140 THE LURE OF THE LAND 



tifle basis. It has been possible for our railroads and other 

 highly organized industries to look forward to the future and 

 estimate the rapidly growing demands of the public on their 

 services. And yet, in many directions, we can see that our 

 population has outrun the ability of our public-service corpora- 

 tions to serve them efficiently. 



Agriculture has been the one great national industry which 

 has been without organization and has been absolutely helpless 

 before the wonderful growth of our Nation. Therefore, the 

 financing of our farms has become a national problem. The 

 savings of the Nation must flow out to the farms in order to put 

 agriculture on a proper basis as compared with other organized 

 industries. This can only be done by wise and patriotic legis- 

 lation. Farm securities must be honored by Nation, by State, 

 and by individual. Fortunately everybody will profit by such 

 cooperation. The investor from the smallest creditor to the 

 largest capitalist can purchase a security which has been 

 thoroughly investigated by a bank under strict Government 

 inspection, and which in addition is guaranteed by the capital 

 of the bank. He has secured a bond which is practically as 

 safe as a security can be. The owner of the property has been 

 equally accommodated, since he can readily secure a loan on 

 his property up to 50 per cent, of its value. The general pub- 

 lic will be greatly benefited, because the cost of living will al- 

 ways be predicated upon the great law of supply of foodstuffs 

 produced from the earth, and the volume consumed by the peo- 

 ple who inhabit the earth. 



There should be no hesitation, therefore, in enacting legisla- 

 tion which will give land-mortgage bonds which are the basis 

 of all true long-term rural credit that favorable position 

 which is always accorded State and Federal bonds, for both are 

 based on the public wealth and are issued to strengthen and to 

 perpetuate our Nation. 



In closing this section of its report the commission desires to 

 refer to the fact that the commercial world has had constructed 

 for it a magnificent system of commercial banks ; the frugal la- 

 borers and savers of the cities have their system of savings 

 banks and building and loan associations, and the great corpo- 

 rations have their trust companies. All of these and other sim- 

 ilar financial institutions assist in the financing of the agricul- 

 tural industry to some extent, but none of them is adequate or 



