1790 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
December <>, lm 9 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
The other day I talked with a farmer 
who expressed his opinion of town and 
city workers freely. He said they had a 
very soft job—eight or nine hours a day, 
with more money for a day’s work than 
he could make in a week. They were 
able to wear good clothes, keep dry and 
comfortable, have money to spend and 
plenty of time to loaf and ride about. 
That was his conception of the life of a 
city worker. Inside of an hour after 
this a city man undertook to give me his 
idea of farming and farmers. lie said 
lie worked harder and longer hours than 
75 per cent of the farmers. They had a 
sure living, and most of them could not 
be turned out of their homes if they were 
reasonably active and thrifty. They must 
all be making some money now, while it 
cost him every cent he could get to¬ 
gether to pay rent and transportation and 
buy food. In short, he claimed the farm¬ 
ers. as a class, were better off than he is, 
and that they did not appreciate their ad¬ 
vantages. 
***** 
This man did not belong to any “union” 
and was not a member of organized labor. 
He was a clerk or salesman, one of the 
great class of unorganized workers, who 
make up perhaps 70 per cent of the city 
laborers. Now these two men—farmer 
and unorganized workman, a consumer— 
represent SO per cent of the workers in 
this country. They do not understand 
each other and have drifted apart, though 
originally from the same country stock. 
Their misunderstanding is responsible for 
most of the industrial and market troubles 
in this country. If they could come to 
know each other better there would be 
less class hatred and greater respect. That 
would surely mean greater prosperity, as 
is shown where a successful public mar¬ 
ket has been developed, or wherever there 
is a public forum where country and city 
people can meet and split up their differ¬ 
ences with pen and tongue. 
***** 
After talking with these two men I 
came home from the city on my usual 
train, and began to consider the life of a 
commuter. Most farmers do not know 
the commuter’s life and its long daily 
grind. A farmer gets up and goes at 
once to his work. It is close by in the 
barn or field, and there is no long jour¬ 
ney to reach it. The commuter lives in 
the country and works in the city, and 
he must travel all the way from 20 to SO 
miles a day between his home and his job. 
On the train I speak of there were more 
than 700 such workers, coming home in 
the dark, after a long day's work. The 
truth is that a good many of the workmen 
who put in an eight or nine-hour day are 
obliged to spend three hours or more 
getting to the job and back. Some walk, 
some use the railroads, others, combine 
and buy a cheap motor car, but under the 
conditions near and in the big cities, they 
cannot live close up to the job. Most of 
them that I know must get up about as 
early as a farmer does in order to eat 
breakfast and get to the job. 
***** 
I can give the exact daily life of a man 
I know who travels on our train. He 
lives about 25 miles out in the country, 
and two miles from the station. In Win¬ 
ter he is obliged to get up before daylight 
—;when some, at least, of the farmers are 
still in bed. He looks around on his lit¬ 
tle place and plans the work, then eats his 
breakfast and walks two hilly miles to the 
railroad station. Here, you will say, is 
his first mistake. He ought to ride. ‘ He 
walks from choice—for the exercise. It 
is part of a training scheme for keeping 
himself in good condition. A train takes 
him with a crowd of other commuters to 
Jersey City. There they rush out and 
join the crowd swarming like human bees 
into the great tunnel which runs under 
the Hudson River. A few passengers float 
over the river on the ferries, but most of 
them dive under the great river, through 
the tube, and are safely shot out on the 
Island of Manhattan. The man I speak 
of walks about half a mile across the city 
to his work, puts in strenuous hours until 
dark, and then goes home as he came, 
through the tube and on the train, with a 
long, dark journey over the hills to his 
home. It is just about a 13-hour day, in¬ 
cluding the daily journey of about 60 
miles. 
***** 
Rut do these city people really work? 
Is it not something of a loafer’s job, after 
all? You should try it in order to find 
out. You may go into some stores and 
offices and see clerks sitting about appar¬ 
ently idle. I know a city man who went 
through the country on a railroad train. 
He looked out at every station he passed 
and saw a few men waiting or sitting 
about, and he came back and reported 
that farmers were a set of lazy loafers—• 
he had not been able to find half a dozen 
of them at work. You may be sure that 
a city workman must earn his salary, or 
he will not get any. Of course there are 
some grafters and politicians who do lit¬ 
tle, but such people as these who travel 
on my train must work or quit, and they 
are hold down to discipline. The rents 
charged for New York business property 
are something to take your breath away. 
