815 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
WOMAN AND HOME 
Are. the countrj’ women of New York 
State in favor of public rural nurses? A 
bill for providing for such nurses was 
introduced in the last New York Legis¬ 
lature, but did not come to a vote. Be¬ 
fore the next Legislature meets this ques¬ 
tion ought to be discussed. We find that 
in New Jersey the.se nurses are very 
popular, but there' is some opposition ex¬ 
pressed in parts of New York. 
A 
The most remarkable evidence of the 
groTvth of prohibition sentiment in this 
country that has yet appeared was pre¬ 
sented when Congress voted to hold up 
the national agricultural appropriation 
until President Wilson exercised his right 
to prohibit brewing of bee'r during the 
war. The Senate may be able to change 
this, but it simply shows what is coming. 
It is now generally regarded as certain 
that the States will ratify the prohibition 
amendment. The’ brewers seem to con¬ 
cede it. The di.stillers have given up. 
r.: 
A WOJIAN in New Jersey has a service 
flag carrying nine stars. Her soldiers in¬ 
clude sons, grandsons and two brothers. 
So far as we know this is the record. 
The v'service flag is the tie which binds all 
grades of society together. A plain coun¬ 
try woman came to this great city not 
long ago and found it a lonely place, 
Avliere everyone rushed hurriedly past her. 
She had two sons in the army, and one 
day in the aristocratic part of the city 
she passed a house before which hung a 
service flag with two stars. Something 
forced the lonely country woman to stop 
at that house to meet the rich woman 
who, like herself, had given two boys Jo 
the service. And the lady of the house 
met her on common ground; they were 
just two women, made sisters through 
their .sacrifice. 
Tins question of using oleo and other 
butter substitutes on a farmer's table’ has 
come to be a vital one. Our reports show 
that some dairymen have been selling 
milk and buying the substitutes, but we 
do not think the practice was general or 
as extended as some would have the pub¬ 
lic belii've. AVe have heard farmers de¬ 
fend the practice, but they were not dairy¬ 
men, and sold little if any milk. Where 
a farmer make’s his living selling milk or 
its products it seems very short-sighted, 
to saj" the least, to patronize those coun¬ 
terfeits, for a man should be loyal to his 
own business first of all. Bight now, 
when there is a surplus of milk, the most 
sensible thing is to relieve that surplus 
by using the milk at home, and not in¬ 
creasing it by patronizing substitutes 
which make that surplus larger. The fol¬ 
lowing letter shows how they do it in 
Sullivan Co., N. Y. This is the same 
thing we have urged in the past-—x’nBing 
aside one good cow to be known as 
“Mother’s Cow”—her milk to be kept and 
used by the family. Why not elect a 
“mother’s cow” in your herd? 
All dairymen in this vicinity are selling 
milk and buying butter, or else they have 
one cow in their herd of which they re¬ 
serve the milk, and churn. I think this 
could probably be said of the farmers 
throughout Sullivan County. I think the 
time’ is coming when all fanners will have 
one cow in their herd for a butter cow. 
A few years back they all bought butter, 
but ^dairymen are changing with the 
times. I know one farmer who did not 
sell his milk through June, but churned 
and packed the butter for his use’ during 
the year. I know another dairyman who, 
until the past year or so, would not let 
his wife churn, but now has fallen into 
the metho<l of keeping one cow for butter. 
New York. c. w. c. 
The following reflections from a 
“worker” who helped put the Liberty, loan 
and the Red Cross drive over will appeal 
to many of our readers: 
As you know, there are only a few peo¬ 
ple in'any community of small dimensions 
that will do the real grubbing work neces¬ 
sary to carry these things through. Plenty 
of people are in “hearty sympathy” with 
the good work and wish you “Godspeed,” 
but when it comes to going out each day 
and wrestling with the still unsubdued 
selfishness of human nature and pulling 
real dollars from pockets that have long 
been chained and padlocked—thank you. 
they are so busy that they really can’t 
possibly spare the time, you know. It’s 
the same the world over; w'e have nothing 
to complain of here, and when a few of 
us get together and say that we will never 
again tackle the job. we know that we are 
lying and that when the next call comes 
we will fume and sweat and get right into 
the harness again. 
