The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
1239 
Farm Discussion at a Dinner 
T HE annual farm dinner lias come to be a prom¬ 
inent feature of tlie New York State Fair. It 
may be called a one-niglit institute of farm leaders. 
This year it was held at the Onondaga Golf and 
Country Club just outside the city of Syracuse. 
About 200 men directly or indirectly interested in 
agriculture were present. It owes its inception and 
its continuation to Jerome D. Barnum, the genial 
and popular publisher of the Post-Standard of 
Syracuse. 
At the speakers’ table besides the generous host, 
were Governor Alfred E. Smith; H. Edmond Mac- 
hold. Speaker of the Assembly, and prominent can¬ 
didate for the Republican nomination for Gover¬ 
nor: Louis J. Taber, Master of the National Grange; 
Pierrepont B. Noyes, president of Oneida Commun¬ 
ity; Chief Judge Frank W. Hiscock of the State 
Supreme Court, and Silas J. Strivings, Master of 
the State Grange. 
As by mutual consent there was a general feeling 
that the old policy of State aid to help farmers 
increase the production of crops that could not be 
sold at cost of production was not an unmixed bles¬ 
sing, and instinctively the minds of speakers turned 
to political and economic measures of relief for pres¬ 
ent farm conditions. Politics as such Avas not on 
the program, but the proceedings did not go far be¬ 
fore the lid was off, as Mr. Machold put it, and 
straight talking was in order as asserted by Gov¬ 
ernor Smith. 
The point of Mr. Taber’s talk was that through 
custom and government two industrial classes have 
been created in this country. The line is between 
the city and farm populations, and as the country 
could not exist half free and half slave, neither 
could it exist with one standard of rewards for in¬ 
dustry in the cities and another for the farms. The 
problems of the farm, he rightly said, must be 
solved by the minds of the farm. 
Mr. Noyes struggled hard to avoid politics, lie 
reiterated nis purpose to do so with some apparent 
regret, but he failed utterly, and finally got in the 
full measure. Perhaps SO per cent of his hearers, 
if not more, were not on his side, but he is person¬ 
ally able and popular and what he said was received 
good-naturedly and with applause. Big, liberal, 
good-natured men were listening as Avell as the one 
avIjo talked. His theme was that Europe is think¬ 
ing war and preparing for war through fear, and 
that if this condition continues another war is in¬ 
evitable. We, he said, are the only power that can 
stop it, and we are neglecting our opportunities and 
responsibilities. The end of European wars is most 
important to agriculture. 
As an indication of farm conditions, Mr. Striv¬ 
ings told of a recent sale of a farm for $2,500. Seven 
years ago it sold for $7,500. He told of six groups 
ot farms of 1,000 acres in one of the richest coun¬ 
ties of the State that could be bought now for $10 an 
acre with improvements, and his wife has a good 
farm that he would rent free to a tenant who would 
work it and pay the taxes. 
Judge Hiscock said that he could not believe the 
factory can long prosper Avhile farmers are bank¬ 
rupt. Some way, he said, must be found to put 
farms and factories on an economic level. 
Mr. Machold made a real farm speech. He has 
run two farms in Jefferson County for 15 years. He 
has run them in a practical Avay to make a profit on 
the investment in them, but since 1920 the returns 
have declined until they do not now meet the ex¬ 
penditure. For four years he has been president of 
the Northern New York Trust Company at Water- 
town. They are carrying $1,000,000 of farm paper. 
The effort now is to renew the present loans with¬ 
out making additional farm loans. He thinks we 
are producing more than our market requirements, 
and the remedy must be in improved marketing 
conditions. Legislation cannot overcome the law of 
supply and demand. If we pay city labor $6 and 
require farm labor to work for less than half that 
amount, those who occupy the farms will turn to the 
most profitable employment. The heads of farm or¬ 
ganizations must get together to help solve the farm 
problems. 
