222 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



affair. Both city and country must see their mutual de- 

 pendence. The national welfare is far bigger than any 

 questions of country or city alone. 



Is there a rural aristocracy? It is often assumed 

 that the sharp distinctions between very rich and very 

 poor, which seem so patent in the city, do not exist in 

 the country, and that therefore the farmers show no 

 social cleavages. This is contrary both to fact and to 

 good sense. Every neighborhood has its family or 

 families of comparative wealth. As a rule this wealth 

 is due to superior skill, though sometimes merely to the 

 accident of inheritance. In every neighborhood there 

 are the relatively poor. This poverty is due often to 

 sheer incompetence, but of course also to misfortune. 

 It is idle to deny that there are wide divergencies of 

 capacity, of intelligence, of refinement among farm 

 families, and these divergencies cause certain groupings, 

 classifications, even cliques. The plantation system of 

 the South bred marked distinctions between owner and 

 laborer as well as social antagonisms. In the North 

 the old practice of the " hired man " and the " hired 

 girl " eating with the family tends to disappear. The 

 influx of alien races breaks up the old alignments. But 

 why should we not expect all this? It is a false idea of 

 democracy that fails to provide for the distinctions that 

 grow out of real differences among people. There is 

 a true equality and there is a false equality in a de- 

 mocracy. Moreover, in spite of our best selves, we 

 find ourselves rather proud of such attainments as set 

 us above or apart from the crowd. There is an inher- 

 ent tendency toward aristocracy. At its best this tend- 

 ency lies at the root of ambition to excel. The great 

 fact about farmers in this connection is that in spite of 

 natural differences and inequalities, there is a certain 



