110 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



chinery for the production of the food of the people, or as the 

 means of providing ideal conditions for the rearing of children. 



Fourteenth. Finally, the determination to maintain upon the 

 land the same class of people as are those who constitute the pre- 

 vailing type among the mass of American citizens. 



Granted that these or some similar principles are not only 

 right but desirable, how may we best set about their realization 

 in the form of a working National Policy ? Upon this point there 

 is interesting material for reflection in the methods by which 

 we have arrived at other convictions that may fairly be called 

 national. 



Second only to the need of a new national policy regarding 

 any important matter is the method by which in a democracy 

 such new policy may be elevated from the plane of discussion 

 into the realm of conviction and finally established as a per- 

 manent part of our national habit of thought. In this connection 

 it is both interesting and profitable to note with some care the 

 various and diverse processes by which our own particular and 

 characteristic national policies have not only come into being 

 but have developed sufficient strength to determine and to domi- 

 nate the everyday life of the people. 



For example, our fundamental doctrine that all men are equal 

 in respect to their right of life and the pursuit of happiness, was 

 declared and formally adopted in a document published to the 

 world. 



WHO IS THE FARMER 1 



A. M. SIMONS 



IF we are to select any particular section or type, which shall 

 it be? Shall it be the New England Yankee wresting from his 

 stumpy and rocky soil a niggard subsistence and swapping prod- 

 ucts with his neighbors? If so, when we seek him in his native 

 states we shall find him displaced by French Canadians, Italians 

 and Irish immigrants. If we follow up his children we shall 

 hardly recognize them in the tillers of the broad prairies of the 



i Adapted from "The American Farmer," p. 15, Kerr, Chicago. (Copy- 

 right holder A. M. Simons.) 