Governor Smith received full recognition for his 
high position in the State as well as popular senti¬ 
ment for his good fellowship and habit of frank 
speech from an audience which will largely vote 
against him if he runs for Governor again in No¬ 
vember. Go\ r ernor Smith favors a consolidation of 
country schools. He pretends nothing else. He 
thinks city children have better opportunities for 
education than country children. He thinks that 
is the reason why country people leave the farm. He 
has taken his lesson from prejudiced minds, and 
has escaped the psychology of the parents on school 
matters. He urges an approval of the amendment 
to the constitution to permit the sale of $15,000,000 
State bonds to buy State parks. He criticized pub¬ 
lishers who ask people to write the Governor to re¬ 
duce taxes, because taxes are made by the Legisla¬ 
ture ; but $1,000,000 a year can be saved to the 
State by consolidation of three departments. He 
said the State Barge Canal cost $175,000,000 and is 
practically useless to the people of the State. The 
terminals cost $21,000,000 and lie idle. He thinks 
farmers could organize to use the canal for transpor¬ 
tation and the terminals for markets. He scored the 
Farms and Markets Council as a joke. lie at¬ 
tacks the principle of legislative appointment to ex¬ 
ecutive departments as unsound and contrary to our 
•system of government. He spoke highly of Com¬ 
missioner Pyrke personally, but opposed the system 
on principle. During his first campaign for Gover¬ 
nor, Mr. Smith promised to set the Agricultural De¬ 
partment to work for a real service to farmers, par¬ 
ticularly in their marketing problems. After elec¬ 
tion he decided to leave it as it was, and endorsed 
the members of the council on the theory that if 
left to themselves they would do all that was re¬ 
quired. This Avas on an understanding Avitli leaders 
in the opposition. After that the friends of eco¬ 
nomic farm distribution lost interest, and while in 
his second year and since he has adAmcated a change 
in the law, his policies seem to be limited to admin¬ 
istration changes on academic principles of govern- 
ment, and not comprehensive enough to arouse any 
enthusiasm among those who see comfort to the 
farm only in an economic and efficient system of 
distribution. Consequently his later appeals to the 
Legislature for a change of the law have fallen on 
dead ears. 
In a way it is disheartening to sit and hear men 
of this type deplore the conditions of agriculture 
while with the power put in their hands by farmers 
they do nothing to correct them. Not only so, but 
they actually use their power to prevent the use of 
efficient methods of relief. The farm condition is 
largely what politics and political government have 
forced upon it. Market conditions and farm prod¬ 
uct prices are largely a result of a partnership be¬ 
tween middlemen and politics. They could not exist 
Avitliout political protection.. They get it from both 
leading parties in this State. The State govern¬ 
ment could change the conditions in short order if 
it Avould. It has created the present system. Make 
the market conditions politically neutral and farm¬ 
ers will take care of themselves. They cannot over¬ 
come the powers of government which discriminates 
against them. 
Rural School Meeting at the State Fair 
T HE school meeting held in Albany last Winter, 
at which the patrons of the rural schools of the 
State convinced the members of the Legislature that 
they did not want the school bill of the Committee 
of Twenty-one placed upon the statute books, had 
a counterpart in Syracuse during the week of the 
State Fair. Those who called this meeting in the 
midst of all the attractions that that great exposi¬ 
tion offers had the courage of their convictions when 
they assumed that men and women from the farms 
of the State would give up a considerable part of a 
general holiday to consider the matter of rural 
school improvement. Their belief that rural resi¬ 
dents were fully aroused over the present situation 
and more determined than ever to prevent outside 
interference with home affairs was more than jus¬ 
tified by the crowd that poured into the assembly 
room of the new coliseum on Friday afternoon and 
took part in a discussion and debate lasting several 
hours. 
There Avere, of course, some who came out of 
curiosity or to listen to prominent men Avho had 
been announced as speakers, but it Avas evident that 
the bulk of the audience Avas made up of actual resi¬ 
dents of rural districts, the fathers and mothers to 
Avhom the proposed changes in the State’s school 
system mean the most. These men and Avomen Avho 
have been persistently and widely advertised as au¬ 
thors, through their “representatives,” of a new 
school bill were there to renounce the Committee of 
Twenty-one and all its Avorks. There is no doubt 
that it Avas a great surprise to the most of them 
Avhen the work of this committee Avas as cordially 
denounced as any of them could have wished by 
speakers from the State Department of Education. 
If the famous Committee of Twentyone had any 
friends in either pulpit or pew, they were silent. 
