DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



109 



in the habit of emphasizing the fundamental relations of life. The geomet- 

 rical relations are very much more fundamental than are the class rela- 

 tions. In fact, all class consciousness, such as was shown by the priest 

 and the Levite, is contrary to the scheme of life and social relations which 

 this man from the country came to establish. The wisest social workers 

 even in our cities are beginning to realize that the neighborhood must be 

 the basis of a genuine reconstruction of city life. I once heard an ardent 

 social reformer admit, rather boastfully it seemed to me, that of several 

 hundred people who lived in the same building as himself, he did not know 

 even the name of a single one outside of his own family. A more stupen- 

 dous fraud could hardly be perpetrated than for such a whited sepulchre to 

 pretend to be a social reformer. 



Broadening the idea of neighborhood we have the principle of territor- 

 iality as the basis of nationality. Enlarge the neighborhood sufficiently, 

 and we have the territorial group called the state. Several times in the 

 history of the race other groups than the territorial group, other organiza- 

 tions than the territorial state, have claimed the loyalty of the individual. 

 Whenever the average citizen is more loyal to another group, say a church, 

 a party, a labor organization, than to the state, the state has disappeared. 

 That is to say, when he will obey the orders of some other organization 

 rather than the law of the land, the territorial state has already been 

 subverted. Needless to say, these other groups, based on a common 

 religion, or a common occupation, which sometimes stand as rivals for 

 the loyalty of the people against the group, commonly called the state, 

 which is based on the occupation of the same territory, have their origin 

 in cities. Indoor people are the only ones who can easily forget the prin- 

 ciple of territoriality and the law of the land. 



Pioneering in this country needs redirection. During the past decade, 

 it has taken thousands of our most valuable citizens beyond our own bor- 

 ders to enrich the life and increase the power of other nations. In place 

 of these sturdy, self-reliant, courageous citizens, who are willing to face 

 hardship, and capable of creating their own opportunities, we are receiv- 

 ing in vast numbers men who prefer to go where opportunities have 

 already been created for them by the pioneering activities of others, to 

 fill positions created for them by the business enterprise of a sturdier 

 race. In other words, we are losing men who can create opportunities 

 and are receiving men who are only capable of filling opportunities created 

 by others. This means that we are in process of becoming an urbanized, 

 and therefore a degenerate nation. 



The difficulty is not, as some seem to think, that we do not distribute 

 our immigrants. They probably do better to stay in the cities because 

 they would be useless on our farms. Our farmers would not hire many of 

 them, and they have not the qualities which make pioneer farmers. Be- 

 sides, if we could send more of them to the country and keep them 

 there it would only accelerate the movement toward Canada and the cities. 

 The stream of population is moving away from our farm regions. It is 



