The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 



13 



The days when people have sufficient unto themselves are 

 beginning to fade away, so much so. that the whole world Is look- 

 ing to more centralized effort. Whole nations are no' longer able 

 to be entirely independent of others, and even now each continent 

 needs the assistance of the rest of the world. 



We have been made to recognize in the past two years more 



than ever before the importance of agriculture to the prosperity of 



the nation. There is hardly a more important subject today than 



the national food supply, not only as a factor in our own national 



life, but in that of other nations. Without the farmer how long ,, ,. , _ , 



, , , , ,. ... , . , ^ , , ^ ^, . Nations Fate 



could the soldiers mamtam themselves m the fields? There is one i^argelu in 



little incident in history that impresses me in this connection, and Hands of 

 that is the story oft told about Cincinnatus, the patriotic Roman, Farmer 

 who left his plow standing and hastened at top speed to help the 

 empire when news of war reached him. If Cincinnatus were a 

 farmer in these times the thing which he would be most likely to 

 do would not be to leave his plow, but he would be encouraged by 

 his government to push the plow more vigorously and where pos- 

 sible add another plow. 



The ruralist of today is not the farmer of the days gone by; 

 he does not make his once a week trip to the nearest market to 

 dispose of his product and then bury himself in his farm for the 

 next six days. With the aid of the automobile, good roads and City and 

 interurban lines, he is now very much a city folk; he visits the •f^'^'''" Inter- 

 city places of amusement, makes his purchases in person at the 

 city stores and invests his money in municipal enterprises. Thus 

 we see that the distinction between urban and rural welfare is 

 being eliminated and that each must work for the benefit of the 

 other. 



When commercial bodies commence to take notice of these 

 things and desire to do' what is necessary for proper development 

 along these lines, they should make a careful study of the needs 

 and possibilities in their localities, and if all such organizations in 

 the South give attention to the problems presented and threshed 

 out at this conference, I feel certain that great steps will be taken 

 in that direction. 



In this connection, it might be advisable tO' give some statistics 

 regarding the possibilities oif the South, the surface of which has 

 thus only been scratched. In 1900, in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, 

 Louisiana and Mississippi there were over one hundred and sixty 



dependent 