President Jas. G. Greene of the Rural School Im¬ 
provement Society presided, announcing, however, 
that the meeting of the afternoon was not one of 
that society but an open conference of all interested 
in rural schools and one in which all were invited 
to take part. To the genial courtesy of the presid¬ 
ing officer was due, in no small part, the fact that 
no serious friction arose over questions which must 
inevitably involve differences in opinion. 
Vice-chancellor Adelbert Moot of the State Board 
of Regents spoke at considerable length, saying that 
he had not heretofore taken any part in the fight 
over the rural school bill, upon AA'hicli the Board of 
Regents was divided, but that now, since he regard¬ 
ed that bill as dead, he felt at liberty to discuss 
State educational matters from the standpoint of a 
private citizen. It is evidently the conviction of 
Regent Moot that any blanket bill seeking to revolu¬ 
tionize the educational system of the State is a mis¬ 
take, since that system is functioning well for the 
most part, and needs only such changes as Avill give 
the less favored sections the help which they need 
to place them upon a par with those most advantage¬ 
ously situated. Both the great cities and the small 
rural districts were, in his opinion, not getting a 
square deal, the former because of a constitutional 
tax limitation which prevents them from appropriat¬ 
ing sufficient money for their school needs, the latter 
because of the State’s failure to give the same finan¬ 
cial aid to the country teacher that it gives to one 
in the city. New York City receives $700 from the 
State for each of its teachers, the teacher of a one- 
room district school in the country receives $300, 
the 'greatest aid thus being given Avhere it is least 
needed. A more fair distribution of State funds, 
better facilities for training teachers, the letting 
alone of such parts of the education system as are 
already functioning Avell .and refusal to enter upon 
an untried, expensive and complicated school sys¬ 
tem were among the recommendations of Vice-chan¬ 
cellor Moot. 
II. W. Collingwood, editor of The Rural New- 
Yorker, who has led in opposition to what he char¬ 
acterized as an attempt to take away from rural 
people their last hold upon self government, de¬ 
clared himself as personally opposed to any blanket 
bill which would revolutionize the AVhole education 
system. He regards the school question as a battle 
between autocracy and democracy, the former rep¬ 
resented by the Board of Regents and Education 
Department, the latter by the people who live the 
life of the farm. The education autocracy Avould take 
the child away from the home to the school, the 
democracy of rural homes would keep the child 
near to them and bring the schools closer. In Mr. 
Collingwood’s opinion, the Board of Regents has, 
since its inception, favored the so-called higher edu¬ 
cation at the expense of the plain common schools 
and the Education Department has never really 
tried to build up and improve the present district 
school system, in which it does not believe and 
which it does not consider worth saving where con¬ 
solidation can be effected. His advice to farmers 
was to fight to the last gasp in defence of their 
local schools and local control. The power of the 
Education Department, said he, should be curbed, 
rather than enlarged, by making it impossible for 
the officials to change the government or territory 
of a district without consent of a full majority of 
the taxpayers and patrons. That much should be 
settled before other questions were taken up. Mr. 
Collingwood expressed the conviction that the great 
foundation source of religious and educated char¬ 
acter must ever lie in the country church and school, 
to which he would send, if it were in his power, the 
greatest preachers and the best teachers. 
Dr. Augustus S. Downing of the Department of 
Education took the floor in defense of the Board of 
Regents, which, he said, had not until within recent 
years had anything to do with rural education. lie 
expressed his keen regret that this board had ever 
delegated any work to a Committee of Twenty-one, 
or to a committee dominated by one man, as the 
famous committee of that name had been. When 
asked by the audience to name the man Avhose domi¬ 
nating influence he evidently regarded as most re¬ 
grettable, the speaker declined, as a matter of cour¬ 
tesy in debate, to mention any one’s name. Whether 
correctly or not, there were probably few in the 
audience who did not surmise that the chairman of 
the Committee of Twenty-one might have been 
named without falsifying the records. “Buncoed 
by the Committee of Twenty-one,” while not the 
exact language used by Dr. Downing, might have 
well expressed his opinion of the position in which 
the Education Department finds itself. Reference 
having been made to Grange representation upon 
(Continued on Page 1245) 