Taxes, income—all are taken out of the 
tenant. A man came into see me not long 
ago and said : “I came down to have a 
nice long visit with you—just like what 
we would have on the farm. Someone has 
told me what rents are here in this big 
city, and I am ashamed to take your 
time, for I know about what it costs you 
an hour to sit on that chair!” The com¬ 
muter has to work, and is driven every 
moment of his time. 
***** 
But why live in any such way? Why 
travel 18,000 miles or more every year 
just to get to the job and back? Why not 
get up nearer to it, as a farmer does? 
The answer to that is easy to the com¬ 
muter. and not very clear to a farmer. 
How is he going to do it? Most of the 
people on my train have families, and 
one reason for living in the country is a 
desire to give the children something of a 
chance. Very few except the poor or the 
well-to-do can afford to raise a family in 
the city. The poor pack into the cheaper 
tenements, where it is the habit to raise 
children in almost any way, as regards 
food and care. The well-to-do or rich can 
own or rent large apartments or entire 
houses. The middle class, who live close 
up to their income, have very few chil¬ 
dren. They cannot really afford to bring" 
them up. Most landlords object to them, 
as farmers do when hiring men, and social 
habit or fashion bars children, about as it 
does everything except money, and in 
some cases, brains. Most of us who live 
in the country do not realize how fashion 
or habit affects common people and works 
up through them into the big affairs of 
life. I often see a group of working men 
—masons, carpenters, plumbers, etc.—eat¬ 
ing their dinner in the city. Each carries 
a dinner pail or basket. They get on the 
sunny side of some building and eat their 
bread and meat or cheese or egg and 
cake or pie. These men are frankly in 
a class by themselves, and keep up the 
old-time habit of carrying their dinners 
On the other hand, most clerks or sales 
men or other similar workers have been 
ordered by the fashion of their class to go 
out to some restaurant and buy a dinner! 
They do it, and pay 40 or 50 cents for it, 
while the stronger food in the workman’s 
dipner pail will not cost over 15 or 20 
cents! Very likely the workman’s wife 
will carry a basket to the market ant 
take her purchases home. Fashion says 
the clerk’s wife should call the grocer by 
’phone and have him deliver the goods! 
I have a friend who knows about finances, 
and he tells me this difference explains 
why these workmen as a class bought 
twice as many bonds as the clerks ant 
salesmen. 
***** 
At any rate, the commuter takes his 
long hard daily ride from choice. He 
wants his family to have a chance in the 
country, and he sees no chance to accu¬ 
mulate anything for a “rainy day” in the 
city. He may get hold of a building lot 
in some small town, and put up a modest 
house through a building and loan society. 
Or he may go farther back and buy a 
small farm and become a back-to-the- 
lander. The chances are fair that if lie 
can hold on long enough the town will 
grow until his property will gain in 
value. And so he plants his family in 
the country and travels back and forth to 
liis job. In most cases it is a close call 
financially, for the mortgage or the rent 
will eat up a good share of his earnings, 
and the cost of living for such a man is 
frightful. He has to dress neatly and 
well in order to hold his position, and his 
wife' and children must keep up with the 
living habits of their friends or go into 
some level a little lower in the scale. I 
could tell you some pathetic stories of 
life among these commuters as I know 
them. I think you would be surprised if 
you could know how many of the well- 
dressed and intelligent men on this train 
have practically nothing except their sal¬ 
ary and an insurance policy. Yet they 
show great nerve and good nature. lii 
their business they have to greet custom¬ 
ers with a smils and a pleasant word, and 
they carry the habit into their daily life. 
Some of the things these men and women 
are doing in order that their children 
may have opportunity will take the rank 
with what I know farmei’s have done 
and are doing. 
***** 
The fact is our farmers can have little 
quarrel with these commuters, or people 
who know the labor side of the city and 
the home side of the country. It is true 
that thousands of people who live and die 
amid the brick and stone of the city are 
narrow as a board, and utterly incapable 
of understanding the life of a farmer. 
This is not true of a man who looks upon 
the city only as a place where he may 
earn his living, but whose hopes for his 
family and home are in the country. He 
represents the Ultimate Consumer with a 
capital U, and the farmer back in the 
country cannot afford to quarrel with him. 
