealthy land owner and banker, against whom the night riders have centered 

 their attacks . . . 



"Though called riders, the men participating in night raids usually travel 

 afoot, sometimes masked. The outrages attributed to them include arson, 

 murder, blackmailing, tarring and feathering and horsewhipping of men and 

 women. Nine of such several months ago were trapped at an organization meet- 

 ing by officers of the postal department, and seven of these were convicted of 

 sending threatening letters through the mails and were sent to the federal 

 penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan." 5 



The "I. W. W." (Industrial Workers of the World) disturbances 

 which occur not only in the east, but flare up in our prairie sections, 

 as in Minot, North Dakota, in 1914, may be considered as symp- 

 toms of agricultural unrest. 



The amount of tenancy in different sections of the Union varies 

 greatly. Tenancy is greatest in the South. It is also great and 

 growing greater in the strictly agricultural states such as Indiana, 

 Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. 

 The table in the appendix to this chapter will indicate correctly 

 the amount of tenancy in these sections. The actual condition 

 of tenancy of each state in the Union as well as changes for better 

 or worse are also shown in this appendix. 



Rent Contract. The rent contract in the United States is of 

 two general types, the cash rent and the share rent type, and these 

 two fall loosely into four systems of tenure, namely; the cash 

 tenant, the share tenant, the share .cropper, and the crop lien 

 system, all of which are illustrated below. The significant feature 

 however, of each form of rent contract is the short time of the 

 tenure. In other words, we do not have a stability of farm oper- 

 ators. Unhappily this holds true also of farm owners. The one 



5 Des Moines Register, Nov. 24, 1915. 



