1610 
?ht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Things To Think About 
The object of this department is to give readers a chance to express themselves on farm 
matters. Not long articles can he use' 3 —just short, pointed opinions or suggestions. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER does not always endorse what is printed here. You might 
call this a mental safety valve. 
If the Farmers Strike 
“Can any good come out of Nazareth?” 
A reader in Connecticut sends us the fol¬ 
lowing article, taken from the Wall Street 
Journal of October 2. When the farmer's 
problem gets into “Wall Street” we may 
expect to see some of the old walls 
knocked down : 
ITow would it suit the radical agitators 
if the farmers formed a union and an¬ 
nounced a class strike? The consequences 
would be so appalling that men may pre¬ 
fer to treat the danger as non-existent. 
Yet in the past few weeks that idea has 
been seriously advanced several times. In 
the Scioto Gazette, of Chillicothe, last 
week, was published an interview, where 
a farmer said in part: 
“Everybody wants to buy the things 
we farmers produce for less than cost.; 
and wants to sell us the things we must 
have at twice what they used to bring. 
Working men are striking for higher pay 
and shorter hours, and we work from sun¬ 
up to sundown and are begrudged a decent 
return. 
“If the farmers had any sense they 
would organize a union, and by refusing 
to produce, or sell, soon starve the rest of 
the people into being willing to work all 
day for their board anl clothes. 
“What we want is a fair deal, and the 
only way to get it is by stopping produc¬ 
tion until we get.it.” 
According to the Gazette, the man who 
spoke these words is one of the “oldest 
and best farmers of the county.” Can 
any union man, either radical or con¬ 
servative. deny that, the farmers have the 
right, and power, to organize and stop 
production of all food stuffs, and the raw 
materials for shoes and clothing? 
Such a strike would threateu the lives 
of the two-tliirds of the population of the 
cities and towns, including the workers 
in the shops, mills, mines and on the rail¬ 
roads. But what of that? Haven’t they 
the same right to strike as others? When 
the railway brotherhoods threaten to tie 
up the country’# transportation, wasn’t it 
with full knowledge that, it meant death 
to many and untold suffering to a greater 
number? 
When the coal miners make demands to 
be enforced by a strike, people must 
shiver, aud many die from cold. Radical 
unionism that preaches class rule is re¬ 
sponsible for that A recent, example 
was given in an Illinois town. An elec¬ 
tric strike deprived small towns all along 
the line of light and power. In one was 
a packing establishment whose refrigerat¬ 
ing plant was run by that same current. 
The manager appealed to the union leader 
for sufficient power to keep the refriger¬ 
ator plant at work, and received this re¬ 
ply : 
“I don’t give a d-n if all the meat 
in the United States rots.” 
And if farmers stopped production so 
as to gain their point, would it be sur¬ 
prising if appeals for food were answered 
in that way? When we talk exclusively 
of “rights” and power to enforce them 
(with a few wrongs thrown in), forget¬ 
ting duties and moral responsibilities, we 
are coasting downhill to the devil without 
brakes to save us. 
Farm Help Problems 
In the Syracuse (N. Y.) Post Dispatch 
A. Clarence Armstrong tells of his prob¬ 
lems at farming. Among other things he 
says: 
One of my men quit Tuesday and went 
to work in a local steel plant for $6.34 
per night.. Another one was offered <50 
cents per hour to drive a truck for the 
county. Another, only 21 years of age, 
gets 68 cents for the first eight hours aud 
$1.02 for the second eight hours in a near¬ 
by railroad shop. It. will be remembered 
that ihese railroad shop men have very 
recently nearly tied up several of the 
leading roads by strikes and are at present 
only held in leash by the promise of Presi¬ 
dent Wilson to effect a substantial re- 
du •■tion in the high cost of living. 
Now, my contention is this, that agri¬ 
culture cannot be successfully carried on 
today at the prevailing level of prices 
for farm produce at the wages being paid 
on the railroads and in the shops and fac¬ 
tories of our cities. If anyone has any 
concrete facts to prove to the contrary 
I would like to see them in print. I am 
anxious to know how it can be done. I 
want to see. farm hands as well paid as 
any other class of workmen of equal skill 
and fidelity. 
Packers’ Advertising 
On page 1450, “Candid Statement 
About a C-auner,” a man of local note 
raises the point that this “canner” was 
merely so in this man’s judgment; that 
she was never put on the market, and 
might not have been so classed had she 
actually gone there. While I have little 
confidence in his argument, we will have 
to admit that it is a talking point. At 
the same time the other side make state¬ 
ments as much open to question, and the 
public is unblushingly asked to believe 
them. He also makes the assertion that 
this class of stock was the only one upon 
which any considerable profit w r as made, 
and the profit so made was largely used 
to make up the deficiency resulting from 
the handling of the better class of cat¬ 
tle. 
This seem# like a case in which we 
can meet all criticism, both fair and un¬ 
fair. and yet have a large margin of ad¬ 
vantage, or if not in this case, then in 
other parallel cases where certain facts 
can be well substantiated. How about 
the wonderful amount of expensive adver¬ 
tising of packer interests in their own de¬ 
fence this Summer and Fall? Is this not 
a neat and handy way for it to cut down 
its excess profits to prevent paying 80 
per cent of them into the United States 
Treasury, and, by aud by, when such ex¬ 
cess taxation has been removed, transfer¬ 
ring some to their own pockets? Such 
advertising is unusual and unnecessary, 
and should not be allowed to figure sis 
regular expense in immediate or future 
calculations. p. b. thomas. 