Our nearby farmers are inclined to fight, 
him because he comes out and votes great 
sums of money for schoolhouses and “im¬ 
provements” which the landowners have 
to pay. Yet the coming of the com¬ 
muter increases land values, makes bet¬ 
ter x'oads possible, and mixes up town 
and country as nothing else cun do. As 
the years go by and transportation meth¬ 
ods are improved, this “commuting” is 
sure to develop. More and more will peo¬ 
ple make their homes on farms in quiet 
places, and do business where men come 
together in crowds. I think the com¬ 
muter is to be a large factor in the future 
of this country. I know his life, and I 
know he has no “soft job.” He earns all 
he gets. He is a good “mixer” to stir up 
town and country together and give each 
a finer and better idea of life. 
8 - 
pk#' 
Where Upkeep Counts Most 
Twelve million miles of wire, 
connecting cities, villages, 
farms; running under busy 
streets and across trackless 
prairies; these are the Bell 
Telephone’s avenues of speech. 
These twelve million miles 
of wire, throughout every foot 
of their length, must be kept 
electrically capable. 
A few drops of water within 
a cable may cut off a thousand 
subscribers. A line snapped 
by storm may isolate a district. 
A wet leaf touching a wire may 
stop service. In most kinds of 
work the lessening of efficiency 
means merely the lessening 
of service; but with the tele- 
ph one, mechanical and 
electrical conditions must be 
practically perfect to insure 
operation. 
The most delicate electrical 
currents in use are those of 
the telephone, and inspection 
must be ceaseless that the 
lines may be kept in constant 
readiness. 
These conditions and costs 
must be met to provide this 
high st andard of service 
needed and demanded by the 
American people. 
American Telephone and Telegraph Company 
And Associated Companies 
One Policy 
One System 
Universal Service 
Skunk, Mink, Muskrats 
all other kinds of 
Raw Furs Wanted 
Write for price listanil ship¬ 
ping tags. Twenty-three 
years in business. 
CHARLES A. KAUNE 
284 Bridge SI , MONTGOMERY. N.Y 
Sabo Sure Catch Trap 
for fox. coon, skunk, pusitum, Kroum/ 
Jiok. rabbit, etc., place in anitnul'.' 
burrow. SOLD DIRECT at factor 
price. Write for booklet. Aren., 
wanted. Sabo Trap M fir. to. 
31 IB W »>h Street CLEVFLANO. OHIO 
Maple Syrup Makers! 
Profit by Adopting thejto GRIMM SYSTEM 
S ectional pans with 
high partitions. 
Light and heavy cannot 
intermix insuring high¬ 
est quality with least 
fuel and labor. 22 dif¬ 
ferent sizes. Write for 
catalog and state num¬ 
ber of trees you tap. 
GRIMM MANUFACTURING CO. 
When you write advertisers mention 
The Rural New-Yorker and you’ll get 
a quick reply and a "square deal.” See 
guarantee editorial page. : : : 
Keep Milk Free From Dirt and Filth 
Long, thick hair on your cows forms a lodging place for 
dirt and filth. However careful the milker, this dirt cannot 
be prevented from dropping into the milk. 
Cows should be clipped on udders, flanks 
and underline every month during the win¬ 
ter and early spring. These parts may then 
be easily and thoroughly cleaned before 
milking, preventing milk contamination 
from dropping filth. 
Clipping is strongly urged by dairy farmers, certified 
milk producers and federal bureaus. Here is a strong 
endorsement: 
WALKER-GORDON LABORATORY CO. 
Stewart No. 1 
Cow Clipping Machine 
• tu,.... 
Plainsboro, N. J., Nov. 12,1919. 
We clip our cows at least once each month. By clip¬ 
ping the flanks, udders and rear portion of the cow, it is 
possible to groom and wash the dirt from the cow, which 
would be very difficult to do if the hair is allowed to grow. 
WALKER-GORDON LABORATORY CO. 
By H. W. Jeffers. 
The Stewart No. 1 Clipping Machine will clip a cow 
in 5 minutes. Hand operated—runs easily—well built 
—lasts a lifetime. Buy from your dealer at $12.75 
or send us $2.00, paying the balance on arrival. 
Electric clipping machine, direct current, $60; 
alternating current, $80. 
CHICAGO FLEXIBLE SHAFT COMPANY 
Roosevelt Road and Central Ave., Dept.B141 Chicago 
