236 
February 16, 1918 
Oie RURAL NEW-YORKER 
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HOPE FARM NOTES 
“Kaiser Bill” 
The Other Half. —Here we have an¬ 
other snowstorm ! As I look out across 
the hills the air is thick with snow, and 
the trees are loaded with white. There 
is no wind. It is one of those silent, 
Steadfast storms which somehow remind 
you of quiet, relentless fate. When the 
wind roars and drives the snow you con¬ 
sider the spirit of anger which in due 
time will exhaust itself and quiet down. 
There is more terror in this calm, slow, 
steady, sifting snow because it seems like 
some determined purpose which cannot 
he diverted. You must just stand and 
take 't until fate is satisfied ! That is 
the way it seems to thousands of our 
friends today—shut in among the hills or 
in lonely places, far from human com¬ 
panionship. One of onr hoys has been 
trying to express his feelings by draw¬ 
ing on the blackboard what he has 
labelled “Kaiser Bill.” It is supposed to 
represent a noted character who, the 
older boy, who has read something of 
history, hopes will soon be known as 
Ceneral William Ilohenzollern. The 
little artist has pictured a man with a 
tremendous nose and a very feeble chin. 
I think I Avill have this ])ictnre photo¬ 
graphed a little later. It might make a 
good text for a talk on what one half of 
the world thinks of the other half and 
the evil effect of this thinking! 
Doctored Differences. —That is what’- 
I would call some of the ideas which 
people have of their fellows when viewed 
thi-ough the eyes of i)rejudice or mi.sin- 
formatiou. My hoy knows nothing about 
the Kaiser except what he has read or 
.seen in pictures. Now I get the idea 
from Gerard’s hook that if you could 
come to know the Kaiser as a man you 
would find him a “pretty good fellow” 
and not at all the terrible wretch Avhich 
some of us have been led to think him. 
lie might recognize the picture which 
my boy has drawn, and I rather think 
h(‘ would smile at it. For in these rude 
chalk marks the boy has put what I call 
tlie “doctored differences” which have 
done so much to hold hack human prog¬ 
ress by holding jn'oplo ai)art. I have no 
doubt many German hoys are making pic¬ 
tures of President Wilson which would 
make “Kaiser Bill” resemble an angel. 
There have always been differences of 
race, occupation, point of view, religion 
and so on. hut if you leave them free and 
healthy they are not dangerous. It is 
when they are “cloctoi’ed” or warped by 
prejudice, ignorance or envy that they 
begin to gnaw into social life and upset 
conditions. 
Wrong Pictt'res. —For example, right 
in thousands of homes today men and 
women are making mental pictures of 
“the other half” that are just as amusing 
and untrue to life a.s my boy’s ridiculous 
picture of the Kaiser. I talk with fann¬ 
ers who actually think that all who live 
or work in the city have an easy and 
pleasant time without much worry, earm 
ing big wages and not obliged to endure 
privations or make sacrifices. Then .1 
can easily find you many toAra and city 
people who really think farmers are all 
getting.rich and living like lords. I.ast 
week I was in Bochester, N. ^.. cud 
ordered dinner at a well-known hotel. I 
wanted a baked potato and I will ci ii- 
fess that I ordered it without looking at 
the price. They charged me 20 cents 
for that one potato. I figured that a 
hnshel would contain about 75 such po¬ 
tatoes—which means .$151 A city man 
said this was complete evidence that 
fanners are getting rich. Now without 
realizing it when the city man talks this 
way and when the farmer says the city 
man has no troubles, they are both draw¬ 
ing pictures no more true to life than my 
boy’s arthstic effort at “Kaiser Bill” and 
it is all an unpayable hill against the 
peace and progress of this country. 