Americanization on the Farm 
What is Mr. American Farmer doing 
to make his strange or foreign neighbors 
real Americans? Answer: Precious lit¬ 
tle or nothing. Why? He is overwhelmed 
by numbers, for one thing, and thinks 
what little he can do is not worth while. 
I cannot grow enough potatoes to feed 
the whole world, therefore I won’t grow 
any! This year the town of Milford, 
Conn., will probably spend a thousand 
dollars teaching foreigners English and 
other fundamentals. But American ideals 
and standards cannot, be taught. They 
must be instilled by patient, tactful, per¬ 
sonal work. 
A clean, industrious Austrian family 
became tenants in an American farming 
community. These invaders were avoid¬ 
ed. left, severely alone except for one who 
took it. upon herself to be friendly, to 
help, to educate. Her work is tiny, ob¬ 
scure and noble. Her service to the na¬ 
tion cannot, be measured. The rest of the 
community ridicule, or is indifferent. 
Their harm to the nation is real and can¬ 
not be measured. Until this attitude of 
our people is overcome there will be no 
real progress in Americanization. 
C. L. P. 
And cannot something of the same be 
said about “higher up” agricultural edu¬ 
cation? Whose business is it to get down 
to the root of things? 
“Service Demands Pay” 
Passing through 10th Street. Eighth 
and Ninth Avenues, New York City, I 
saw 7 an ash can entirely filled with milk 
bottles—four dozen at a guess. I stopped 
for a second and wondered at the care¬ 
lessness of the milk companies. This is 
only a sample of what can be seen in all 
sections of this city. Willful waste; 
waste of all kinds on all sides. An ash 
can on another street with at least 100 
pounds of coal, scarcely seared over. Not 
once but daily all last. Winter did I see 
this waste of coal in our streets. The 
consumer pays for all this waste. 
We at our humble abode with six in 
family eliminate “waiter’s” service. We 
cut out the milk wagon and costly retail 
service and bottle waste by going to dairy 
store after our supply in the evening, as 
we are up at three o’clock to four a. m. 
The market basket you have advised from 
time to time is our method of reducing 
high cost. People require too much 
service, and service demands pay. Your 
paper is making itself felt, and more than 
you may dream of. Fighting for demo¬ 
cracy at home is commendable. More 
power to your hand. O. h. white. 
New York. 
A Wayne Co., N. Y., Woman Talks 
There is every sign of encouragement to 
farmers throughout the State in the polit¬ 
ical situation in Wayne County. In a 
district which nominally gives a Repub¬ 
lican majority of (5.000 the 70 per cent of 
rural population intends to prove to the 
country at large that country people have 
the intelligence and the power to uphold 
the old motto “Taxation without represen¬ 
tation is unjust.” 
One stimulus to this determination has 
been the audacity of the politician, C. H. 
Betts, to presume, through the Repub¬ 
lican organization, to nominate and elect 
himself as the representative of an agri¬ 
cultural people after they themselves 
have clearly expressed their opinion of 
him. When he did this, however, he for¬ 
got the fact that there are fully as many 
rural women to vote this year as men, 
and that these women, not yet bound by 
party organization, will vote for the man 
whom they believe has the same interests 
as theirs. 
There are many educated women in all 
communities who. fully realizing that it 
meant hard work, lack of conveniences and 
improvements and few social enjoyments, 
have deliberately chosen for themselves 
November 1, 1910 
farm homes, because they believed that in 
the country their children would have a 
better chance to live healthy, happy and 
useful lives. These women see in the sit¬ 
uation here a chance not only to elect a 
candidate who really represents them, and 
will favor legislation that will make life 
on a farm more honored and respected for 
their children and themselves, but to en¬ 
courage women throughout, the country to 
do the same. 
Mr. Betts awoke to the real state of 
affair# just before primary day, aud his 
small majority in winning the nomination, 
in spite of his desperate efforts, are not 
at all encouraging to him. He has his 
organization working, some of them half¬ 
heartedly, and in spite of their normal 
majority of 6,000 votes, the possibility of 
defeat is openly admitted. Mr. Betts 
himself is so thoroughly scared that he is 
making desperate offer# to political ene¬ 
mies. 
Besides, in spite of his well-known 
abuse and hatred of Theodore Roosevelt, 
the last, three issues of the Lyons Repub¬ 
lican, Mr. Betts’ county paper, have con¬ 
tained lengthy quotations from Roosevelt. 
Does he think that, he can thus gain a 
few needed votes through pretended ad¬ 
miration of “The Great. American”? You 
can fool some of the people all of the time, 
and all of the people some of the time, but 
you can’t fool all of the people all of the 
time, and the people of Wayne County 
are #o thoroughly aroused that the defeat 
of Mr. Betts seems assured. The right, to 
vote and the right to hold office are priv¬ 
ileges which have been dearly bought, in 
other countries besides ours, and the rural 
population will elect one of themselves as 
their officeholder in the Assembly. 
WAYNE COUNTY WOMAN. 
Your Squash and Pumpkins 
Did you put your pumpkins and squash 
in the cellar? Then you would better 
bring them up. For several years I have 
kept sqush until late Spring aud. indeed, 
until early Summer, though they lose 
flavor later. I put them on the top shelf 
in the pantry, which is right behind the 
kitchen stove. My neighbor has a pump¬ 
kin over a year old, now nearly 13 months, 
which i« in perfect condition to look at, 
except it is a little withered. She has it 
on the bottom shelf in her cupboard, near 
the kitchen range. She says she is keep¬ 
ing it out of curiosity to see how long it 
will last. Of course they will keep better 
if well cured in the sun before bringing 
in the house. I would leather put them 
upstairs in a warm room than in the cel¬ 
lar. for there they are sure to rot. 
Auburn, N. Y. mbs. f. j. s. 
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