20 



SO far as human nature and the social organization will permit. But 

 to remove public research from the necessity for a direct accounting 

 to the representative of the people would be to establish an irre- 

 sponsible scientific aristocracy, which has no place in the United 

 States. 



3. The report does not sufficiently recognize that the welfare of 

 each State is one with that of the Nation. 



No man stands in more direct touch with our natural or National 

 resources than the farmer. In the distribution of knowledge concern- 

 ing them and their management, it is vitally essential to the future 

 welfare of the Nation that no considerable body of farmers should be 

 overlooked. In agricultural products no State consumes all it pro- 

 duces or grows all it uses. In this matter no State can stand alone. 

 At the White House last May the Governors of the States unanimously 

 said: "We declare the conviction that in the use of the National 

 resources our independent States are interdependent and bound to- 

 gether by ties of mutual benefits, responsibilities, and duties." If one 

 State suffers, the others suffer with it. To hold the contrary would 

 be to disregard the whole economic structure of the Nation. To prefer 

 that the citizens of a State should suffer rather than be relieved by 

 assistance from outside its borders is to set the welfare of an organi- 

 zation above that of the people it was created to serve. 



4. The report does not sufficiently recognize the obligations of 

 State and National agricultural organizations to each other and to the 

 people as contrasted with their separate rights, and thereby tends to 

 perpetuate the present lack of thorough-going co-operation. 



It is the clear duty of the State agricultural colleges and experi- 

 ment stations on the one hand, and of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture on the other, to lay aside their differences, if they have 

 any, and to work unitedly for the common good of all the people. 

 There is far more work to be done than all available means can pos- 

 sibly accomplish. Agricultural research does not need to wait on 

 opportunity, for opportunity is already here in overwhelming measure. 

 To meet the huge demand in this field requires united effort. To be 

 effective, united effort must be organized. Instead of the unconvinced 

 and unconvincing suggestion for an advisory board contained in the 

 report, I desire for my own part to substitute the statement that the 

 fundamental need of agricultural research in the United States is 

 thorough-going co-operation between the State and National agencies, 

 under a definite but not a rigid plan. In my judgment such co- 

 operation can be best reached, and the necessary plan can best be pre- 