That is the way the world goes; a few 
workers do most of the pushing. They 
deserve 10 times the credit usually given 
the politician and receive about live per 
cent of what goes to the “big men.” 
When Ren Franklin retired from business 
he was pushed into the work of promoting 
every patriotic and benevolent enterprise 
started in Philadelphia. He tells how 
tills work was pushed upon him until he 
was ashamed to ask ptople for help. Y’’et 
he always responded to the call. You 
never realize how useful these “workers” 
are until they pass away. 
* 
Ix all this talk about improving farm 
conditions and farm life, are we not try¬ 
ing to depend too much on law and public 
force to bring what we need to the coun¬ 
try ? I^aw is only the expression of con¬ 
trolling power. Whoever controls society 
makes its laws (be they just or unjust) 
or becomes responsible for its lack of 
law. A military nation or one controlled 
by a small class of politicians or wealthy 
men will find its laws working in an ar¬ 
bitrary manner against the best interests 
of the common people. On the other 
hand, a true republic will give expression, 
through its laws, to the desires of work¬ 
men and small freeholders. When society 
is seen working away from full justice to 
the laboring classes there is little hope 
of bringing it back through the old inter¬ 
pretation of law. Society must change 
its plans and reorganize its political meth¬ 
ods if there is ever to be full reform. 
Farmers and others who feel that the situ¬ 
ation is getting away from them must 
realize that the real beginning must be 
made right in their own lives and in 
their own homes if the spirit of the nation 
is to be changed. 
The Blue Sky has Come Back 
The following letter comes from one of 
our readers in New England, and is 
typical of the spirit with which so many 
people of middle years are meeting their 
duty in this war ! 
Everything looked blue for my wife and 
myself. Our chicken business was dead 
for the time being, and our only child 
volunteered and was accepte<l for mili¬ 
tary service. Well, we sent our boy 
away with a smile, but what it cost my 
old wife nobody knows, only her, and the 
boy was worrjdng over us. We are both 
over 00, but if the Lord shuts one door 
he opens another one if we will only look 
for it. so I went to the city (Fall River) 
and the first place I asked for work I 
got it, in a new line of work to anything 
that I had done in my younger d.aj's, and 
at better wages than ever I had earned 
working out, so at this time there is plen¬ 
ty of blue in our sky. We have bought a 
thiixl Liberty bond, helped our little town 
go over the top in the Red Cross drive; 
we have a W. S. S. sign, we have given 
to the Y. M. C. A. and W. C. T. TJ. and 
Salvation Army. I want to do my “bit” 
and help to “carry on” the work that our 
country is engaged in. We are of Eng¬ 
lish birth, but we are Americans first, 
last and all the time. I have brothers in 
France, who live in England, and si.sters 
in the Red Cross ; also nephews and nieces 
and cousins fighting for the cause and 
nursing the wounded. g. T. c. 
Massachusetts. 
Mr. Hoover on Beer and Whisky 
There has been much controversy over 
a letter written by Mr. Herbert Hoover 
to Senator Sheppard of Texas with refer¬ 
ence to prohibition. The House of Rep¬ 
resentatives passed a resolution forbid¬ 
ding the use of any part of the agricul¬ 
tural aiipropriation until President Wil¬ 
son exercised his power to prohibit the 
use of all grains in brewing. Mr. Hoover 
wrote a letter to Senator Sheppard which 
seems to have had the effect of preventing 
the Senate from passing the House reso¬ 
lution. In this letter Mr. Hoover says; 
The actual amount of grain being used 
in the brewing of beers is at the present 
time approximately 4,500.000 bushels per 
month, of which approximately 30 per 
cent is recovered as cattle feed and the 
loss therefore into the beer is practically 
the equivalent of 3,150,000 bushels per 
mouth, the grains used being barley, corn 
and broken rice. There is, of course, a 
great deal _ of contention that the beer 
itself contains the remaining food values. 
But omitting this, the cessation of brew¬ 
ing would effect a saving in grain of ap¬ 
proximately 3,150,000 bushels a month, 
from a nutritive point of view. It needs 
no comment from me, from a food point 
of view, that I should favor the saving o'! 
this amount of grain. 
