LEADERSHIP 607 



could he have chosen ? Who can estimate the effect this preach- 

 ing has had in sweetening and uplifting our national life, and 

 shall have for generations to come? For thought does not die 

 with the thinker. What shall a man do to have eternal life? 

 Do as Uncle Henry Wallace did. 



Even in this world, such a man 's thoughts live in other minds 

 to all ages. "Our echoes roll from soul to soul, and grow for- 

 ever and forever." They may be evil echoes or good ones. 

 Those of Uncle Henry will be good. 



He knew the soil. He not only knew that the soil, instead of 

 being dead, is literally teeming with life he also understood 

 its moods. 



Did you ever read one of his articles on some phase of soil 

 management? Suppose, for instance, it was on the subject 

 of clods; he made it interesting and always useful. He knew 

 why the soil gets cloddy, and just how harmful clods are to 

 crops. He knew the beneficence of tilth; the secrets of the 

 warm, air-filled seed bed were open to his mind. In his mind 

 the soil had place as the universal friend of humanity, and 

 through him the voiceless soil found utterance for its claims. 



Uncle Henry was a very, very wise man; for he added to 

 those of his own long life the experiences of others. He knew 

 his Corn Belt well, and all the better because he knew other 

 regions and other lands. In order that he might better know 

 Iowa, he studied England, Germany and Denmark. 



He was one of those leaders of our agricultural thought who 

 almost tremble at the increase in tenant farming, caused by the 

 flocking of successful farmers and farm families to town. The 

 "retired farmer," rusting out a short life in town, was to him 

 a national problem; and the transient, year-to-year tenant was 

 an equally grave one. He once wrote: 



At present the law allows the tenant to rob the land or, in other words, 

 to starve it. The law would put the tenant in jail if he starved his horses 

 or cattle, but we allow him to starve the land. 



The law would put the landlord in jail if he confiscated the horses of the 

 tenant, but we allow him to confiscate the fertility which the first-class 

 tenant stores in the soil, and seem to think it is all right. The law would 

 put the tenant in jail if he sold the personal property of the landlord, but 

 we are likely to approve the robbery of the fertility which the retired 

 farmer had stored in the soil when the farm was his home. 



