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DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



muscularity. Such a race degenerates rapidly whenever it attempts to live 

 an indoor life of bodily ease and luxury. It is always at its best when 

 it is pioneering — when it is obeying the first command written in its sacred 

 book: "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; 

 and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, 

 and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." 



We have all heard stories of the children of certain families who hang 

 around home waiting for the patrimony and then quarrel over distribution. 

 Over against despicable examples of this kind we have the more robust 

 and inspiring examples of those children who go out into the world and 

 create families and patrimonies of their own instead of quarreling over 

 their share of the estate. When a race ceases to be a pioneering race, 

 that is, when, instead of going out to find new opportunities, the children 

 of the race hang around the older centers of civilization waiting for the 

 accumulated riches of past generations, they generally fall to quarreling 

 over their distribution. This is even more despicable than for the chil- 

 dren of a family to wait for their patrimony, and it is a more certain 

 mark of degeneration. 



Much of that which goes under the euphonious name of social reform 

 is merely a symptom of this kind of degeneration. Its home is in the 

 cities, it springs from urbanized minds, and its prophets are mainly mem- 

 bers of urbanized races. Strong, robust, self-disciplined, individualistic 

 men are never exploited. If they do not like their treatment in one place, 

 they go where there is land, where they can be independent. Weak, whim- 

 sical, timid, gregarious men, who are afraid to get very far from the 

 herd, are always exploited. They can not even be truly organized. They 

 can be herded together as mobs, brow-beaten by their own leaders, excited 

 to spasmodic group action, but so far as constructive, consistent, united 

 action is concerned, it is beyond their power. Only self-disciplined men, 

 capable of controlling their impulses, willing to suffer loss for a principle, 

 but capable of working together with their fellows for distant ends, either 

 with or without leaders, are capable of genuine organization. Such men 

 can not be exploited. 



Another symptom of the degeneration which comes to our race from 

 city life is "class consciousness." Once upon a time, there was an im- 

 portant dialog between a man from the city and a man from the country. 

 Please remember the important fact, commonly overlooked, that the one 

 was from the city and the other was from the country. The man from 

 the city asked, "Who is my neighbor?" Such a question would not occur 

 to a real countryman. He has no doubt as to who his neighbors are. But 

 a man from the city does not always know. He is inclined to consider 

 whether they are members of the same occupation, profession, or religion 

 as himself, or whether they are people with about the same income who 

 can entertain on about the same scale as himself, or whether they are the 

 people who live within easy reach. The man from the country who 

 answered this question by telling the story of the good Samaritan, was 



