DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



97 



I know President Waters just well enough to know what he meant, 

 so I am going to live up to it. 



I have felt, as all of you, that this meeting is just as important as, 

 if not more important than, any we have had. 



We have talked about better farming and better production and we 

 all believe in it, but the business side, we all believe, can be improved upon; 

 and I am glad to know we have with us this evening two of the best 

 men in the United States to discuss the question. 



A short time ago when the President of the United States, through 

 his Secretary of Agriculture, decided to organize the Office of Rural 

 Organization in the Department of Agriculture, he looked all over this, 

 country for the best man for the place. 



He finally found him, but had a great deal of trouble in getting him 

 released at Harvard University, but that institution finally decided to 

 give part of his time to the country at large. 



It gives me, I say, great pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Thomas 

 Nixon Carver, Professor of Economics, Harvard University, who will speak 

 to us at this time upon the subject of "Marketing and Rural Credits." 



Address of Doctor Carver 

 MARKETING AND RURAL CREDIT. 



They who cannot or will not work together are the natural and, one 

 might say, the legitimate prey of those who can. Whether we like it or 

 not, it is a law of life, a part of the economy of nature. There is no use 

 kicking against it; the only thing to be done is to conform to it. Unless we 

 can manage to work together with our fellows we must expect to be preyed 

 upon, governed, or exploited by those who can. 



No people ever succeeded in governing themselves until they were able 

 to work together. Until they learn that, they will be governed by someone 

 else, either an outside power which subjugates them, a ruling class within 

 their own members, or a boss. So long as they quarrel among themselves 

 or work at crosspurposes, others who have learned the art of working to- 

 gether will rule and exploit them. Look at the Turks and the way they 

 have ruled with a rod of iron over twenty times their own number of un- 

 willing subjects. The Turks were united, their subjects were tempera- 

 mentally unfit for combined action. How quickly the Turks were beaten 

 when their enemies worked together, and how quickly they may return to 

 power if their enemies remain divided. 



It is true in business as in government that the people who work to- 

 gether will rule or exploit those who work at crosspurposes. That is one 

 thing which ails the farmer at the present time. It is not necessarily true 

 that farmers are more cantankerous than other people, though it some- 

 times seem so. But there are so many of them, they are so widely scat- 

 tered, and they are so much more expert in dealing with the forces of 

 nature than with the forces of society, that it is physically more difficult 

 for them to work together than it is for other classes. However, these 



