FARM LABOR 91 



political problems arising out of it must at once 

 receive the best attention of statesmen. The 

 attention that has been given to these questions 

 is wholly inadqeuate to the urgency of the dan- 

 gers involved. 



4. AGRICULTURAL LABOR. 



There is a general, but not a universal, com- 

 plaint of scarcity of farm labor. This scarcity is 

 not an agricultural difficulty alone, but one 

 phase or expression of the general labor supply 

 problem. 



So long as the United States continues to be a 

 true democracy, it will have a serious labor 

 problem. As a democracy, we honor labor, and 

 the higher the efficiency of the labor, the greater 

 the honor. The laborer, if he has the ambition to 

 be an efficient agent in the development of the 

 country, will be anxious to advance from the 

 lower to the higher forms of effort, and from 

 being a laborer himself he becomes a director of 

 labor. If he has nothing but his hands and 

 brains, he aims to accumulate sufficient capital 

 to become a tenant, and eventually to become the 

 owner of a farm home. A large number of our 



