CHAPTER V 



PRESENT PROBLEMS OF COUNTRY LIFE 

 WANTED: A NATIONAL POLICY IN AGRICULTURE 1 



EUGENE DAVENPORT 



THE purpose of this paper is to invite attention to the very 

 great need at the present time of a more definite policy regarding 

 agriculture ; a policy that shall be national in its scope, universal 

 in its interests, and comprehensive in its procedures. 



The term national policy is not intended to mean a policy 

 of the Federal Government as over against the States, nor in- 

 deed a governmental policy of any kind as distinct from the con- 

 victions and the ideals of the people from which and from whom 

 our democratic government proceeds. 



What is meant is rather such consensus of intelligent opinion 

 and such a deliberate judgment about agriculture as shall repre- 

 sent the constructive purpose of the American people whether 

 farmers, laborers, or business men, and whether operating in 

 their private or their governmental capacities. What is meant 

 is such a common recognition of certain facts and principles to 

 be established by investigation and conference as shall amount at 

 any given time to a national policy about farms and farmers and 

 farming as over against the policy which assumes a struggle of 

 each separate interest to maintain its place in a constantly shift- 

 ing balance of power in which all are frankly antagonistic and 

 each prospers or suffers in proportion to the force it is able to 

 exert and the advantage it is able to secure. 



This policy is not called a program because programs are made 

 to carry out fixed and predetermined purposes, while the thing 

 in the mind of the speaker is rather a status and a procedure 



i Adapted from "Proceedings of 32nd Annual Convention of the Assn. 

 of Am. Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations," pp. 52-68. 