Commuter Life. — We are reading 
much now about the day’s Avork on 
farm. It represents long and continuous 
toil, but “there are others.” Thei’e are 
more than half a million commuters 
.among them living in New York who can 
also tell a tale. Imagine an army of 
men and women about as large as the 
fombiiied population of Vermont and 
New Hampshire traveling each day from 
25 to 75 miles back and forth from their 
work ! Some of these people live in sub¬ 
urban towns—others have bought farms 
which they are trying to pay for. Having 
lived the life for year.s, I can tell all 
about it. This Winter a typical “day” 
Avill be about as follows: A’ou get up 
before .six and try to do a little work 
on the place before breakfast. Then you 
must walk if you cannot get a chance to 
ride from one to two miles to the sta¬ 
tion. During the big storms we often 
hitch up Tom and Broker to the big sled 
and pick up a dozen or more commuters 
along the road. A train whirls us to the 
Hudson Biver and we must dive under it 
through the tunnel or cross on the ferry. 
The clay in the city is rn^bed and jammed 
with work. Very few farmers are driven 
as hard- or as steadily through these 
Winter days as are the commuters. 
Trains are delayed, the cars are cold and 
cheerless and many a night it is half 
past .seven or. eight before the tired 
worker gets home. I could give you some 
of my own days this Winter which would 
show up very well beside a dairyman’s 
job. The commuter has to keep going. 
No matte r what the weather may be, no 
matter how he feels, the lash of a relent¬ 
less business is over him and he must 
move on like a soldier. 
Think: It Ovfji. —I do not tell about 
this in any attempt to belittle the hard 
features of farm life. I know both sides 
and I feel that they are both made harder 
and more unsatisfactory through a fail¬ 
ure to understand. Some of these com¬ 
muters are also farmers in a small way 
and they realize the situation, but many 
of them if called upon to di-aw a picture 
of a farmer would make my boy’s pic¬ 
ture seem like a work of art. For they 
are taught by reading and conversation 
that much of the high cost of living is 
due to the greed of farmers! They read 
this in their daily papers and in time 
come to believe it. And the farmer, some 
hundreds of miles away, gets an idea that 
these hard worked and usually underpaid 
commuters are dudes or weaklings or 
even parasites living upon a useless sys¬ 
tem of distribution. Thus two honest and 
useful men, each working hard and put¬ 
ting in a painful and laborious day, are 
each, drawing mental pictures of the 
other and marking them “Kaiser Bill.” 
The Obstacle. —^The storm is increas¬ 
ing and it looks like a foot more of snow. 
Back in the country men are toiling 
through the .snowdrifts -with loads of 
milk which tomorrow will be sold in the 
city. In the town men and women are 
going over their bills and scolding at that 
farmer toiling through the snow because 
milk costs them 16 cents or more. Each 
represents “Kaiser Bill” to the other be¬ 
cause there is an obstacle between them 
and they cannot understand. The other 
children come and try their hands at the 
picture and each one puts more prejudice 
and ridicule into it, because they have 
read and heard only the evil about the 
German Fmperor. This is the spirit of 
war—a necessary spirit when a certain 
political doctrine must live or die. But 
in the great social problem now working 
out in this country there is no reason 
why the plain working people in town 
and in country should be making faces at 
each other or drawing mental pictures 
of “Kaiser Bill.” It seems to me that 
certain politicians and special interests 
are encouraging this “doctored differ¬ 
ence” and that our people are falling into 
the trap. This snow is falling upon 
thousands of homes in city or in lonely 
valley alike. It brings its blessings and 
its troubles to all. No matter where they 
may live, men and women of plain, com¬ 
mon life have hopes and ambitions in 
common. The habits and prejudices of 
society may put a thiu veneer of varnish 
on some of us but the essential needs 
and aims of human nature are alike. Oh, 
how I wish that Avhen this cruel Winter 
finally ends and the snow melts it could 
wash off all the meanness and poverty 
of life and let us see each other—not as 
“Kaiser Bill” but as men and women who 
work and endure and have needs and 
hopes in common. 
An Invitation. —But there is one 
place where we could all get together, I 
am sure—the dinner table. The daughter 
has just ’phoned from the city that she 
is coming out a little later with the baby. 
I shall have to tell you about that baby 
some day, for many a country woman has 
been longing through this hard Winter 
for some little child companion! We are 
having something of a procession of little 
children passing through our home. But 
dinner seems to he ready. The little girls 
have been sick but now they are up and 
