APPOINTMENT OF COMMISSION 41 



THE WHITE HOUSE 

 WASHINGTON 



OYSTER BAY, N. Y., 

 August 10, 1908. 

 My dear Professor Bailey: 



No nation has ever achieved permanent greatness 

 unless this greatness was based on the well-being of 

 the great farmer class, the men who live on the soil; 

 for it is upon their welfare, material and moral, that 

 the welfare of the rest of the nation ultimately rests. 

 In the United States, disregarding certain sections and 

 taking the nation as a whole, I believe it to be true 

 that the farmers in general are better off today than 

 they ever were before. We Americans -are making 

 great progress in the development of our agricultural 

 resources. But it is equally true that the social and 

 economic institutions of the open country are not 

 keeping pace with the development of the nation as 

 a whole. The farmer is, as a rule, better off than his 

 forebears; but his increase in well-being has not kept 

 pace with that of the country as a whole. While the 

 condition of the farmers in some of our best farming 

 regions leaves little to be desired, we are far from 

 having reached so high a level in all parts of the 

 country. In portions of the South, for example, 

 where the Department of Agriculture, through the 

 farmers' cooperative demonstration work of Doctor 

 Knapp, is directly instructing more than thirty thou- 

 sand farmers in better methods of farming, there is 

 nevertheless much unnecessary suffering and need- 

 less loss of efficiency on the farm. A physician, who 