Under the fifth authority—that is, the 
stopping of brewing altogether—it does 
appear to me that there are temperance 
issues involved of such tremendous mo¬ 
ment that they outweigh the use of the re¬ 
duced amount of foodstuffs in brewing, 
and in any event gives ground for a dif¬ 
ference in judgment as to the alternative 
national risks and los.sos which need the 
most careful consideration. If brewing 
wore stopped today boor would disappear 
from the liquor trade within one or two 
months and the whole country would be 
put practically on a whisky, brandy and 
gin basis, with some supplies of wine. 
The saloons would be left open and upon 
a basis of selling drinks carrying 40 per 
cent or .50 per cent alcohol, with some 
small supplies of wine, instead of a large 
proportion of their customers being served 
with a drink of 2% per cent alcoholic 
content, and therefore, from a temperance 
viewpoint, much less harmful. It raises 
the very_ serious moral problem as to 
whether infinitely more damage will not 
result from such action than in a continu¬ 
ation of the use of this limited amount 
of foodstuffs in brewing. 
The Pocket Testament League 
The object of this league is to place 
Testaments in the hands of soldiers. The 
Testaments are given free to all who 
will sign an agreement to carry the little 
book and read it daily. No effort is made 
to force it upon anyone. There has been 
no need to do so, for the army is filled 
with young fellows of a serious mind who 
realize much of the religious element 
which has entered the great questions un¬ 
derlying this war. The Testaments are 
new and of pocket size, bound in cloth 
the color of the soldier’s uniform, and 
easily carried in the pocket. This League 
is a worthy one, and the people back of 
it are honorable and true. The League is 
financed by voluntary contributions. The 
Testaments coat about 30 cents each, and 
are distributed in the most economical 
way. We feel sure that many of our 
readers would like to help in this distribu¬ 
tion. It is true that the Red Cross and 
other necessary associations have made 
constant and pathetic appeals for money 
until many must feel that they have given 
“until it hurts.” A work like this dis¬ 
tribution of Testaments will appeal with 
peculiar power to many of our country 
people and, speaking to them, we can en¬ 
dorse the League and its officers. If any 
of our people desire to contribute or to 
know more about the League and its work 
we will see that their money is properly 
accounted for and that they have full 
information. 
Farm Women and Prohibition 
In the vote on local option in cities last 
Spring the women were undoubtedly a 
great help in voting a score of them dry. 
It was a surprise to many temperance- 
loving persons that, since women could 
vote, every city did not go dry, which 
goes to prove what has been suspected 
all along, that taking women on the whole 
they average about the same as men, and 
that equal suffrage will not reform the 
world all at once. Many city women 
were heard to remark : “It does seem too 
bad to deprive a man of the right to take 
a glass of beer if he wants it,” or words 
to that effect. A little experience in 
enrolling women for the primaries shows 
one thing very plainly—that country 
women have no compunctions whatever 
about depriving a man of that right; in 
fact, she aijpears to feel that she is put¬ 
ting the poison-bottle on a high shelf; 
that it is a friendly deed and her plain 
duty to save the drinking man frym his 
weakness, to say nothing of the protection 
of the next generation. If there are 
women in the towns who are less thought¬ 
ful on the subject of temperance, every 
country woman must realize that her 
vote is doubly valuable. The political 
party that wants the rural woman’s vote 
will put a prohibition i)lank in its plat¬ 
form. 
Farm women appear to be doing their 
best to save food and to increase produc¬ 
tion, but do you think they will support 
a party that permits the brewing of grain 
into beer? “Father must have his beer.” 
may go in England, but not here. That 
sounds too much like autocracy for us. 
We are all willing to give up wheat, 
meat, sugar, anything to help our boys, 
but can see no reason for allowing a lot 
of brewers to supply our citizens with 
something that is injurious to them, 
wastes food and money, and causes 
trouble and sorrow in their homes, and 
often sends them to jail or to the insane 
asylum. If taxes are needed to make up 
for the revenue from liquor, we would 
rather pay honest taxes than endui-e all 
the evils that follow the saloon, “bul¬ 
lions for defense but not one cent for 
tribute” to that which undermines body 
and soul. r. g. n. 
