228 



The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 



Cut-Over 

 Land Owners 

 Must Get 

 Together 



aid, and not tear down, and that is the spirit here. The thing 

 we are in this war for is to aid and construct, and that is the 

 spirit here ; to aid the little man to come and get this good land 

 of yours in the South that has been lying here. It is a fine 

 thing to see men like Mr. Bigelow come from Philadelphia ; like 

 this other man from Michigan, and others from a distance, to 

 come down and talk to you, not for money, but to help you and 

 themselves and the nation ; and that is the big thing of this 

 meeting. There is nothing selfish about it, nothing ordinary 

 about it, nothing sordid about it. I also see manifested here 

 the spirit of co-operation. That is the cornerstone of social life. 

 The church and school are the great distributors of the co-oper- 

 ative spirit. Everything must be co-operative. No man is suf- 

 ficient unto himself any more. The day of individualism is past. 

 The day of the man working alone at his task is past. The rail- 

 roads and the telegraph have made us co-operate. We cannot 

 live within ourselves ; we must live for and with each other ; and 

 it is only through co-operation that this great enterprise can 

 truly be made a success. 



Interesting as it is, we may observe the practical illustration 

 of that, in this question of pulling up stumps. The poor man 

 cannot buy the machinery sufficient to do this work himself; 

 but a group, co-operating, can. A man cannot by himself erad- 

 icate the tick ; but groups of them can, by co-operating with the 

 state. The subject of the hour is co-operation. Here we find 

 the nation sending its skilled scientists down here to talk to the 

 farmer. Do you know the new thought coming to those people 

 and to the nation? It is not government ownership — but gov- 

 ernment co-operation with the people ; that is the order of the 

 day. (Applause.) Why, it took us 105 years to realize the 

 necessity of a Department of Agriculture in this nation of ours. 

 Although an agricultural people, we lived as a nation for over 

 a hundred years before they gave you a Department of Agri- 

 culture. One hundred and twenty-five years passed before they 

 saw the necessity of giving us a Department of Commerce ; and 

 but a few years ago — three, in fact — we developed the Depart- 

 ment of Labor. Gentlemen, this has been a slow growth, but 

 the nation is getting hold of itself and is understanding the 

 problem of government. Government is nothing more than you 

 and I and each of us trying to help each other; and having men 

 up there in Washington making studies and scientific research. 



