CHAPTER XX 



THE TENANT FARMER 



If one would know the reasons for the decadence 

 of farming in the United States he should read 

 the testimony of tenant farmers and farm-laborers 

 gathered by the Industrial Relations Commission.^ 

 And the conditions disclosed in the Western States 

 where the inquiry was made are the same as would 

 have been discovered had the inquiry been made in 

 the Southern or Eastern States. For farm tenancy 

 is fast becoming a rule in the United States despite 

 the almost limitless resources of the country. So 

 long as the public domain was open to settlement 

 men would not work as tenants or as agricultural 

 laborers. They took up a homestead of their own. 

 And this is always the instinct of men. They pre- 

 fer to work for themselves rather than for another. 

 It was this motive that lured immigration to the 

 United States from the very beginning. It was this 

 that filled up the continent by settlers who gen- 

 eration after generation moved westward to the 

 Pacific Ocean. But when all the land had been taken 

 up, when it began to acquire a speculative value, 

 then tenancy appeared. And year by year the 

 number of tenants has increased until in some sec- 



1 Report of Commission on Industrial Relations, vols. 1 and 10. 



220 



